Luis Villa del Campo via Flickr

Nine state attorney generals led by Texas Republican Ken Paxton have filed a lawsuit aimed squarely at Google’s most profitable lines of business.

The filing alleges the tech giant employed anticompetitive practices to maximize profits from online advertising. It is the latest legal effort to rein in Big Tech. (Washington Post)

Online display advertising is expected to generate $42 billion in revenue for Google this year, capturing a third of all digital ad spending, according to an October projection from the firm eMarketer. Google’s vast reach led Texas and other state attorneys general to conclude in their lawsuit that the tech giant essentially had built the “largest electronic trading market in existence,” operating ad systems that are not unlike trades on a stock exchange.

In that analogy, Texas said Google essentially acted as both the financial broker and the stock trading floor itself, giving it an unfair advantage over competing ad services and an unrivaled store of data from which to refine targeted advertisements. The attorneys general said the arrangement ultimately harmed average Americans, as the revenue Google generated from those ads amounted to a “monopoly tax” on popular online sites and services, which passed those costs down to American consumers.

“The actions harm every person in America,” Paxton said in a prerecorded video statement.

Google immediately sought to rebut Paxton’s case as “meritless,” stressing in a statement that it will “strongly defend ourselves from his baseless claims in court.”




Comments

  1. I despise Google and find it is the only platform that AT&T will use for the home page of my computer. Their stories and the news the purport to present are total left wing pieces and there is not way to change using AT&T. Further, they have now restricted any comments on their news articles from the actual people who read them as they were getting crushed by the negative comments prior to removing that capability. I would be thrilled if it completely went away. Totally biased.

    1. I stopped using Google and they (and Facebook) are still spying on me. Went over to Firefox and, at least, they stopped intrusions by Google and Facebook. Honestly, I don’t know if someone like Firefox is the answer because most of us don’t really know who is “in bed with whom!” After reading about the “Scorecard & Hammer,” I don’t know who can be trusted. Greed and the lust for power seem to be preoccupying most of America’s bureaucrats!

      1. I dumped Firefox when they fired their CEO because he committed the grievous sin of supporting marriage as being a union of man and woman. So yes, be wary of any of these “people”. They are all the same in their social justice outlooks.

        1. I’ve been using Firefox for a number of years and highly recommend their service. Yes, they may not be perfect but they are ten times better than the alternative Google and Microsoft Edge. I won’t even do a search on Google, they are communist through and through in my opinion.

    2. Dude try search engine “ DuckDuckGo “ it’s super secure they Do Not share your info ! ! Google ‘em or wiki paradise and see 😝

  2. Google censors and controls information just like twitter and Facebook. They are maniacal leftist’s above all the rest of us. They care nothing about fairness or the people that use their services. Are they also controlled by China?😠

  3. Hope all the giants who took it upon themselves to side with a communist socialist agendas and took steps to stop any conservative discussions from all their sights, Facebook, Google, Twitter. Hope justice prevails before the end of the year.

  4. Google is an evil company, and censors free speech as well as spies on ordinary Americans much like they do in China.

  5. It is not baseless Google has been obliterating many of the sites I attempted to view or respond to with a block which stated that the site had “cookies” to large for the screen, which is total BS. I hate computers and social media but have found it necessary to ignore that fact and use it regardless of feelings. but would like to get rid of google permanently if I could figure out the other browsers.

  6. Texas isn’t starting a war. Antifa (the Demonrat’s soldiers) started it. They have already killed at least a couple people & harmed many others. Patriots don’t start war, we let the enemy start it.

  7. Their knee-jerk response is “baseless claim” “merit less”
    Nothing to see here folks, move along!
    Where is the justice department?

  8. There will be more to come. Just follow the money. When it gets close the Biden, Obama or Clinton families, mark my words, “Based On Results”… everything will be swept under the carpet with the assistance of the MSM Liberal/Democrat puppets…Coumo, Lemmon, Madoff, Scarborough and his little mutt he keeps next to him, complimented with a heavy dose of verbal bile being barfing from the “View”.

  9. Kick them out. Here is state of fruits and nuts otherwise call Calimexico aka California it is a very short kick 50 miles straight to the Pacific. Sharks are hungry here.

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