Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, sued Google in federal court in New York on Tuesday. by advertising monopoly in the digital market.
Gannett argued in court documents that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, they control how publishers buy and sell ads online.
“Google has carried out a sophisticated, anti-competitive and deceptive scheme for more than a decade,” stresses the lawsuit from Gannett, a digitally focused media and marketing solutions company that owns more than 500 digital news and media brands, among others USA Today.
For his part, Gannett Chairman and CEO Michael Reed told CNBC that Google has “monopolized market trading to its advantage and at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else.”
“Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy. Without free and fair competition for digital advertising space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms”Reed stressed.
For his part, Google Ads vice president Dan Taylor called Gannett’s claims “just wrong” and said that when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of the revenue.
Advertising is Google’s main source of revenue and, according to eMarketer, the company controls about a quarter of the US digital advertising market.
This lawsuit comes as the tech giant faces various antitrust lawsuits over its advertising business in the United States and the European Union.