Big news hit the digital marketing world this week! On Wednesday, February 28th, a group of 32 media companies, including prominent names like Axel Springer and Schibsted, filed a hefty US $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google. This lawsuit comes amidst rising concerns and ongoing legal battles surrounding Google’s dominance in the digital advertising landscape.
The media groups, which include publishers from all over Europe, claim that Google’s actions in the ad tech industry have caused them to lose a lot of money. They claim that Google’s dominant position has created an unfair and less competitive market, negatively impacting their revenue streams.
The lawsuit argues that if Google wasn’t abusing its market power, the media companies involved could have:
1) Earned Considerably More Revenue From Advertising:
This suggests that Google’s practices may be hindering the fair distribution of advertising dollars within the digital ecosystem.
2) Paid lower fees for Ad Tech Services:
This raises questions about the pricing structure and potential anti-competitive practices within Google’s ad tech offerings.
The lawyers representing the media group further emphasized the potential impact this could have had on the European media landscape. They argued that if Google hadn’t allegedly done wrong, the extra revenue could have been reinvested in strengthening European media. This reinvestment might have led to a more diverse and vibrant media space.
This lawsuit adds to the ongoing debate about Google’s ad tech practices. It follows the French competition authority fining Google €220 million in 2021 and the European Commission accusing Google’s ad tech business of breaking antitrust rules last year. Google has argued against these charges before, saying it disagrees with the EU’s position.
The media group intentionally filed the lawsuit in the Netherlands because it’s known for handling antitrust claims well in Europe. By doing this, they want to avoid dealing with many separate lawsuits in different European countries.
This situation shows that more people are pushing back against big tech companies dominating the advertising industry. We’ll have to wait and see how this lawsuit turns out and if it will really change how Google does its ad tech stuff and affect the whole digital advertising world.
