Today, 10 state attorneys general, led by Texas, filed an antitrust suit against Google alleging that the company abused its power over key advertising technology tools. Public Knowledge has advocated for scrutiny of Google’s self-preferencing and denying access to key advertising data and advertising inventory as a way to prevent competitors from going head to head with Google in the market.
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 Texas attorney general to review Google’s conduct in the ad tech industry for anticompetitive behavior.
The following can be attributed to Charlotte Slaiman, Competition Policy Director at Public Knowledge:
“Today we see another example of concerns about self-preferencing and anti-competitive data misuse from a dominant digital platform. This complaint’s allegations against Google are deeply troubling, and such behavior is antithetical to competition and must be disallowed. Google’s anticompetitive misuse of its ubiquitous role in online advertising means advertisers pay more and publishers get less. Consumers are left with lower-quality news and higher prices as a result.
“Although these antitrust cases are critical to pursue, they take many years to resolve. Therefore , Congress must immediately begin to address the dominant platform self-preferencing and data access concerns that appear again and again across the sector.”
You may view our letter to the Texas attorney general on Google’s antitrust conduct for more information.