Nebraska Joins Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced on Monday, April 17, 2023, that he will partner with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general in an antitrust lawsuit aimed at breaking up Google’s monopoly over online display advertising.The lawsuit asserts Google’s anti-competitive conduct in the online advertising marketplace has suppressed alternative technologies and hindered their adoption by publishers, advertisers and rivals. It seeks a breakup of Google’s advertising platforms and injunctive terms to end Google’s dominance of online ad marketplaces.The DOJ lawsuit claims Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act’s prohibitions against monopolization after a 2008 acquisition of an online advertising company named DoubleClick that was a dominant company in online advertising, controlling what Hilgers' office estimates is 60 percent of the market share. According to Hilgers, Federal regulators allowed the purchase at the time because they believed enough alternatives existed that there would still be competition.A statement from the Atrtorney General's office indicates, “However, one year after Google purchased DoubleClick, Google launched its own branded advertising tools and made DoubleClick available only to advertisers who used its internal ad buying tools. Google used exclusive agreements with other tech companies, purchased other competing online advertising technologies and forced advertisers and website publishers to use only Google’s products. This suppressed competition and allowed Google to dominate the online advertising market. The complaint asserts Google keeps 30 cents of every dollar in advertising that passes through the marketplace it now controls.”Hilgers' statement further asserts, “Online display advertising relies upon complex digital tools to connect website owners selling space on their websites to advertisers looking for customers interested in their products and services. Website publishers in the United States sell more than 5 trillion digital display advertisements each year, which amounts to more than 13 billion advertisements every day.”The lawsuit asserts Google currently controls:The technology used by nearly every major website publisher to offer advertising space for sale;The leading tools used by advertisers to buy that advertising space; andThe largest ad exchange that matches publishers with advertisers.The original civil antitrust suit was filed on Tuesday, January 24 of this year, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Joining the DOJ in the original filing were the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia. Several other states are now joining Nebraska in an amended complaint, including Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia.

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