10 GOP attorneys general take aim at Google
Ten states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging the tech giant illegally sought to suppress competition and reap massive profits from targeted advertisements placed across the Web.
The lawsuit — filed in a Texas federal court and backed exclusively by Republicans — strikes at the heart of Google’s lucrative business in connecting those who seek to buy online ads with the websites that sell them. Mr. Paxton and his GOP allies contend that Google relied on a mix of improper tactics to force its ad tools on publishers and solidify its pole position as a “middleman” in the invisible transactions that power much of the Web.
Online advertising is expected to generate $42 billion in revenue this year for Google, which captures a third of all digital ad spending, according to an October projection from the firm eMarketer. Google’s vast reach led Texas and other state attorneys general to conclude in their lawsuit that the tech giant essentially had built the “largest electronic trading market in existence,” operating ad systems that are not unlike trades on a stock exchange.
In that analogy, though, Texas said Google essentially acted as both the financial broker and the stock trading floor itself, holding dual roles that grant it an unfair advantage over competing ad services and an unrivaled store of data from which to refine targeted advertisements. The attorneys general said the arrangement in the end harmed average Americans, as the revenue Google generated from fees on those ads amounted to a “monopoly tax” on popular apps and websites, which passed their costs down to consumers.
“The actions harm every person in America,” Mr. Paxton said in a video statement preceding the case, which asked a judge to consider “structural” remedies that could theoretically include forcing a breakup of the company.
Mr. Paxton and his peers also faulted Google for failing to protect the privacy of millions of Web users and engaging in allegedly improper dealings with one of its chief rivals, Facebook. In one heavily redacted portion of the complaint, state officials said that Google in 2015 signed an agreement with Facebook that granted Google “access to millions of Americans’ end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp messages, photos, videos and audio files.”
Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2015. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Google immediately sought to rebut Mr. Paxton’s case as “meritless,” stressing in a statement that it will “strongly defend ourselves from his baseless claims in court.”
“We’ve invested in state-of-the-art ad tech services that help businesses and benefit consumers,” added Google spokeswoman Julie Tarallo McAlister.
The lawsuit marks the latest challenge to Google — one of the most popular, profitable companies to emerge from Silicon Valley — over allegations that it expanded its vast footprint in search and advertising at the cost of competition and consumers.