Today, a group of 38 bipartisan attorneys general, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed an antitrust suit against Google alleging the company stifled competitors that might have challenged the company’s dominance in the search market. Public Knowledge has advocated for scrutiny of Google’s anticompetitive conduct in both search and advertising technology.
The suit follows three years of Public Knowledge advocacy on the competition challenges posed by dominant digital platforms like Google, including our recent letter urging the Colorado attorney general to review Google’s conduct in the search market for anticompetitive behavior.
The following can be attributed to Charlotte Slaiman, Competition Policy Director at Public Knowledge:
“This suit represents the next piece of Google’s anticompetitive conduct now being held to account. This case, from a large and bipartisan group of state attorneys general, shows that holding dominant digital platforms like Google accountable is a bipartisan issue.
“Earlier this year, the Department of Justice accused Google of freezing out its general search rivals, and just yesterday a separate group of states accused Google of monopolizing online advertising. Now we see a complaint detailing how Google withholds interoperability and engages in self-preferencing to prevent any other company from becoming a viable competitor to Google or disrupting Google’s power in the next generation of information discovery services.
“It is more clear than ever that the lack of competition against dominant digital platforms is both pervasive and causing widespread harms. Even with these five antitrust cases filed in the past two months, there is still more to do. We need legislative reinforcements from Congress to fully address the competitive concerns in this heavily monopolized sector of the economy.”
You may view our letter to the Colorado attorney general on Google’s antitrust conduct for more information.
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.