Dominance of Online Ad Market: US sues Google
The US Justice Department has sued Google for its dominance of the online advertising market, launching a fresh legal battle against the California-based tech giant.
The case was the second federal lawsuit against Google over alleged antitrust violations and the first since US President Joe Biden took office two years ago.
The earlier case targeted Google's world-dominating search engine and is expected to go to trial later this year.
In this latest suit filed on Tuesday, prosecutors took aim at Google's extremely profitable advertising business, asking that it be broken up to level the playing field for other companies.
Google's ad dealings generated more than $200 billion in sales in 2021 and is parent company Alphabet's biggest moneymaker by a wide margin.
The US said the revenue was unlawfully maintained by a monopoly that had "corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry."
"Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the suit added.
The case was launched by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in conjunction with eight US states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Central to the case is Google's dominance of the ad tech business, the technology that companies rely on for their online advertising needs.
The prosecutors said Google "now controls" both the buy and the sell side of the crucial sector, meaning website creators earn less and advertisers pay more, all while innovation is choked by the lack of rivals.
"In pursuit of outsized profits, Google has caused great harm to online publishers and advertisers and American consumers," said Deputy US Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a statement.
The federal case follows state lawsuits against Google that have alleged it illegally dominates the markets for online search, advertising technology and apps on the Android mobile platform.
"Google should be worried," Insider Intelligence analyst Evelyn Mitchell said.
"Advertising accounts for the vast majority of its revenues, and its ads business is as powerful as it is because of its scale and the way its ad products are integrated," she added.
Google has denied it is a monopoly, saying rivals in the online ad market include Amazon, Facebook-owner Meta and Microsoft.
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