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Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The Justice Department, along with the attorneys general of multiple states, filed an antitrust suit Tuesday against Google "for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products." "As a result of its illegal monopoly, and by its own estimates, Google pockets on average more than 30% of the advertising dollars that flow through its digital advertising technology products," the Department of Justice said in a news release Tuesday.
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"Google's anticompetitive conduct has suppressed alternative technologies, hindering their adoption by publishers, advertisers, and rivals," the news release continues.
The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia.
The Justice Department said Google has been "wielding its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products; and thwarting the ability to use competing products."
"Today's complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In 2020, the Justice Department filed a separate lawsuit against Google for "unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets and to remedy the competitive harms."
The 2020 lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in September.
The Department of Justice emphasized that the search advertising market, addressed in the 2020 suit, is different from the digital advertising technology market addressed in Tuesday's lawsuit.
The Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia were part of Tuesday's filing.
