Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been having a bit of a barney with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in London, trying to get them to dismiss a massive lawsuit accusing them of overreaching in the online ad market.
Ad Tech Collective Action kicked off the legal stoush in November 2022 on behalf of a group of UK publishers. It is after £13.6 billion, claiming Google’s been playing dirty and hurting their wallets.
Reuters says Ad Tech Collective Action’s barristers have been bending the CAT’s ear during a three-day hearing that started on Wednesday, trying to get the green light for a full-on trial.
But Google’s not having any of it. Their legal eagles reckon the accusations are all over the shop and there’s no solid proof that the publishers are out of pocket. They’re egging the CAT on to bin the whole thing.
Robert O’Donoghue, the mouthpiece for Ad Tech Collective Action, reckons this is just the latest in a string of cases in which Google has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar.
He’s nattered about the hefty fines the European Commission has slapped on Google before for being a bit too keen on pushing its own shopping search service and forcing its Search and Chrome browser onto Android gadgets.
Google’s having none of it, though. It says it is good for competition in the ad tech playground.
The CAT has already approved similar legal spats against other big tech names this year, with a $3.8 billion (£3.04 billion) ruckus against Meta and a nearly $1 billion (£800 million) scrap against Apple.
And it’s not just in the UK. Google is fighting with the US government, which reckons that it’s a bit too handy in the online ad market.
Last month, Google tried to get a case tossed out in a Virginia federal court. The Justice Department (DOJ), which kicked things off in January 2023, is accusing Google of hogging the market, especially with their ad manager suite. They want Google to flog off this critical bit of their ad biz.
Then in March 2023, Google found itself in hot water in the UK again, with a legal challenge looking for £3.4 billion in dosh from publishers for lost revenue. Charles Arthur, who used to be the tech editor at The Guardian, is leading the charge, saying Google’s been a bit cheeky and pinched publishers’ earnings.
Back in 2021, the French competition watchdog fined Google €220 million for playing favourites with its own services in the ad game.
