Google class action claims company overcharges for ads, commits antitrust violations

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Google antitrust class action lawsuit overview: 

• Who: Sunny Singh filed a class action lawsuit against Google LLC, Alphabet Inc., and Meta Platforms Inc. 
• Why: Singh claims Google has monopolized the market for the sale of display-ad placements. 
• Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in California federal court. 

Google has monopolized the means to buy and sell display-ad placements, a new class action lawsuit alleges. 

Plaintiff Sunny Singh claims Google has, among other things, secretly rigged ad auctions and imposed agreements that are anticompetitive on publishers that pay to place advertisements on their websites. 

“Nearly every online advertiser now relies on Google to broker placements of banner, sidebar, pop-up, in-app, and video ads to market their goods and services to consumers,” the Google class action states. 

Singh argues Google is essentially acting as both the auctioneer and the bidder during ad auctions, while simultaneously operating “the largest exchange, AdX, which processes about 11 billion ad spaces every day.” 

“Google secretly manipulated auctions, coerced publishers and advertisers to transact in AdX and coerced advertisers to exclusively use Google’s buying tools,” the Google class action states. 

Singh wants to represent a nationwide class of all persons or entities that have placed a display ad on a website or mobile application that is operated by another entity “via a transaction in which the impression was sold, brokered, exchanged or auctioned by Google.” 

Google gave Meta ‘special advantages’ during ad-placement auctions, says class action

Google also entered in a network bidding agreement with Meta that gave the social networking company “special advantages and proprietary information no other bidder enjoyed,” the Google class action alleges. 

“Google distorted competition in these auctions, placing all non-Meta bidders at a competitive disadvantage by giving Meta information on bidder identities,” the Google class action states. 

Singh claims Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, and California’s Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law. He is demanding a jury trial and requesting declaratory and injunctive relief along with an award of treble damages for himself and all class members. 

Google agreed to pay $391.5 million to a total of 40 US states to resolve claims the company had continued tracking its users location data after they had chosen to disable location tracking. 

Have you been injured by Google’s alleged monopolization of the display-ad placement market? Let us know in the comments! 

The plaintiff is represented by Christina C. Sharp, Jordan Elias, Scott M. Grzenczyk, and Mikaela M. Bock of Girard Sharp LLP. 

The Google antitrust class action lawsuit is Singh, et al. v. Google LLC, et al., Case No. 2:23-cv-02539, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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