The case was brought to the court by Ad Tech Collective Action LLP, which accuses the company of holding too much power and control over the United Kingdom advertising market online. The group believes that the tech giant engaged in an anti-competitive way, causing financial losses for online publishers in the UK.
While Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., has tried to dismiss the lawsuit as “incoherent,” it was with no success. London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has given the green light, ruling that the case move forward with the trial. But it’s unlikely that it will occur before the end of 2025.
Claudio Pollak, a partner in Ad Tech Collective Action and former Ofcom director, has said: “This is a decision of major importance to the victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in adtech.”
The claim revolves around the way ad tech works, which determines precisely what we see online, along with their pricing. As of 2024, Google advertising and organic search constitute a significant source of revenue for multiple businesses and websites. But it’s also a big part of Google, considering its dominance among search engine companies and ad tech services.
This is why the Ad Tech Collective Action claims that because of Google’s dominant position, it has been able to manipulate the market to its own advantage. This means that Google allegedly promotes its own products over other companies – in other words, displaying a “self-preferencing” behavior. The problem arises when this behavior reduces publishers’ revenue and imposes high hosting ad fees.
"I look forward to working with our legal and economic advisers to deliver compensation for years during which the relevant markets did not provide a competitive outcome for the UK publishing market,” said Mr. Pollack.
However, Oliver Bethell, Google’s legal director, has described these practices and the lawsuit as “speculative and opportunistic,” pledging to “oppose it vigorously and on the facts.”
Unfortunately for the Ad Tech Collective Action, it will take a while until this dispute is resolved. Not only has it taken 18 months to get here, but it’s also unlikely that the trial will be settled before the end of 2025.
As Google faces investigations by regulators in the UK and the US regarding their ad tech operations, the tech giant has already faced substantial fines over the same anti-competitive behavior from the European Commission. At the same time, Google is also facing some issues with their Search Generative Experience that uses generative AI. AI-generative search engine.
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