Regulations lag pace of climate change. Air pollution kills 860,000 people each year
The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Alphabet's Google on Tuesday over allegations that the company abused its dominance of the digital advertising business, according to a court document.
"Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the government said in its antitrust complaint.
The Justice Department asked the court to compel Google to divest its Google Ad manager suite, including its ad exchange AdX.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is the second federal antitrust complaint filed against Google, alleging violations of antitrust law in how the company acquires or maintains its dominance. The Justice Department lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 focuses on its monopoly in search and is scheduled to go to trial in September.
Eight states joined the department in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, including Google's home state of California.
Google shares were down 1.3 per cent on the news.
The lawsuit says "Google has thwarted meaningful competition and deterred innovation in the digital advertising industry, taken supra-competitive profits for itself, prevented the free market from functioning fairly to support the interests of the advertisers and publishers who make today’s powerful internet possible."
While Google remains the market leader by a long shot, its share of the U.S. digital ad revenue has been eroding, falling to 28.8% last year from 36.7% in 2016, according to Insider Intelligence. Google's advertising business is responsible for some 80% of its revenue.
Regulations lag pace of climate change. Air pollution kills 860,000 people each year
The two Muslim neighbours were involved in unprecedented tit-for-tat military strikes this year
Attacks online include insults, sexist and sexual comments, and physical threats, including death threats to journalists and their families
AI tools imitating human intelligence are widely used in newsrooms around the world to transcribe sound files, summarise texts and translate
Of these, 90 families, or 468 people, returned over the Torkham crossing, according to the Taliban-led Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation
It allows American spy agencies to surveil foreigners abroad using data drawn from US digital infrastructure such as internet service providers
The incident happened shortly after jury selection for the hush-money trial was completed
The neighbourhood around the consulate was closed after the 60-year-old entered the premises, claiming to be armed with an explosive vest