By Jay Bemis | Advertising Systems Inc.
It may not need any get-out-of-jail free cards just yet, but Google has found itself fighting a second lawsuit within the past two years that claims it operates an illegal ad tech monopoly.
A federal judge ruled last week that Google does operate an illegal ad tech monopoly, one that deprived “rivals of the ability to compete” and “harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and ultimately consumers of information on the open web.”
However, the judge, Leonie Brinkema, did dismiss a claim that Google runs an ad network monopoly.
Last week’s ruling follows another DOJ case from last summer in which it was found that Google doesrun an online search monopoly.
Google plans to appeal both rulings.
How Do the Rulings Affect the World’s Most-Used Search Engine?
Despite limited changes for the search engine world in general, the court findings will harbor uncertainty among SEO pros, according to Pete Meyers, principal innovation architect at Moz. Though the outcome is a big deal for Google, it won’t change marketers’ day-to-day workflows, he said.
“No court can magically shift a market where Google controls 95% of search,” Meyers said.
However, the rulings do come during a period of change for Google, thanks to generative AI competition and shifting search behaviors. Both eventually could make Google more cautious, allowing room for traditional competitors like Microsoft, new competitors like OpenAI’s SearchGPT, product search like Amazon, and social search such as TikTok, Meyers said.
Still, these search engines are not identical, and optimizing for more will complicate things for SEO professionals, said Neil Patel, cofounder of NP digital.
“If the antitrust trial against Google leads to a more competitive search market, you might need to optimize for multiple search engines, not just Google,” he wrote in a blog post.\
Argues Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy and research at Amsive, even if the court outcomes cause a loss in Google’s massive organic market share, and in the meantime boost other search engines like Bing, SEO fundamentals would remain the same on those search engines.
“We are already seeing major threats to Google outside of the monopoly ruling,” she said. “From ChatGPT to Perplexity to TikTok, users are searching in new and different ways.” She says large language models (LLMs) could cause greater risk to Google in the short term than the monopoly ruling.
Another Warning to Google: The British Are Coming
Google also is the subject of a new class action lawsuit in the United Kingdom in which the plaintiff is seeking up to $6.6 billion in damages. The case, filed last week in the U.K. Competition Appeal Tribunal, alleges that Google abused its dominance in the online search ad market by restricting competing search engines so it could strengthen its own position — and increase advertising prices.
That suit is being led by competition law academic Or Brook. It covers hundreds of thousands of U.K.-based organizations that used Google’s search ad services between Jan. 1, 2011, and the date of the claim.
Brook says the status quo is that Google’s dominance leaves companies little choice but to use Google ads.
“Regulators around the world have described Google as a monopoly and securing a spot on Google’s top pages is essential for visibility,” Brook said in bringing the suit.
It added: “Google has been leveraging its dominance in the general search and search advertising market to overcharge advertisers. This class action is about holding Google accountable for its unlawful practices. It is also about seeking compensation on behalf of UK advertisers who have been overcharged.”
