Texas attorney general Ken Paxton along with the attorneys general of eight other states have filed an antitrust case against Google, alleging the company abuses its monopoly power in digital ads to harm consumers and businesses.
Filed in the federal court of Texas, Paxton’s suit has been joined by the states of Arkansas, Indiana, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.
“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing, engage in market collusions to rig auctions, and a tremendous violation of justice,” said attorney general Paxton in a video on Twitter.
“Right now, when you visit the website of a news outlet you know and trust… You’ll see advertisements likely placed there by Google. But Google doesn’t tell you, the public, that they manipulate the advertising auction, and they continually, illegally profit, by taking money away from those web pages and putting it in their own pockets.”
“This goliath of a company is using its power to manipulate the market, destroy competition and harm you the consumer.”
“These actions harm every person in America. It isn’t fair that Google can harm the web pages you visit and read, and it isn’t fair that Google effectively eliminated its competition and crowned itself the head of online advertising.”
“If the free market were a baseball game, Google positioned itself as the pitcher, the batter, and the umpire.”
If successful, Paxton’s lawsuit could hamper Google’s ability to arbitrarily punish websites by artificially manipulating the price of online ads.
Far-left Google employees have in the past sought to use the company’s dominance in digital ads to punish conservative media, in particular Breitbart News.
Leaked materials obtained by Breitbart News in 2018 revealed relentless agitation inside the company to blacklist Breitbart News from Google’s ad services.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.
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