United States of America: Antitrust lawsuit filed against Google regarding competition in digital advertising market

The State of Texas, along with nine other US states (Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah and Idaho), filed a lawsuit against Google to the U.S. Eastern District Court of Texas, for allegedly creating and maintaining a monopoly in the search advertising market. Google is accused of an array of exclusionary tactics, and the states ask for compensation that includes “structural relief”, usually meaning the divestiture of some of the company's assets. Specifically, the states accuse Google of the following abuses: forcing publishers bidding through Google Ads to transact in both Google’s ad network and Google’s ad exchange, thus foreclosing the possible alternatives; abusing its monopoly over the online advertising market, favouring its own ad tools (Google Ads and DV360) in the advertisement bids organised by Google itself; forcing large advertisers to use Google’s ad buying tools; suppressing the innovative mechanism of "header bidding", which promoted exchanges competition, also through an unlawful agreement with Facebook.