State takes lead in lawsuit
Thirty- eight states and territories led by Colorado sued Google on Thursday, alleging the internet giant is using illegal, anticompetitive business practices to maintain an online monopoly.
The lawsuit, filed in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a 14- month investigation, says Google unfairly has excluded other search engines from reaching consumers and has limited competition by refusing to allow its advertising tools to function with other search engines.
Google also wrongly pushed some rival specialized search websites from its top search results, according to the lawsuit.
Google’s practices have limited consumers’ choices, infringed on their privacy and solidified Google’s position as a monopoly, according to the lawsuit, which takes aim at exclusive contracts Google has with companies such as Apple and Verizon to be the default search engine installed on those companies’ products and devices.
Through such contracts, Google has become the default search engine on 80% of browsers, according to the lawsuit.
“This case represents a critical effort to address the concentration of control by one company of a crucial sector of our economy,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said during a joint news conference Thursday with the attorneys general in Nebraska, Iowa and Tennessee.
Investigators reviewed 45,000 documents before filing the lawsuit, which targets Google’s use of consumers’ information, and says the company is able to collect massive and unprecedented amounts of data — on which it bases much of its business — only because so many consumers have no other option but to use Google’s search engine.
“It’s not people use Google; it’s Google uses people,” Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said during Thursday’s news conference, dismissing the company’s previous response to similar allegations that customers use Google by choice.
Adam Cohen, Google’s director of economic policy, said in a statement that the lawsuit features meritless allegations.
“The claims being made have been closely examined and rejected by regulators and courts around the world,” he said in the statement. “… It’s also well- established that the most important driver for our search results is the specific query — not your personal data.”
The lawsuit follows a similar action Weiser and 45 other states took against Facebook last week, as well as a Texas- led lawsuit against Google that was filed by 10 states Wednesday over anticompetitive practices in online advertising.
Both of the lawsuits from the states come after a landmark antitrust lawsuit against Google filed by the Department of Justice in October.
The Department of Justice, which announced last year that it was investigating big tech companies, also accused Google of abusing its dominance in online search and advertising, and the states have asked that Thursday’s lawsuit be consolidated with the Department of Justice’s earlier case. Weiser said the states’ lawsuit goes beyond the allegations included in the Department of Justice’s case.
The states’ lawsuit asks the court to stop Google’s anti- competitive practices and undo any advantages Google gained from that conduct, according to the statement.