The Department of Justice is suing Google for its second antitrust suit in two years. This is due to Google’s dominance in digital ads. It has seen Google operate in both the selling and buying of ads, as well as running its ad platform.
In its latest lawsuit, the DOJ is joined by the states California, Colorado and Connecticut, New Jersey. New York. Rhode Island. Tennessee.
On Tuesday, a new lawsuit was filed alleging that Google tried to unfairly control both the buying and selling sides of the digital advertising market. According to the DOJ, Google sought to be “the best, most convenient, and most reliable location for all ad-serving.”
According to the DOJ lawsuit, website creators make less and advertisers pay more than they would in a market with unfettered competition. This could lead to lower prices, more innovative tools, and ultimately, better quality transactions for all market participants.
Google’s strategy for dominating digital ads involves acquiring rival ad servers and exchanges, such as DoubleClick, which it bought in 2008. It also included the acquisition yield management platforms that allowed publishers to get better prices than Google’s. Google also modified the terms of its AdX platform in order to prohibit participating publishers from using such tools.
A spokesperson for Google said that the DOJ was trying to pick winners and losers from the highly competitive sector of advertising technology.
Google is facing difficult times and the lawsuit was filed. The tech giant had announced last week that it would lay off 12,000 employees due to the general economic downturn in the tech sector. Google employees are feeling low morale and are complaining about their “psychological safety”.
