Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined 16 other attorneys general in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
It alleges that Google monopolizes the “ad tech stack,” or key digital advertising technologies, that website publishers depend on to sell ads and that advertisers rely on to buy ads and reach potential customers.
Website publishers use ad tech tools to generate advertising revenue that supports the creation and maintenance of a vibrant open web.
The complaint alleges that Google, over the past 15 years, engaged in a course of anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct. In doing so, the lawsuit maintains, Google has cemented its dominance in the tools relied on by website publishers and online advertisers, as well as the digital advertising exchange that runs ad auctions.
Google’s anticompetitive conduct has included:
• Acquiring Competitors: Engaging in a pattern of acquisitions to obtain control over key digital advertising tools used by website publishers to sell advertising space.
• Forcing Adoption of Google’s Tools: Locking in website publishers to its newly-acquired tools by restricting its unique, must-have advertiser demand to its ad exchange, and in turn, conditioning effective real-time access to its ad exchange on the use of its publisher ad server.
• Distorting Auction Competition: Limiting real-time bidding on publisher inventory to its ad exchange, and impeding rival ad exchanges’ ability to compete on the same terms as Google’s ad exchange.
• Auction Manipulation: Manipulating auction mechanics across several of its products to insulate Google from competition, deprive rivals of scale, and halt the rise of rival technologies.
With the lawsuit, the Justice Department and state attorneys general hope to restore competition in these important markets and obtain monetary relief on behalf of the American public.
“The power that Google wields in the digital advertising space has had the effect of either pushing smaller, less ubiquitous companies out of the market or making them beholden to Google ads to market their clients’ products,” Nessel said. “This is monopoly behavior and I’m glad to join the DOJ’s lawsuit to loosen Google’s grip on digital marketing and make it more equitable for small businesses.”
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