In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation

Berger Montague is co-lead counsel representing “Publishers,” i.e., ad-supported online content companies, in a suit alleging that Google engaged in a scheme to monopolize markets for products publishers use to sell their ad inventory. Plaintiffs alleges that Google’s scheme to monopolize suppresses the ad revenues Publishers can generate on their content.

The proposed classes include publishers in the United States that sold digital display advertising inventory through Google’s products between December 23, 2016 and the date the Court certifies the class.

Publishers use ad servers to identify ad inventory created when users load the Publishers’ webpages and then call out to ad auction platforms that run auctions among advertisers’ ad tech tools to fill the Publishes’ ad inventory. These ad servers and auction platforms are part of what is known as the “Ad Tech Stack,” a series of services that work together to facilitate the purchase and sale of digital display ads on the web. Google also controls the markets for the tools that advertisers use to participate in auction platform auctions.

Plaintiffs allege that Google used its market power in the markets throughout the Ad Tech Stack to inhibit innovations that would have threatened its market dominance, which reinforced Google’s market power and enabled Google to charge Publishers a supracompetitive price for its tools.

Read more about this case:

Berger Montague Files Antitrust Class Action Against Google on Behalf of Ad-Supported Online Content Creators (December 24, 2020).

In re: Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation (Law360)

About Berger Montague
Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among other practice areas. For more than 50 years Berger Montague has played leading roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $60 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.