Google searching for shield

Google searching for shield

The tech-giant has been accused by a coalition of US states in an antitrust lawsuit for using monopolistic powers to control and rig online ad sales

Troubled times lie ahead for the tech-giant Google. A coalition of US states last week filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company over its ad practices while accusing it of using monopolistic powers to control pricing and rig auctions for online ad sales.

"The state of Texas is filing a multistate lawsuit against Google for anticompetitive conduct, exclusionary practices, and deceptive misrepresentation… Google repeatedly used its monopolistic powers to control pricing and engage in market collusion to rig auctions," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a Facebook post.

Google, however, has denied charges and said that it is ready to contest the lawsuit in the court. Business Insider quoted a Google spokesperson as saying that the lawsuit is meritless and the states are pushing ahead with it despite knowing all the facts.

"We've invested in state-of-the-art ad tech services that help businesses and benefit consumers. Digital ad prices have fallen over the last decade. Ad tech fees are falling too. Google's ad tech fees are lower than the industry average. These are the hallmarks of a highly competitive industry. We will strongly defend ourselves from his (Ken Paxton's) claims in the court, the Google spokesperson was quoted by Business Insider as saying.

This is not the end of the troubled times lying ahead for the Mountain View (California) based company whose revenue stood at a staggering 160.74 billion US dollars in 2019, with the advertising revenue standing at 134.81 billion US dollars. In addition to the lawsuit by the coalition of states, two other antitrust cases are also in the process of being brought against the company founded in 1998.

The proactive European Union has already slapped fines amounting to approximately 1.7 billion US dollars since 2017 for hindering competition. The US is only waking up to the alleged widespread monopolistic practices adopted by Google and some other tech giants.

Several US states including California have already joined a lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice in October this year accusing Google of illegal and exclusionary business deals to disadvantage smaller competitors and build an unfair advantage in search and online advertising.

The company is also facing accusations of unfairly modifying results of its search engines to place its products on the top of the results and boost results while putting to disadvantage its smaller competitors.