ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, Sept 9 (Askume ) – Alphabet Inc’s Google sought to dominate every aspect of online advertising technology, crushing rivals and customers, Justice Department prosecutors said on Monday.
Prosecutors said Google dominates the massive technology infrastructure that finances the flow of news and information to websites through more than 150,000 online ad sales per second.
Julia Tarver Wood, a lawyer for the US Justice Department’s anti-competition division, said in her opening statement that Google is trying to eliminate competitors through acquisitions, force customers to use its products, and disrupt traditional monopolies in the online advertising market in order to gain control.
“Google is here not because they’re big, but because they use their size to crush their competitors,” he said.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema is hearing the case without a jury and will decide after a trial expected to last several weeks.
Karen Dunn, Google’s top lawyer, said the case by the Justice Department and a coalition of states was based on “ancient history” when Google was working to make its devices more capable of connecting with competitors’.
He said Google’s tools can now interoperate with rivals, and the company faces growing competition from Amazon.com Inc CMCSA.O and Comcast Corp as digital ad spending moves toward apps and streaming video.
“The box is like a time capsule, if you break it open you’ll find a Blackberry, an iPod and a Blockbuster graphics card,” he said.
Dunn compared the allegations to claims Google recently dismissed in a search monopoly case.
Dunn left the courtroom after giving his opening statement. HeVice President Kamala Harris is preparing for her televised debate with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
In the lawsuit, prosecutors sought to prove that Google used its dominance in technology to force publishers and advertisers to use alternative tools and lower bids through rival products.
Gannett (GCI.N) advertising chief Tim Wolfe said in testimony on Monday that the company has been using Google’s publisher ad server for about 13 years and has no viable alternative.
If Brinkema finds that Google violated the law, she will later consider prosecutors’ request to force Google to sell at least Google Ad Manager, the platform on which Google publishers place ads, including its ad server, and its ad exchange.
Alphabet shares fell 1.7% in the afternoon.
Research by stock analyst Wedbush shows that in 2020, Google’s advertising technology tools accounted for US$20 billion, or 11%, of the company’s total revenue, and contributed about US$1 billion, or 2.6%, of operating profit that year.
Advertising managers accounted for 4.1% of revenue and 1.5% of operating profits in 2020, according to Wedbush’s analysis of research and court documents.
The latest information was redacted from court documents.
The case is one of many challenging the monopoly of Big Tech.
The Justice Department ruled in a separate case against Google and Apple last month.(AAPL.O) alone. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has fined Facebook parent company Meta Platform(META.O) and is filing a lawsuit against Amazon.
