DOJ gearing up to sue Google over digital ad market dominance

AppleInsider

The Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to sue Google over concerns that the company illegally controls the online advertising market.

Google Chrome on a MacBook Pro

Currently, the DOJ's lawyers are questioning publishers, hoping to gain additional details for the complaint, according to those familiar with the situation.

The DOJ could sue Google as soon as next month, notes Bloomberg. It's unknown whether prosecutors will file the case in federal court or in New York, where state attorneys general have their own antitrust case related to Google's ad business.

"Our advertising technologies help websites and apps fund their content, and enable small businesses to reach customers around the world," Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels told Bloomberg. "The enormous competition in online advertising has made online ads more relevant, reduced ad tech fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers."

While the DOJ had Google in its sights as early as 2012, when it first suspected anticompetitive practices, this investigation is more recent.

In 2019, the agency announced an antitrust review of major tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. The probe was widely anticipated at the time.

A year later, legislators began questioning experts and competitors in the online advertising industry for advice on how to reduce Google's dominant control in the field, with some pointing to the potential sale of Chrome as a solution.

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netrox

Just exactly how is Google preventing anyone from creating ads? Did Google tell customers not to place ads? Did Google tell ISPs not to carry ads except for Google? 
   

mknelson

netrox said:

Just exactly how is Google preventing anyone from creating ads? Did Google tell customers not to place ads? Did Google tell ISPs not to carry ads except for Google? 
   

ISPs (Internet Service Providers) don't have anything to do with this story.

It's more:
Does Google's market saturation mean they can control how much revenue sites get?
Can they control the cost of ads?
Are they cutting out other ad delivery services?
Potentially it could also include if Google controls the visibility of ads for products and services they don't like or compete with.

slow n easy

It never occurred to me that Google was doing anything wrong. It seems like they go way overboard on this anticompetitive stuff. If the consumer is not being harmed then I don’t think they should worry about it. Just like Google being dominant  in search. The government can’t claim that Google is preventing other search engines from operating. If people are not choosing the other search engines then that’s not Google’s fault. Just like they were so upset that Internet Explorer came preloaded onto Windows. It wasn’t Microsoft’s fault that people chose not to download something else.

danox

Three babes in the woods?, the Justice Dept. should target (end) that sweet heart deal that Google has with Apple paying bribe money to have a default position on iOS and Mac OS a big Ad advantage.

baconstang

danox said:

Three babes in the woods?, the Justice Dept. should target (end) that sweet heart deal that Google has with Apple paying bribe money to have a default position on iOS and Mac OS a big Ad advantage.

And yet, it's trivial to change the search engine on MacOS or iOS.  Even to DDG.

9secondkox2

This is ridiculous. 

Google didn’t break any laws, they didn’t threaten, they don’t control the internet web traffic, and they don’t control websites. 

They are simply good at the ad thing. They tied it to one of the best search engines ever and won big. 

That’s not wrong, it’s not illegal, and it’s not in bad faith. 

It’s simple American innovation and thinking outside of the box at the time. 

What… next they’ll go after the consortium for the h.264 codec because most video is published in that platform? Because it’s good and successful? 

Still waiting for the DOJ to go after Amazon for dominating online retail and ebooks…

Madbum

So DOJ going to raid Google offices for serving ham that is too salty?

sconosciuto

clearly timed for the 2022 election season. The timing smells bad.

I would have laid money on Meta being the target. Right and left both hate them and the average Joe knows they're kinda evil even as they use FB every day.

Very curious.

jimh2

Small businesses are the ones who will lose if the DOJ forces changes to Google Ads. They now have a go to place for putting ads that get targeted visibility. It’s the reason that when you search for something ads fir those things show in the results. They are also localized using parameters set by you. The interface for setting up ads is not straightforward but you get results in the end. 

crowley

Good first line of article, bad headline.

foregoneconclusion

Unlike the iPhone/iOS or the App Store, the internet is not Google's own creation or product. Concerns about having too much control actually make sense here.