“Google must confront claims of antitrust violations by some advertisers,” US judge says

Alphabet Inc.’s Google must face a class action lawsuit from advertisers over its monopoly on the ad exchange market, a U.S. judge ruled Friday.

But U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel dismissed several other antitrust cases, including one focused on ad-buying tools used by large advertisers.

Mr. Castel was considering a number of lawsuits against Google, and while his decision invalidated many claims, it allowed at least one key set to proceed.

He said advertisers “do not plausibly allege that antitrust violations exist in the market for ad buying tools used by large advertisers, but they do not plausibly allege that antitrust violations exist in the market for ad buying tools used by large advertisers, but they do not plausibly allege that antitrust violations exist in the marketplace for the ad buying tools used by large advertisers; As for damages, we plausibly allege that antitrust violations exist.” A marketplace for small advertiser buying tools. ”

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Mr. Castel also said that Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain and publisher of USA Today, could prove in a separate lawsuit that Google fraudulently concealed the anticompetitive effects of some of its technologies. said. Gannett claimed that while it sold some of its ad space directly to advertisers, Google made it available for auction on ad exchanges to generate transaction fees for Google’s benefit.

Google and Gannett did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The same judge also ruled on several other cases in the national lawsuit.

Google faces a number of antitrust claims.

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In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Google for abusing its dominance in digital advertising. The government has called for the sale of Google’s Ad Manager suite, which includes its ad exchange AdX.

Google Ad Manager is a suite of tools that includes tools that allow websites to offer advertising space for sale, and exchanges that act as marketplaces that automatically match advertisers with their publishers.

Advertisers and website publishers complain that Google lacks transparency about where their ad dollars go, specifically how much goes to publishers and how much goes to Google.