A US judge ruled on Friday that Alphabet-owned Google must confront the advertisers’ class action lawsuit, claiming that it monopolizes and exhibits dominance over the ad exchange market. However, US District Judge Kevin Castel ruled out other claims that emphasized ad-buying tools being employed by major advertisers.
Castel’s judgment comes amid his involvement in several cases against Google, where he decided to strike down most of them while allowing at least one key set to proceed.
Reuters reported that Kevin Castel said about advertisers that they
have not plausibly alleged antitrust standing in the markets for ad-buying tools used by large advertisers, but they plausibly allege antitrust standing as to injuries they purportedly suffered from anti-competitive practices in the ad-exchange market and the market for small advertisers’ buying tools.
Castel also mentioned that Gannett, the biggest newspaper chain and USA Today’s publisher, could proceed with a different case to prove Google’s allegedly fraudulent obscurement of the effects of anti-competitive technology. Further, neither Google nor Gannett have yet commented on the same.
Judge Castel also ruled on the other cases and anti-trust claims against Google. In January 2023, the U.S. Justice Department took legal action against Google and sued it, accusing it of asserting its dominance over digital advertising. The government sought the withdrawal of the Google ad suite, including the dispossession of Google’s ad exchange, AdX. The complaint alleged,
Google cemented its dominance in tools relied on by website publishers and online advertisers, as well as the digital advertising exchange that runs ad auctions.
Various tools coming under Google Ad Manager allow the selling of space for advertising on countless websites with an exchange that connects advertisers with publishers.
Further, advertisers and website publishers have raised concerns as Google has not shown transparency to reveal where the ad revenues go, specifically for not revealing the profit distribution between the publishers and Google.
