The Department of Justice is poised to sue Google Alphabet Inc on Tuesday over its dominance in the digital advertising market. reported Bloomberg News on Monday, citing people aware of the matter.
The lawsuit could be the second federal antitrust grievance filed against Google alleging antitrust violations in the way the tech giant gains or maintains its dominance. The Department of Justice lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 focuses on its search monopoly and is due to start in September.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, and Google declined to comment on the report.
The lawsuit is predicted to goal Google’s advertising business, which accounts for about 80% of its revenue. As well as to its well-known search engine, which is free, Google gets its revenue from affiliated ad technology firms that connect advertisers with newspapers, web sites, and other firms willing to host them.
Advertisers and website publishers have complained that Google doesn’t disclose where ad dollars go, specifically how much goes to publishers and the way much goes to Google.
The tech giant has made a series of acquisitions, including DoubleClick in 2008 and AdMob in 2009, to turn out to be the dominant player in online advertising.
Google has previously argued that the ad tech ecosystem is competitive with Facebook, AT&T, Comcast, and others.
While Google stays the market leader for an extended time, its share of digital advertising revenue in the US is declining, falling from 36.7% in 2016 to 28.8% last yr, according to Insider Intelligence.