The Wisconsin Newspaper Association joins other media organizations around the world in praising the April 17 federal court ruling that found Google illegally maintained a monopoly in advertising technology.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in advertising technology that has allowed the company to force news and content publishers to use its services and offer them lower payouts for ad space than they would otherwise receive in a competitive market.
The News/Media Alliance, along with other media organizations have advocated on behalf of news media publishers against Google’s unlawfully anticompetitive actions.
“We are strongly supportive of a similar lawsuit in Texas that will follow, as well as the Gannett lawsuit currently being litigated on the same issues. Much of this was prompted in the House Report that documented Google’s abuse in the ad tech ecosystem, the scope of which is wide-reaching,” a statement released April 17 by NMA reads.
“The news media industry hails the court’s decision to again hold Google accountable for decades of abuse of its market power,” Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the NMA, said in a press release. “Google’s monopolistic tactics—this time in the advertising market—have starved content creators of the revenues they deserve and need to sustain quality journalism. Today is a big day for our industry.
Media organizations have repeatedly highlighted the extensive harm Google’s anti-competitive actions have caused to both publishers and consumers. The NMA has offered countless testimony on this issue, laying out the damage Google’s monopoly has caused publishers of all sizes, noting a particularly disproportionate impact on minority media.
The decision, when coupled with Google’s dominance in search recently affirmed by the courts in a separate case, illustrates the stranglehold Google has on consumer data and advertising that has led to devastating revenue loss for creators of original, quality content.
The NMA weighed in on the other Google antitrust case by submitting a white paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism,” to the court for review.
Fixing the Google monopoly problem was always the premise of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would address the marketplace imbalance that has had a devastating impact on news media’s ability to reinvest in quality journalism. Media organizations will continue to work with US Senators John Kennedy and Amy Klobuchar to pass the JCPA.
