The Patriot Post® · Yet Again, Google Under Fire
The world’s largest Internet search engine company is facing another antitrust lawsuit brought by a coalition of states and the Justice Department. This lawsuit comes on the heels of the Big Tech giant losing an antitrust suit last month over its smartphone monopoly deal. As part of that deal, Google’s search engine app was made the default on Apple and Samsung smartphones, which account for the vast majority of the cellphone market.
This latest antitrust lawsuit alleges that Google has monopolistic control of the ad exchange market. DOJ lawyer Julia Tarver Wood contends, “One monopoly is bad enough. But a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”
Basically, Google is being accused of controlling both sides of the ad exchange market and thereby holding a monopoly over online advertising technology. Google is said to effectively garner as much as 36 cents on the dollar for brokering these sales between publishers and advertisers.
Google contends that it dominates the market only because it provides the best technology. The company warns that should the lawsuit prevail, it will make things worse for advertisers.
Should the judgment go against Google in this case, it would likely lead to breaking up significant portions of the company. According to Peter Cohan, a professor of management practice at Babson College, “Divestitures are definitely a possible remedy for this second case. It could be potentially more significant than initially meets the eye.”
Speaking of Google’s ads, a recent undercover video released by James O'Keefe and his O'Keefe Media Group (OMG) caught Dakota Leazer, a growth strategist and ad salesman at Google, admitting that the tech giant is seeking to influence the election in favor of Kamala Harris.
“Google was essentially promoting through its ads … rhetoric that was very, like, pro-Kamala,” Leazer told an undercover OMG journalist. “And, like, it seemed to link out to, like, legitimate, like, news publication sites.” He further explained, “You go to Google, they’re reorienting the search engine such that Kamala’s more, you know, favored.”
According to Leazer, Google’s motivation for rigging its search engine to promote Harris was primarily about the money. “Google’s a very liberal, progressive company,” he said. “If they have a belief that one side will allow them to make more money. … I don’t think it’s political. I think it’s economic. I think it’s all about the share of the stock price.” He further claimed that this effort to support Harris wasn’t limited to Google but was widespread across Big Tech companies, stating, “It’s like this is, like, a coordinated effort by, like, big tech, like big companies to, like, try and get her to win.”
Where is the DOJ on this blatant and latest example of election interference? It’s ringing the alarm bells over supposed Russian election interference, which time and again has proven to be either a complete hoax à la Russiagate or a cover for encouraging media companies to avoid reporting on legitimate stories like Hunter Biden’s laptop.
But I digress.
Now, with Google being sued for effectively having a monopoly over the online ad market, it raises the question: Did the tech giant have anything to do with advertisers abandoning X en masse immediately after Elon Musk acquired it? This would certainly be the type of market-controlling behavior one would expect to see from a monopoly.