Today, the US Department of Justice sued Google, saying the company is taking unfair advantage of its dominance of the digital advertising business, and saying it should be forced to sell its Ad Manager suite. The antitrust complaint stated the following:
“Google has used anticompetitive, extrinsic, and illegal means to eliminate or significantly reduce the threat of its dominance over digital advertising technologies.”
Google currently owns and provides a number of advertising suites, including AdSense and AdManager, and has been in line for some time to be fired by lawmakers who have faced a lack of confidence in its search products in 2020.
Google responded to the lawsuit with the following statement:
“Doubling down on a flawed argument that will slow innovation, drive up advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”
There have been complaints against Google from both advertisers and website owners that Google is not transparent about where advertising funds go, particularly between ad publishers and Google itself.
Although Google has the majority of the advertising market share, its share of US digital ad revenue has been steadily declining over the past few years, from 36.7% in 2016 to 28.8% in 2022.
Source: Reuters, The New York Times
