The Justice Department and eight US states filed a complaint against Google for violating competition law in the online advertising marketplace.
Google is once again attacked by public authorities for its practices considered anti-competitive. This time, it is the Department of Justice, as well as eight US states, that are stepping up. In question: the monopole of the giant in the online advertising market.
Google would have a monopoly position in Internet advertising
An antitrust lawsuit was filed on January 24 in Alexandria federal court in the Commonwealth of Virginia by the department, as well as by California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, the statement said. The world. The Department of Justice says that ” Google has used anti-competitive, exclusionary and illegal methods to eliminate or drastically reduce any threat to its dominance over the technologies used for digital advertising. ».
The attackers want payment of damages, but above all” the sale of your activities related to the sale of online advertising space “, added France Information. The Deputy Minister of Justice, Vanita Gupta, goes further and states that “ These methods have undermined the free and open Internet and increased costs to businesses and the United States government, including The army. »
A profitable online advertising market
A very important complaint since it directly attacks the heart of Google’s economic model: it is the advertising in its search engine that has created the financial power of the company. how do you remember Bloomberg, the US online advertising market represents 278.6 billion dollars, for a global market valued at 626.86 billion dollars. Google owns a large chunk of it, with its advertising business expected to earn Alphabet $73.8 billion by 2023 in the United States alone.
If the case goes too far, it is conceivable that the Alphabet subsidiary would even be forced to sell part of its activities related to online advertising. To defend itself, Google points out that this market is very competitive and is made up of other big players such as Amazon, Meta and Microsoft.
Google’s Antitrust Record That Still Complements
Following Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Justice Department filed another complaint related to Google’s anti-competitive practices. It is linked to its dominant position in the search engine market and trial is expected later this year.
In the recent history of Google’s anti-competitive practices, for example, an amendment of 2.4 billion euros was announced in November 2021. the competition. More recently, last June, a job posting site filed a complaint against Google for the same reason, this time for its job search service. A few months ago, we learned that Google would have signed financial alliances to discourage its competitors from creating alternative app stores to the Play Store.
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