Connecticut Sues Google Over Alleged Ad Technology Monopoly

CONNECTICUT — Connecticut and seven other states joined the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against Google, which alleges that the company holds an online advertising monopoly that stifles competition.

The complaint alleges that Google acquired several ad-tech companies and tools, including the largest advertising exchange where ads are bought and sold, over the past 15 years in an effort to control the digital advertising marketplace.

“One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising,” DOJ lawyers allege in the complaint. “Having 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.”

The DOJ alleges that Google’s longstanding plan is to neutralize competition by acquiring potential rivals or using its market dominance to quash them; the series of acquisitions has made Google into a vertically integrated monopoly in the ad-tech space. Google keeps at least 30 cents of each advertising dollar that flows through its tools.

U.S. website publishers sell more than 5 trillion digital display advertisements each year, which is more than 13 billion daily, according to the complaint.

“Google has market power over the interlocking technologies that deliver online advertising,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “It has abused its dominance to manipulate advertisement auctions and exchange markets, to coerce advertisers into using its services, and to inflate its own profits at the expense of American businesses in violation of antitrust laws.”

A Google spokesman told the New York Times that the lawsuit attempts to pick winners and losers in the advertising technology sector.

The lawsuit is the largest ad tech antitrust action against Google. Separately, Connecticut is part of a bipartisan coalition of 38 attorneys general in a pending lawsuit that will allege Google had an illegal monopoly in the online search and search advertising markets.

Connecticut is also part of another multi-state lawsuit that alleges Google monopolized payments for app purchases on the Android mobile device operating system.