States, Department of Justice sue Google alleging advertising ‘monopoly’

Connecticut said has joined a Department of Justice lawsuit challenging Google’s "dominant grip on the online advertising industry which allows the company to dictate how digital ads are sold and the terms under which its rivals can compete," Attorney General William Tong announced. The lawsuit was filed by the Department of Justice, California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia. According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, Google has "thwarted competition in this business sector over the past 15 years. It has done so, as explained in the complaint, by systematically acquiring control over key ad-tech industry tools, including the largest advertising exchange where digital ads are bought and sold, and imposing restrictions that have unfairly undermined rivals’ ability to compete. Having inserted itself into virtually every aspect of the digital advertising marketplace, Google then leverages its market power to direct more business to its own ad-tech products and undermine the ability of rivals to compete, thereby enabling it to collect higher fees for itself at the expense of both the advertisers and publishers it serves as well as consumers." The complaint alleges that through its anticompetitive conduct, Google has "prevented meaningful competition, quashed innovation in the digital advertising industry, raised costs, and harmed consumers."