{"id":601087,"date":"2023-01-25T06:49:26","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T12:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/the-justice-department-is-suing-google-to-break-up-its-ad-business\/"},"modified":"2023-01-25T06:49:26","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T12:49:26","slug":"the-justice-department-is-suing-google-to-break-up-its-ad-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/the-justice-department-is-suing-google-to-break-up-its-ad-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The Justice Department is suing Google to break up its ad business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Alongside eight states, the US Department of Justice is suing Google to break up the company\u2019s advertising business. In a complaint<\/a> filed Tuesday with a federal court in Virginia, the agency accused Google of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising market. \u201cGoogle\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google\u2019s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged,\u201d the Justice Department alleges.<\/p>\n

“Today\u2019s lawsuit from the DOJ attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector,\u201d a Google spokesperson told Engadget. \u201cIt largely duplicates an unfounded lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed by a federal court. [The] DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”<\/p>\n

As Bloomberg<\/em> notes<\/a>, the lawsuit represents the Biden administration\u2019s first significant attempt to challenge the power of one of the nation\u2019s largest tech firms. The agency previously sued Google in 2020<\/a>. At the time, the Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, said the company had a monopoly over search and search-related advertising. It also took issue with the terms around Android, which the Justice Department said unfairly advantage Google by forcing manufacturers to preload their devices with the company\u2019s applications and search engine.<\/p>\n

Google faces intense regulatory scrutiny over its hold on the digital advertising market. In 2020, Texas filed a multi-state lawsuit<\/a> accusing the company of using its “monopolistic power to control” ad pricing. One year later, the European Commission opened a probe<\/a> into the company\u2019s advertising business, a move that seems to have forced Google to reconsider how it handles ads on YouTube<\/a>. Last year, the Senate also introduced legislation<\/a> designed to prevent companies like Google from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,\u201d the Justice Department says in its most recent complaint. It accuses Google of using acquisitions to take out both \u201cactual or potential\u201d competitors, in addition to abusing its marketplace dominance to prevent publishers and advertisers from using competing products effectively. \u201cWhenever Google\u2019s customers and competitors responded with innovation that threatened Google\u2019s stranglehold over any one of these ad tech tools, Google\u2019s anticompetitive response has been swift and effective,\u201d the Justice Department alleges.<\/p>\n

In a blog post published<\/a> after news of the Justice Department\u2019s lawsuit broke, Google accused the agency of \u201cattempting to rewrite history at the expense of publishers, advertisers and internet users.\u201d Specifically, Google says it takes issue with the Justice Department\u2019s demand that the company spin off AdMeld and DoubleCheck, two ad tech firms Google acquired more than a decade ago. \u201cThese deals were reviewed by regulators, including by [the] DOJ, and allowed to proceed,\u201d Google says.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Google contends competition in the ad tech sector has increased significantly in recent years. For example, the company points to Microsoft\u2019s recent purchase of AT&T\u2019s former ad tech wing Xandr and notes the acquisition enabled Microsoft\u2019s \u201clandmark\u201d advertising deal with Netflix<\/a>. \u201cThe government did not challenge this acquisition,\u201d Google points out.<\/p>\n

Google also accuses the Justice Department of mischaracterizing how its advertising products work. The company says its product stack works with competing technologies, making it \u201ceasy\u201d for publishers and advertisers to choose the services they want to use. \u201cNo one is forced to use our advertising technologies \u2013 they choose to use them because they\u2019re effective,\u201d Google contends.<\/p>\n

One estimate suggests Google controls as much as 26.5 percent of the US digital ads market. The company\u2019s ad unit is expected to generate about $73.8 billion in US ad revenue over the next year, with much of that money coming from search advertisements.<\/p>\n

Update 4:04PM ET<\/strong>: Added more context from Google.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Igor Bonifacic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alongside eight states, the US Department of Justice is suing Google to break up the company\u2019s advertising business. In a complaint filed Tuesday with a federal court in Virginia, the agency accused Google of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising market. \u201cGoogle\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":601088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226,225,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-department","category-justice","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}