Justice Dep't Sues Google Over Control Of Online Advertising

The Justice Department and eight states have filed an antitrust suit against Google, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the US government, Barbara Ortutay, Eric Tucker and Frank Bajak reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Google’s ad manager lets large publishers who have significant direct sales manage their advertisements.

The government alleged in the complaint that Google is looking to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals in the online ad marketplace through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ offerings.

It’s part of a new, if slow and halting, push by the US to rein in big tech companies that have enjoyed largely unbridled growth in the past decade and a half.

“Monopolies threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based. They stifle innovation, they hurt producers and workers, and they increase costs for consumers,”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Tuesday. For 15 years, Garland said, Google has “pursued a course of anticompetitive conduct” that has stalled the rise of rival technologies and manipulated the mechanics of online ad auctions to force advertisers and publishers to use its tools.

In so doing, Google “engaged in exclusionary conduct” that has “severely weakened,” if not destroyed, competition in the ad tech industry.

The suit, the latest legal action brought by the government against Google, accuses the company of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors.

Google’s ad manager lets large publishers who have significant direct sales manage their advertisements. The ad exchange is a real-time marketplace to buy and sell online display ads.

Garland said Google controls the technology used by most major website publishers to offer advertising space for sale, as well as the largest ad exchange that matches publishers and advertisers together when ad space is sold. The result, he added, is that “website creators earn less and advertisers pay more.”

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

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