Texas To Lead New Antitrust Suit Against Google Over Ad Tech

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday, December 16, that he’s leading a lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of taking illegal actions to hurt competition in the advertising technology market, reported the Washington Post.

Nine other Republican attorneys general are expected to join the lawsuit, which is set to be filed in a federal court in Texas, federal records show.

“The actions harm every person in America,” Paxton said in a prerecorded video statement.

The case marks the latest legal salvo against Google challenging the search and advertising giant over the size of its corporate footprint. The Department of Justice sued Google in October over allegations that it violated federal competition laws specifically by seeking to strike special arrangements that ensure its search service is set as the default on a wide array of devices and services.

Other Democratic and Republican attorneys general are set to file their own lawsuit as soon as Thursday that is focused on the way in which Google displays search results.

The heightened scrutiny represents a dramatic turn of fortunes for Google, after federal investigators previously probed the company for antitrust violations but concluded the matter in 2013 without taking the search giant to court.