Rumble sues Google over digital advertising practices

Video-sharing platform Rumble said on Monday it has sued Google, arguing the tech giant has engaged in anti-competitive practices across its digital advertising products and sought damages in excess of US$1 billion (RM4.7 billion).

The suit alleges Google has monopolized the ad stack “by buying companies up and down the chain, concurrently representing both ad buyers and sellers, while also running the exchange that connects those parties.”

Rumble has accused Google of maintaining its monopoly by reaching an agreement with Meta’s Facebook to prevent Facebook from offering alternatives to Google’s ad tech ecosystem.

Google denied Rumble’s claims calling them “simply wrong” and said that Rumble utilizes “dozens” of competing ad services in addition to Google’s ad manager.

“We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online,“a Google spokesman said in a statement to Reuters.

Rumble filed the suit late on Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

This is the second time Rumble has filed a lawsuit against Google. The earlier suit filed in 2021 accused the company of favouring itself and its video-sharing platform YouTube in its search results.

The US Justice Department also filed an advertising lawsuit against Google last year accusing the company of abusing its dominance of the digital advertising business and argued that it should be forced to sell its ad manager suite.