Washington Examiner: Google abusively charges more than twice its rivals for online ads, new lawsuit says
October 22, 2021
Google uses its dominant position in the marketplace to take a cut of 22-42% on every ad bought in its system, typically double or quadruple what other digital advertisers charge, according to a lawsuit unredacted on Friday filed by 16 state attorneys general.
Google makes most of its money through its ad exchange, a marketplace for ad buyers and sellers facilitated by the search giant’s massive amount of user data, and the antitrust lawsuit claims that Google is abusing its position in the market to unfairly net itself higher profits.
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Big Tech critics say that the lawsuit provides more fuel to the fire of their efforts to regulate and possibly even break up tech giants like Google.
“There is legislation currently under consideration that can prevent this from happening again,” said Mike Davis, president of the conservative advocacy group the Internet Accountability Project.
“The American Choice and Innovation Online Act, recently introduced by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), would free up competition for these small companies to compete with Big Tech monopolists like Google. Its bipartisan companion bill already passed the House Judiciary Committee. If we’ve learned anything from this complaint, it’s that we need antitrust legislation now,” he added.
Google plans to file a motion to dismiss the allegations against it and the lawsuit will proceed in New York federal courts over the coming months.
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