Nine More States Have Joined The DOJ's Case Against Google's Alleged Antitrust Ad Technology

In a federal antitrust action against Google for allegedly having a monopoly over the digital advertising business, nine additional states have joined the Justice Department.

According to the feds, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia were the most recent states to join the DOJ’s complaint. They joined the Justice Department’s lawsuit, which was launched in January along with eight additional states.

The federal lawsuit accuses the tech giant of using “anticompetitive, exclusionary and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” one of several significant pending antitrust cases that target Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Tuesday’s trading saw a more than 1% decline in Google stock.

As part of the assault on its apparent monopoly, the DOJ contends that Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite; however, doing so would jeopardize an industry that accounts for around 80% of the company’s revenue: advertising.

Allegations that Google engages in anticompetitive business practices have been refuted. The internet juggernaut asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit last month.

Google said the feds were “doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow” in its response to the lawsuit in January.

September will see the conclusion of a separate federal antitrust trial involving Google’s search business that was brought in 2020, close to the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Google refuted claims that it purposefully erased business “chat” data connected to the latter litigation in March.

The DOJ said in a March lawsuit that Google’s daily deletion of written records had harmed the United States by depriving it of a wealth of frank conversations between Google’s officials, including potential trial witnesses.

According to the company, “reasonable” measures were made to maintain the logs.

As part of a larger offensive against Big Tech, federal antitrust regulators are focusing on Google.

In addition, Alphabet is the subject of a new federal investigation into its Google Maps division, which houses a vast database of location information for businesses and other sites of public interest.

Authorities are looking into whether Google’s requirement that app developers utilize its map and search products as part of its terms of service constituted anticompetitive actions in its mapping industry.

Nine More States Have Joined The DOJ’s Case Against Google’s Alleged Antitrust Ad Technology

In a federal antitrust action against Google for allegedly having a monopoly over the digital advertising business, nine additional states have joined the Justice Department.

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