Justice Department sues Google to dismantle its advertising business

The agency accuses Google of illegally monopolizing the digital ad market.

Along with eight states, the US Department of Justice is suing Google to dismantle the company's advertising business. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Virginia, the agency accused Google of unlawfully monopolizing the digital advertising market. "Google's anti-competitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced major competitors out of the ad technology tools market, deterred potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google's few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged," the Department of Justice said. .

"Today's lawsuit by the DOJ attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive ad tech industry," a Google spokesperson told Engadget. “It largely replicates a baseless lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed in federal court. [The] DOJ advances a flawed argument that would slow innovation, increase advertising costs and make it difficult for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow."

As Bloomberg notes, the lawsuit represents the Biden administration's first major attempt to challenge the power of one of the nation's largest tech companies. The agency previously sued Google in 2020. At the time, the Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, said the company had a monopoly on search and search-related advertising. He also challenged terms relating to Android, which the Justice Department says unfairly advantage Google by requiring manufacturers to preload their devices with the company's apps and search engine.

Google is under intense regulatory scrutiny over its grip on the digital advertising market. In 2020, Texas filed a lawsuit in multiple states accusing the company of using its "monopoly power to control" ad pricing. A year later, the European Commission opened an investigation into the company's advertising activities, a move that appears to have forced Google to reconsider how it handles ads on YouTube. Last year, the Senate also introduced legislation to prevent companies like Google from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising ecosystem.

“Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising market, Google has used anti-competitive, proprietary, and illegal means to eliminate or significantly reduce any threat to its dominance in digital advertising technologies,” says the Department of Justice in its latest report. complaint. He accuses Google of using acquisitions to eliminate "actual or potential" competitors, in addition to abusing its dominant market position to prevent publishers and advertisers from using competing products effectively. "Whenever Google's customers and competitors have responded with an innovation that threatens Google's stranglehold on one of these ad technology tools, Google's anti-competitive response has been swift and effective," the Department of Privacy said. Justice.

In a blog post published after the Justice Department's lawsuit was announced, Google accused the agency of "attempting to rewrite history at the expense of publishers, advertisers and internet users." Specifically, Google says it opposes the Justice Department's request that the company spin off from AdMeld and DoubleCheck, two ad tech companies acquired by Google more than a decade ago. "These deals have been reviewed by regulators, including [the] DOJ, and cleared to proceed," Google says.

Additionally, Google says competition in the ad tech space has increased dramatically...