Google: DOJ ‘Made Up Markets’ as Excuse for Antitrust Suit

Google has accused the federal government of fabricating a market for its antitrust suit against the tech giant.

Despite this, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not shown that Google commands a 70% share of the online advertising market, the company said in a court filing asking a judge to summarily dismiss the suit.

According to a Saturday (April 27) report by Bloomberg News, Google alleges that the department “made up markets specifically for this case” of display advertising shown on the open web.

In doing so, the company said, the government ignores rivals like Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and TikTok, all of them vying for online ad dollars.

“There can be no serious claim that ad placement on mobile apps and social media should be excluded in market share calculations,” Google said in its motion.

If the judge were to grant the summary dismissal, it would end the government’s case before it could be brought to trial.

PYMNTS has contacted the DOJ for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. The department sued Google last year, alleging the company had illegally seized control of the online ad sector and called for the company to be broken up.

“Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anti-competitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the department said in the suit.

The suit, filed by the DOJ and eight U.S. states, asks a judge to order the divestiture of “at minimum,” the Google Ad Manager suite, which includes both Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, and Google’s ad exchange, AdX.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS last week examined Google’s latest earnings call, which focused — as many big tech companies do these days — on artificial intelligence (AI).

That report noted that CEO Sundar Pichai did what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had not done the day before.

“He connected AI to ROI. Pichai detailed monetization strategies linked to AI, noting clear pathways through advertising, cloud services and subscriptions,” PYMNTS wrote.

Pichai mentioned the integration of Gemini models into Google’s Cloud services and the recent crossing of 100 million paid subscribers on Google One, pointing to strong growth and adoption of AI-enhanced offerings. He underlined the importance of AI in securing leadership in cloud cybersecurity and strengthening user engagement on YouTube via AI-driven content and background capabilities.

“We are well underway with our Gemini era, and there’s great momentum across the company,” Pichai said.