Justice department alleges Google tried to ‘eliminate’ ad market rivals in lawsuit

The US justice department and eight states filed a lawsuit against Alphabet's Google on Tuesday over allegations that the company abused its dominance of the digital advertising business, according to a court document.

"Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the government said in its antitrust complaint.

The government alleges that Google's plan to assert dominance has been to "neutralize or eliminate" rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors' products.

The antitrust suit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Attorney general Merrick Garland said in a press conference Tuesday that Google's dominance in the ad market means fewer publishers are able to offer their products without charging subscription or other fees, because they can't rely on competition in the advertising market to keep ad prices low.

As a result of Google's dominance, he said, "website creators earn less and advertisers pay more".

The justice department asked the court to compel Google to divest its Google Ad manager suite, including its ad exchange AdX.

The department's suit accuses Google of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors. This includes its 2008 acquisition of DoubleClick, a dominant ad server, and subsequent rollout of technology that locks in the split-second bidding process for ads that get served on Web pages.