Prosecutors of 38 US states file antitrust lawsuit against Google

CAPTCHAFORUM

Administrator
On December 17, prosecutors from 38 US states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google focused on SERP design. This is the third major antitrust lawsuit against the company this year.

The bipartisan group of states is led by Colorado Attorney General, Democrat, Phil Weiser, and Nebraska Attorney General, Republican, Doug Peterson.

The lawsuit alleges that Google's search results are engineered so that the company's own products are better represented than those of competitors.

“Google is at the intersection of many areas of our digital economy and has used its dominance to illegally suppress competitors, monitor almost every aspect of our digital life, and generate billions of dollars in revenue,” said New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James.

According to a press release from the New York Attorney General's Office, the states are asking the court to stop Google's illegal behavior and "restore a competitive market." They also seek to “counteract any advantage gained by Google as a result of anti-competitive behavior,” not precluding a possible divestiture.

Google officially commented on these allegations on the same day, December 17.

“We know that auditing large companies is important, and we are ready to answer questions and work out problems. But the lawsuit seeks to redesign Search in a way that deprives Americans of useful information and damages companies' ability to communicate directly with customers. We look forward to bringing this case to court, but we remain focused on delivering a high-quality user experience for our users, ”said Google Chief Economic Officer Adam Cohen.

Note that a day earlier, on December 16, the US authorities accused Google of advertising collusion with Facebook. This lawsuit was led by the Texas attorney general.

The US Department of Justice has also filed a lawsuit against the company. This was done in October.

So the new antitrust lawsuit has become the third in a row.