The United States Department of Justice is suing Google over monopolization concerns.
The lawsuit was detailed in a report from Bloomberg, which says eight states are joining the U.S. DOJ in a lawsuit against Alphabet's Google, calling for the break up of Google's ad technology business due to alleged illegal monopolization.
“The harm is clear: website creators earn less, and advertisers pay more, than they would in a market where unfettered competitive pressure could discipline prices and lead to more innovative ad tech tools that would ultimately result in higher quality and lower cost transactions for market participants,” the DOJ's complaint reads in part. “This conduct hurts all of us.”
Google responded to the lawsuit in a statement to Bloomberg, saying 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.”
According to the report, Alphabet is the top dog in the global ad market, and is expected to bring in $73.8 billion in U.S. ditial ad revenue this year. $58.5 billion of that will come from Google's search advertising business alone.
This is the DOJ's second antitrust suit against Google. In October 2020, the DOJ and several State Attorney Generals sued Google over its web search dominance. That lawsuit is still pending in federal court, and a resolution to this new suit is likely years away.
Google was in the news last week for laying off 12,000 staff members, the largest wave of layoffs in company history. It happened in the same week that Microsoft also announced layoffs affecting 10,000 staff.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
