The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Manhattan, claims that Google mounted a dominant position in the digital advertising market and is using that market power to exclude competition. It states that the technology behemoth now dominates the tools used by publishers and advertisers to buy and sell online ad space.
“Google represents that its publisher ad server, as a tool for publishers, maximizes the yield for publishers’ inventory. But Google operates under a conflict of interest,” the lawsuit declares.
“With its control over publisher ad serving, Google controls how publishers solicit and evaluate real-time bids for their inventory. Meanwhile, by operating the dominant exchange and dominant buy-side software, Google is the most powerful buyer of that inventory.
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“The mechanics of Google’s conduct have evolved over time, but the result has remained the same: Google manipulates the process of real-time bidding to exclude rival exchanges, underpay for publisher inventory, and ultimately reduce the quality and quantity of online news,” the lawsuit insists.
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Among the tactics Google uses involve manipulating search rankings to “punish” publishers that “do not submit to its practices,” the lawsuit alleges.
A spokesperson for the Daily Mail told The Wall Street Journal in a statement that the paper’s anxieties arise from its assessment that coverage of the British royal family in 2021 had been downplayed in Google search results.
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Google argues the charges in the lawsuit, stating that the Daily Mail’s allegations are “are completely inaccurate.”
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“The use of our ad tech tools has no bearing on how a publisher’s website ranks in Google Search. More generally, we compete in a crowded and competitive ad tech space where publishers have and exercise multiple options. The Daily Mail itself authorizes dozens of ad tech companies to sell and manage their ad space, including Amazon, Verizon, and more. We will defend ourselves against these meritless claims,” Google announced in a statement.
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This is the latest in a series of suits filed against Google that claim anti-competitive behavior. In January, a West Virginia media company that runs various newspapers filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to determine whether Google and Facebook had broken antitrust laws. The lawsuit alleges Google has unlawfully applied monopoly power of the digital advertising market, which has limited newspapers from competing in the market and losing their primary source of revenue.
The Silicon Valley company is further facing multiple antitrust lawsuits brought by the Justice Department and attorneys general in several states.
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