The U.S. Justice Department and eight states sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google, calling for the break up of the search giant’s ad-technology business over alleged illegal monopolization of the digital advertising market.
“The harm is clear: website creators earn less, and advertisers pay more, than they would in a market where unfettered competitive pressure could discipline prices and lead to more innovative ad tech tools that would ultimately result in higher quality and lower cost transactions for market participants,” the Justice Department said in the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Virginia. “This conduct hurts all of us.”
New York, California and Virginia were among the states that signed on to the complaint.
