UK Slaps Google with Multi-Billion Pound Antitrust Lawsuit Over Search Advertising Monopoly
Tech giant Google is facing a fresh wave of legal trouble as the United Kingdom has launched a multi-billion pound antitrust lawsuit against the company.
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London, UK - Tech giant Google is facing a fresh wave of legal trouble as the United Kingdom has launched a multi-billion pound antitrust lawsuit against the company. The claim, filed at the UK's competition appeal tribunal, alleges that Google abused its dominant position in the digital economy to inflate prices for search advertising, impacting thousands of British businesses.
This development adds to the growing legal challenges for the American firm, which is already battling potential break-up scenarios in the United States over its alleged monopoly in internet search and dominance in advertising technology.
The UK class action, spearheaded by British competition law academic Dr. Or Brook and represented by law firm Geradin Partners, seeks damages of up to £5 billion ($6.6 billion). The lawsuit contends that Google implemented anti-competitive tactics to secure its default position in search, hindering rivals and ultimately leading to higher costs for advertisers.
Specifically, the claim highlights Google's alleged practice of "forcing phone manufacturers and network operators to pre-install Google Search and Chrome on Android devices" and its "billions of pounds" payments to Apple to maintain Google as the default search engine on Safari. These actions, the lawsuit argues, prevented competition in both general search and the lucrative search advertising markets.
"Google is one of the most powerful companies in the world. However, through a range of deliberate and exclusionary practices, it has sought to eliminate its rivals and dominate the search advertising market, ultimately overcharging UK advertisers by billions of pounds," stated Damien Geradin, founder of Geradin Partners, in a press release.
The lawsuit is being brought on behalf of numerous British organizations that published Google ads between January 2011 and the present day.
Google has swiftly responded to the allegations, dismissing the lawsuit as a "speculative and opportunistic case." A company spokesperson stated, "We will argue against it vigorously. Consumers and advertisers use Google because it is helpful, not because there are no alternatives."
This UK legal action comes at a critical juncture for Google. Next week in the US, a federal judge will hear arguments from the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the potential break-up of the company's search business. The DOJ is also awaiting a decision on Google's alleged dominance in advertising technology.
Furthermore, in August, a US Federal Judge, Amit Mehta, already ruled that Google illegally maintained a search monopoly. The DOJ and several states have since proposed forcing Google to sell its popular Chrome browser, a suggestion Google has vehemently opposed.
Adding to its European woes, the European Commission in March accused Google of violating competition rules by favoring its own services in search results over those of competitors.
The multi-billion pound UK lawsuit signifies a significant escalation in the global scrutiny of Google's market power and its impact on competition and advertisers. The outcome of this and other ongoing legal battles could have profound implications for the future of the tech giant.
