Nine more US states join federal lawsuit against Google over advertising technology

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine states, including Michigan and Nebraska, have joined a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against Alphabet-owned Google that alleges the search and advertising company broke antitrust laws in its advertising business. digital, the department announced on Monday.

The states that joined the lawsuit include Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Washington and West Virginia, the department said.

The government, which filed an ad technology lawsuit with eight states in January, argued that Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite because it had illegally abused its dominance in online advertising. Google denies any wrongdoing and has asked Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia to dismiss the lawsuit.

The Justice Department’s ad tech lawsuit followed a separate lawsuit filed in 2020 near the end of the Trump administration that accused Google of violating antitrust law to maintain its search dominance. This case will go to court in September.

President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to step up antitrust enforcement. In addition to the lawsuit, Google is also challenging multiple proposed mergers.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool)