US Justice Department Files Civil Antitrust Suit Against Google for Digital Advertising Market Monopoly

US Justice Dept. accused Google of dominating the online advertising market and harming competition. Attorneys General from 8 states filed a lawsuit.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: January 25, 2023

On Tuesday, eight states and the US Department accused Google company for harming competition by dominating the online advertising market and asked it to break up the monopoly. A civil antitrust suit was filed by the Attorneys General of Colorado, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, and Tennessee, against Google. And the big tech company is probably facing the first antitrust blockbuster case, the first since Biden’s administration.

The complaints about monopoly in key digital advertising technologies are a part of the case filed for the Eastern District of Virginia at the U.S. District Court. The attorneys and Justice Department referred the ad tech stack to Google, and the website publishers heavily depend on the search engine to sell ads. To reach potential customers the advertisers buy ads on Google using ad tech tools of the tech giant to generate revenue from advertising, supporting the maintenance and creation of open web space.

The public is able to access a huge array of artistic expression, services, goods, ideas, and information. But Google dominated it all, and the attorneys claim that the civil antitrust suit seeks to obtain monetary and equitable relief against the dominance of the search engine platform, and also to restore competition in the important markets on behalf of the public of the nation.

The Justice Department in its official Twitter post also pointed at the lawsuit filed on Google for serial acquisitions, monopolizing digital advertising technologies, and anticompetitive auction manipulation, which is a subversion of competition in the sphere of internet advertising technologies. The post also had an attached press release about the case. Publishers and websites get lower revenues from advertisements because of the anti-competitive behavior of Google.

For 15 years now, the search engine company has also put on higher advertising costs, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The US government is a victim as well as per the complaint that cited US Army as government advertisers among others who have been using Google tools. Attorney General Vanita Gupta also said that the US Justice Department’s step against Google is an example of fighting the domination in the market.