N.C. Joins 16 Other States in DOJ's Action vs. Google's Digital Ad Business

Google’s digital advertising technology monopoly is "limiting people’s access to ideas, information, goods, and services,” while the company is profiting by taking more than 30% of the advertising dollars on its platform, alleged North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) Monday, announcing the state joined DOJ and 16 states in a bipartisan antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ complaint (docket 1:23-cv-00108), amended Monday to add more states, including North Carolina, asserts Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act’s prohibitions against monopolization after its acquisition of DoubleClick, which controlled 60% of online advertising when it bought it in 2008. Federal regulators allowed the purchase then because they believed enough alternatives existed that there would still be competition, said Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) last week (see 2304040024) announcing his state’s participation in the case. After Google acquired DoubleClick, Google launched its own branded advertising tools and made DoubleClick available only to advertisers that used its internal ad buying tools, plaintiffs allege. Google used exclusive agreements with other tech companies, bought other competing online advertising technologies, and forced advertisers and website publishers to use only its products, which plaintiffs allege “suppressed competition and allowed Google to dominate the online advertising market.”