N.Y., 37 states in ‘monopoly’ suit vs. Google
New York Attorney General Letitia James is teaming up with her counterparts in 37 other states to bring an end to the “massive” internet monopoly they say Google has illegally operated over the past couple of decades.
In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Washington, D.C., James and the bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general charged that Google has secured neartotal monopoly power on internet search and advertising services by engaging in an array of anti-trust violations to box out competitors while raking in enormous profits.
“Google sits at the crossroads of so many areas of our digital economy and has used its dominance to illegally squash competitors, monitor nearly every aspect of our digital lives and profit to the tune of billions,” James said.
The AGs say Google uses its financial advantage to lock in “exclusionary agreements” with Apple and Android that ensure their devices installs its search engine by default. Google is now pursuing similar strategies with emerging speech technologies, like Amazon’s Alexa, smart TVs and internet-connected cars.
Second, James and her counterparts allege that Google deliberately deprives local search sites, such as Expedia, Angie’s List and Yelp, of prime real estate on its search results pages in favor of prioritizing its own specialized services.
And third, the AGs say Google’s marketing tool, SA360, “rigs the game” by making it “artificially appear” to customers as if ads on competing search engines, like Bing, perform worse than they actually do, thereby steering more revenue toward itself. These three strategies, combined with Google’s sweeping ability to collect personal data on users, amount to “multiple violations” of longstanding anti-trust laws, according to the attorneys general.
“Put simply, Google may have more data about more people than any other entity in the history of the world,” they write in the lawsuit.
Adam Cohen, Google’s economic policy director, disputed the premise of the lawsuit and said the search engine behemoth has already addressed most of the issues listed in the complaint. “This lawsuit seeks to redesign search in ways that would deprive Americans of helpful information and hurt businesses’ ability to connect directly with customers, Cohen said. “We look forward to making that case in court.”
The attorneys general are asking the court to halt Google’s allegedly anti-competitive practices, divest assets acquired through them and “restore a competitive marketplace.”