Google is facing accusations from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of suppressing competition to gain dominance in the display advertising market, driving up costs for publishers and advertisers.
The claims emerged on the first day of a landmark antitrust trial at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
“Google is not on trial because they are big, but because they leveraged that size to crush competition,” stated Julia Tarver Wood, an attorney from the DoJ’s antitrust division, in her opening remarks. The trial’s start comes on the heels of a separate ruling where a federal judge determined Google violated antitrust laws with its search engine monopoly. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, plans to appeal that decision.
Prosecutors argue that Google dominates the digital advertising ecosystem that powers over 150,000 ad sales per second on websites, employing aggressive tactics to eliminate competition through acquisitions, customer lock-ins, and tight control over transaction processes in the ad market.
Tim Wolfe, a Gannett advertising executive, testified that his company had relied on Google’s publisher ad server for around 13 years due to a lack of viable alternatives.
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