Puerto Rico and four states (Alaska, Florida, Montana and Nevada) joined this Tuesday an antitrust lawsuit against Google.
The Texas-led lawsuit focuses on the technology the company uses to connect buyers of advertising space online with sellers.
The attorney general of Texas, Republican Ken Paxton, reported in a statement that the new supporters in the legal battle against the internet giant, in addition to the other ten that were already part of the original complaint, places the total number of states and claimant territories to fifteen.
“I am proud to welcome Alaska, Florida, Montana, Nevada and Puerto Rico to our multi-state lawsuit against the monopoly tech giant. What happened today highlights the broad consensus that Google’s practices require an agile response under the laws to protect competition and consumers,” stated Paxton
The Texas-led lawsuit focuses on the technology that the world’s most used search engine company uses to connect buyers of online advertising space with sellers, something that Paxton believes allows it to control the prices of online ads.
After a year long investigation, this lawsuit accuses the company, directed by Sundar Pichai, of having used illegal actions to occupy a dominant position in the market and prevent the access of its competitors Some of the company’s competitors such as DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Bing to the main distribution channels.
“Google collects thousands of data points about people and uses that information for its own gain while lying to advertisers, publishers, and consumers about their conduct and underlying motives. We will not allow this unprecedented, unlawful conduct to continue. Our coalition looks forward to holding Google accountable for its illegal conduct and reforming Google’s practices in the future. And we are confident Google will be forced to pay for its misconduct through significant financial penalties,” Paxton said on Tuesday.
The original lawsuit was filed in December 2020 alleging that “Google violated antitrust and consumer protection laws and used exclusionary practices in its advertising industry in addition to allowing a monopoly in the tech industry by its agreement with Facebook.”
