According to the latest news, with the support of nine other states, Texas filed a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday, accusing Google of operating its online advertising business in violation of antitrust laws.
This is the second major lawsuit that Google has encountered recently from the regulatory authorities, and it is also the fourth antitrust lawsuit that US technology giants have encountered from the federal and state governments. Google said the Texas allegations were groundless.
In the lawsuit, Texas directly pointed to Google’s central role in the process of buying and selling online display ads. “Google has repeatedly used its monopoly power to control pricing and participate in market collusion to manipulate advertising auctions, which is a serious violation of the law.”
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said, “If you compare the free market to a baseball game, Google acts as a pitcher, hitter, and referee at the same time.” Texas and other states said that Google did not dominate the display advertising market through innovation, but through an exclusive strategy to stifle competition.
The lawsuit also listed Facebook as an accomplice, accusing Facebook and Google of passing an illegal agreement to manipulate advertising auctions and set prices, hurting competition. In 2017, when Facebook announced plans to compete with Google in the field of advertising technology, Google reached an agreement with it to curb competition and agreed to give Facebook a certain advantage when auctioning mobile app advertising inventory. Facebook has not yet commented.
