Google: Google is being sued by a big US media house, here’s why – Times of India

‘Anti-competitive and deceptive scheme’

Gannett filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York. In the filing, Gannett argued that “Today, online digital advertising is a $200 billion business — a nine-fold increase since 2009. Yet, despite the opportunity for publishers to produce more news content and earn more revenue, news publications’ advertising revenue has declined by nearly 70% over the same timeframe.”
The company believes that publishers do not see the growing ad spending “because Google and its parent Alphabet unlawfully have acquired and maintain monopolies for the advertising technology (“ad tech”) tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space.”
The media house accused Google of carrying out a deceptive scheme for the last 10 years. “With control over the largest ad exchange and ad server — both of which Google acquired rather than developed — Google has carried out a sophisticated, anti-competitive, and deceptive scheme for well over a decade,” Gannett said in the complaint.
What Google has to say
According to a report by CNBC, Dan Taylor, vice president, Google Ads, termed Gannett’s claims as simply wrong. In a statement, he said, “Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetise — in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” Taylor said. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue. We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”