Texas led other nine U.S. states to sue Google on Wednesday for cooperation with Facebook to maintain dominance in the online advertising, Reuters reports. The states asked Google to compensate them for damages and sought a “structural relief” for violating the antitrust law.
- Texas and other states accuse Google of using its monopoly in the digital ads market, allowing it to win ad auctions even when others bid higher and overcharging publishers for ads.
- Google is also accused of lowering its fees to near zero to gain dominance among publishers and used deceptive tricks to broker transactions between publishers and advertisers.
- The Wednesday lawsuit is the second major complaint from regulators against Google and the fourth in a series of others aiming to tame the big tech companies’ dominance.
- The lawsuits come even as Google is expected to face a third antitrust lawsuit from more than 30 Attorneys General on Thursday.
- In a separate antitrust lawsuit on Wednesday, online publishers including Genius Media Group sought class action against Google on lost revenues due to its dominance in online ads.
- Google termed the Texas and other states’ lawsuit “meritless” and said its ad fees are lower than the industry average, which are hallmarks of a highly competitive industry.
Google’s stock is currently gaining. GOOGL: NASDAQ is up 0.56% on premarket.
