Google’s Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee as seen via YouTube on a laptop in Washington, DC on July 29, 2020.
Carolyn Van Houten | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Google is facing a new antitrust case from a group of state attorneys general led by Texas, this time targeting its ad technology services.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit that Google has used its alleged monopoly power to control prices and “negotiate market deals to manipulate auctions.”
“Google effectively eliminated its competition and crowned itself head of online advertising,” Paxton said in the video, hinting at Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007. The full complaint had not been made public on Wednesday afternoon.
“If the free market was a baseball game, Google positioned itself as the pitcher, the batter and the umpire,” Paxton said.
Several Republican-led states also join Texas in its new complaint.
The lawsuit follows a separate complaint from the Justice Department alleging that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly on common online search services by cutting off competitors from major distribution channels. Texas, which also joined ten other Republican attorneys general in the DOJ lawsuit, had led a major multi-state investigation into Google’s ad technology business early last year.
A third antitrust case is expected to be filed against Google on Thursday by another coalition of bipartisan state AGs, Politico reported Tuesday. That suit is also expected to target Google’s search services, but focus on how the changing design has disadvantaged competitors, Politico said.
This story develops. Check back regularly for updates.
-CNBCs Ylan Mui contributed to this report.
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