A lawsuit has been filed against Google to seek £3.4bn ($4.2bn) in compensation to publishers for lost revenue.
Former Guardian technology editor Charles Arthur’s allegation alleges that Google unlawfully used a dominant position in online advertising in a way that reduced publishers’ options.
Google said it will vigorously combat the “speculative and opportunistic” action.
It is the second such lawsuit, after a similar case was filed in November.
That has been put forward by former Ofcom director Claudio Pollack, who is seeking up to £13.6bn in damages from the tech giant.
The cases concern advertising technology – adtech – which decides in a split second which online ads consumers see, how much they cost and how much publishers make.
Online display advertising is the main source of income for many websites.
- Google is facing €25 billion lawsuits in the UK and EU
The UK competition authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), is also investigating Google’s dominance in advertising technology.
In the lawsuit, filed on Thursday, Mr. Arthur alleges that Google’s abuse of his position caused adtech services to be overpriced and publishers’ advertising revenue to be unlawfully reduced.
“The CMA is currently investigating Google’s anti-competitive behavior in the adtech space, but it does not have the authority to make Google compensate the losers. We can only right these wrongs through the courts, which is why I am bringing this lawsuit,” he wrote.
Both legal claims are asking the court – the Competition Appeal Tribunal – to uphold their claims as an “opt-out”, meaning that each relevant publisher would be automatically included in the case unless they chose otherwise.
These are class actions, often referred to as class actions in the United States, and have only been possible in the United Kingdom since 2015. Because they are raised on behalf of an entire group or class, the damage can be significant.
Unless Mr. Arthur and Mr. Pollack agree to cooperate, the arbitral tribunal must decide who should conduct the collective action
Google told the BBC its advertising tools “and those of our many adtech competitors help millions of websites and apps fund their content and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers.”
Although the CMA found Google to be the largest player in three key areas of adtech, the company claims it has many competitors. It also says its adtech fees are lower than or in line with the industry average.
But in a lawsuit launched in January, the US Department of Justice accused Google of being an “industrial giant” that “corrupted legitimate competition in the adtech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the broader range of high-tech tools used to be adopted by publishers”.
On Tuesday, Google asked a court to dismiss the case, arguing that the US government had overstated its power over the market.
In 2021, the French competition authority Autorité de la concurrence fined Google €220 million for giving preference to its own online advertising services.
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