AGs secure ruling against Google’s digital advertising monopolies

OLYMPIA — Consumers and small businesses got a major court victory after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that Google maintained illegal monopolies in the digital advertising technology industry, stifling competition and harming website publishers, advertisers, and consumers.

The Washington state Attorney General’s Office joined a bipartisan coalition of seventeen attorneys general joining the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sue Google in 2023, seeking to stop Google’s anticompetitive conduct that threatens markets in the online advertising industry. 

“Google’s unlawful monopoly in digital advertising has harmed businesses whose operations are largely funded by online advertising,” Attorney General Nick Brown said after the ruling. “Google’s anticompetitive practices have resulted in higher fees and limited advertising options that has become a vital tool for business both large and small businesses to connect with consumers.”

In January 2023, DOJ and the coalition of attorneys general sued Google for stifling competition in the advertising technology industry, harming website publishers, advertisers, and consumers. The lawsuit alleged Google’s market power allows it to control nearly every aspect of online ad sales, allowing it to extract higher fees from advertisers while paying lower amounts to publishers for their ad space.

This conduct hurts consumers and web publishers by making it harder for websites to make enough money on their advertising inventory, preventing them from offering internet users content for free, without subscriptions, paywalls, or alternative forms of monetization.

Today’s decision, issued by Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, found Google liable for violating antitrust law by acquiring and maintaining monopolies in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising. The judge also found Google liable for unlawfully tying together its publisher ad server and its ad exchange and that Google harmed competition, its own customers, and Internet users by imposing anticompetitive policies that reduced quality and increased prices.

A second phase of the trial to determine remedies for Google’s conduct will take place at a later date.

This lawsuit is led by the attorneys general of New York, California, and Virginia and DOJ, along with the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia.

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