According to a report from Reuters, Google may soon face a lawsuit directly from the US DOJ over its dominance in search and advertising.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly urging state attorneys general to sign on to a lawsuit against Google with the suit going public as soon as next week. Apparently, this lawsuit from the United States against Google would accuse the company of trying to disadvantage rivals by depriving them of user data and preferences.
The lawsuit is expected to accuse Google, builder of the world’s dominant search engine, of looking to disadvantage rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing by depriving them of the data about users and user preferences that they need to improve and to advertise to people.
The Justice Department has also been investigating Google’s ‘search advertising,’ the ads that appear under a search box if a person looks up a consumer item like ‘dishwasher.’ Google controls the sale of the space under these searches, as well as the tools to make those ad sales.
Google has “repeatedly” denied any wrongdoing, also pointing to competitors such as Oracle and Verizon in online advertising as well as Twitter and Amazon for information and products.
This comes almost a year after US states opened antitrust investigations into Google’s practices. This lawsuit, though, would be the first major outcome of that investigation.
More on Google:
- Justice Department reportedly rushing Google antitrust case to meet ‘arbitrary’ deadline
- Google requests FCC authorization to confidentially test 6 GHz spectrum across the US
- Google pledges to only use carbon-free energy by 2030 in ‘biggest sustainability moonshot yet’
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