TapTechNews June 6th news, the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled on Wednesday that Google must face a lawsuit worth £13.6 billion (TapTechNews note: currently about 126.094 billion Chinese yuan) alleging that Google abuses its dominant position in the online advertising market.
This lawsuit was filed by an organization called the AdTech Collective Action LLP, which alleges Google's anti-competitive behavior has led to losses for online publishers in the UK.
Google's parent company, Alphabet, called the case incoherent and tried to dismiss the lawsuit, and the company's lawyer said in court filings that it strongly opposes the relevant accusations. But in the end, the London Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that the case can now go to trial.
Claudio Pollack, a former head of the UK's Communications Authority and now a member of the AdTech Collective Action organization, told the BBC that This is a very important decision for the victims of Google's anti-competitive behavior in the advertising technology field. Google must give a full explanation of its practices. Google's legal director, Oliver Bethell, described the lawsuit as opportunism and will resolutely oppose it based on the facts.
It is understood that the advertising technology involved in these cases is often simply called AdTech, which determines which online ads users will see and how much payout it will bring to publishers. Hosting such ads is a huge source of revenue for many websites. This lawsuit alleges that Google has a dominant position in web search, uses its advantages to preferentially recommend the products and services it wants to recommend, abuses its dominance in advertising, resulting in some websites not only having their income reduced but also having to pay high fees to Google.
It has been 18 months since this case was filed, and now it has finally been confirmed that it can proceed to trial, but no trial date has been set yet. The CAT said in a written ruling that although the case will continue, a ruling is unlikely to be made before the end of 2025.
Google is facing investigations by UK, European and US regulators into its advertising technology business, after the company has already faced billions of pounds in fines from the European Commission for anti-competitive behavior.