Washington AG joins federal antitrust lawsuit against Google

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is joining a lawsuit filed in January by the U.S. Department of Justice that accuses Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) of monopolizing online display advertising.

The complaint, filed by the DOJ and eight other states, alleges Google's dominance of the online advertising market offers few alternatives for website publishers. To argue this, the lawsuit said Google's acquisition of DoubleClick in 2008 violated federal law concerning monopolies.

"An open marketplace encourages competition and creativity," Ferguson said in a news release. "When Google muscles in and dominates the market, everyone loses — except Google. Ending Google’s illegal monopolization of online display advertising is a bipartisan issue."

Google has not responded to a request for comment, but in January the company said in a blog post that the lawsuit was "ignoring" the increased competition Google was facing from other tech giants.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2023/04/04/google-antitrust-lawsuit-federal-bob-ferguson.html