Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday said his office has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google for its monopoly control of the advertising technology market.
“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing, engage in market collusions to rig auctions in a tremendous violation of justice,” Paxton said. “This Goliath of a company is using its power to manipulate the market, destroy competition and harm you, the consumer. These actions harm every person in America.”
The Texas lawsuit was joined by other nine states, namely Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.
Paxton’s multi-state lawsuit focuses on how Google allegedly profits from manipulating the digital advertising auction, while the federal case focuses on whether the company has unlawfully shut out competitors using exclusionary and interlocking deals.
“Google has entered into a series of exclusionary agreements that collectively lock up the primary avenues through which users access search engines, and thus the internet, by requiring that Google be set as the preset default general search engine on billions of mobile devices and computers worldwide and, in many cases, prohibiting pre-installation of a competitor,” the Justice Department statement read.
“This lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers,” Walker said. “To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use.”
