Fighting a Giant! Five More States, One Territory Join Google Antitrust Lawsuit

March 17th, 2021 3:18 PM

The number of states taking the fight to Google has increased as Americans have grown tired of the company’s market dominance.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed an amended complaint in his antitrust lawsuit against Google. The amended complaint reflected the five additional parties that joined onto the lawsuit: Alaska, Florida, Montana, Nevada and the territory of Puerto Rico.

Paxton launched into Google, blasting the Big Tech behemoth for its conduct. “Today’s filing underscores the broad consensus that Google’s practices require review and swift action under antitrust and consumer protection laws,” Attorney General Paxton said in a press release. “Our coalition looks forward to holding Google accountable for its illegal conduct and reforming Google’s practices in the future. And we are confident Google will be forced to pay for its misconduct through significant financial penalties.”

Other than the five additional plaintiffs that signed onto the case, the amended complaint does not differ much from the original filed in December 2020. Both complaints alleged that “Google sought to kill competition and has done so through an array of exclusionary tactics, including an unlawful agreement with Facebook, its largest potential competitive threat, to manipulate advertising auctions.”

The original and updated complaints further argued that “to cement its dominance across online display markets, Google has repeatedly and brazenly violated antitrust and consumer protection laws.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and a separate coalition of 38 states and territories have also filed antitrust lawsuits against Google. The judge in the DOJ’s case has set a tentative trial date of September 2023. 

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