Google is facing yet another antitrust lawsuit. Attorneys general from 38 states and territories have filed antirust charges over Google’s search business. The action is the second antitrust lawsuit against the company this week, and the third such claim this year.
On Wednesday, Texas’ attorney general led a group of states in a lawsuit calling out Google’s advertising business. And The Justice Department sued Google in October, saying the company’s search and advertising business were unfair monopolies.
“Google sits at the crossroads of so many areas of our digital economy and has used its dominance to illegally squash competitors, monitor nearly every aspect of our digital lives, and profit to the tune of billions,” New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Thursday.
According to a press release from the New York attorney general’s office, the states are asking the court to stop Google’s illegal conduct and “restore a competitive marketplace.” They are also seeking to “counter any advantages that Google gained as a result of its anticompetitive conduct,” including possible divestitures.
In a blog post Thursday, Google’s director of economic policy Adam Cohen responded to the lawsuit. “We know that scrutiny of big companies is important and we’re prepared to answer questions and work through the issues,” Cohen said. “But this lawsuit seeks to redesign Search in ways that would deprive Americans of helpful information and hurt businesses’ ability to connect directly with customers. We look forward to making that case in court, while remaining focused on delivering a high-quality search experience for our users.”
The states’ lawsuit specifically takes aim at Google’s market power and ability to push specific sites and services out of its search results. “Google sells advertisements to some specialized vertical providers, but, depending on the commercial segment involved, unnecessarily limits their utility,” the lawsuit says. “And by virtue of its monopoly power, Google extracts from some specialized vertical providers massive amounts of proprietary customer data that Google can them use to compete against them.”
Thursday’s lawsuit is just the latest in a stream of court challenges for Google. On Wednesday, Texas’ state attorney general announced new antitrust charges against the search giant. However, the Texas-led lawsuit focused on Google’s ad tech practices, primarily taking issue with the company’s requirements for publishers. The Justice Department also filed its own suit in October, along with 11 Republican state attorneys general, focusing on Google’s exclusive contracts with Android smartphone manufacturers and Apple to set its own search engine as the default option on these devices.
“This lawsuit demands changes to the design of Google Search, requiring us to prominently feature online middlemen in place of direct connections to businesses,” the company wrote. “Redesigning Google Search this way would harm the quality of your search results. We look forward to making that case in court, while remaining focused on delivering a high-quality search experience for our users.”
