Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Google, accusing the tech giant of violating federal antitrust laws by illegally abusing a monopoly over the technology used by publishers to buy and sell online ads.
In the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York against Google and its parent company, Alphabet, Gannett argued that Google’s dominance over the digital ad market has greatly cut into potential revenue for those publishers.
The complaint said that while the online ad market was worth $200 billion a year, news publishers have seen a nearly 70 percent decrease in advertising revenue since 2009, which has diminished journalism jobs and sent many newspapers out of business.
“Google controls how publishers sell their ad slots, and it forces publishers to sell growing shares of that ad space to Google at depressed prices,” the complaint said.
“The result is dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits.”
Persons:
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Organizations:
Gannett, Google, of
Locations:
U.S, Southern, of New York