U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, announced at 2 p.m. today that the U.S. government is now suing Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies.
Eight states have joined the lawsuit. These states include California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee.
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Popular business advertising products, including Google Adsense, will be affected by this decision should the U.S. Government prevail in court. The matter is most likely, ultimately headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This surprising news affects how all Horry County residents could get their news in the future, as well as, how publishers will be paid for their work.
This lawsuit also affects all YouTube subscribers and publishers. Both platforms are used by a wide variety of Horry County businesses and locals.
In a court filing, the DOJ and the 8 states asked the court to, “at minimum,” force Google to divest itself of its Google Ad Manager suite—including both Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, and Google’s ad exchange, AdX—plus any additional structural relief that the court deems necessary.
The 149-page suit accuses Google of using its influence to remove competition from the ad tech market. The DOJ claims that Google keeps about 30 cents of each ad tech dollar that flows through from an advertiser to a publisher.
Google’s 2008 purchase of DoubleClick gave it both access to an ad exchange (AdX), as well as a publisher ad server, known as a DFP. “In effect, Google positioned itself to function simultaneously as buyer, seller, and auctioneer of digital display advertising,” the suit alleges.
The lawsuit also states that since 2015, Google now owns 90 percent of the online advertising market.