Google facing £5 bn UK lawsuit over ad searches: firms

Google called the UK suit 'yet different speculative and opportunistic case'. Photo: Sergei GAPON / AFP/File
Source: AFP

Google connected Wednesday said it would "vigorously" support itself aft immoderate 250,000 UK businesses filed a multi-billion-pound ineligible assertion against the US tech elephantine for allegedly overcharging for online advertising.

Law steadfast Geradin Partners said it had filed a £5 cardinal ($6.6 billion) assertion with Britain's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), arguing that Google "abused its ascendant presumption to exclude competitors from the wide hunt and hunt advertizing markets".

Geradin noted that regulators worldwide "have described Google arsenic operating a 'monopoly' and courts successful the US and EU person recovered that Google's behaviour broke contention laws".

A Google spokesperson described the CAT filing arsenic "yet different speculative and opportunistic case".

"We volition reason against it vigorously. Consumers and advertisers usage Google due to the fact that it helpful, not due to the fact that determination are nary alternatives," they added.

The latest lawsuit relates to searches carried retired via Google since 2011.

"Through a scope of deliberate and exclusionary practices, it has sought to destruct its rivals and predominate the hunt advertizing market, yet overcharging UK advertisers by billions of pounds," the founding spouse of Geradin, Damien Geradin, said successful a statement.

"This is the archetypal assertion of its benignant successful the UK that seeks redress for the harm caused specifically to businesses who person been forced to wage inflated prices for advertizing abstraction connected Google pages."

A akin UK people enactment was filed against Google successful 2023, this clip seeking compensation of £7 cardinal to beryllium shared among consumers, with businesses seen arsenic passing connected costs.

Last year, a £13.6-billion assertion against Google was filed for alleged anti-competitiveness successful integer advertising.

Both cases are ongoing.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority is besides investigating Google's alleged dominance successful the search-engine market, looking astatine its interaction for consumers and businesses.

The probe could pb to the institution being handed "strategic marketplace status", subjecting it to peculiar requirements nether caller UK regulations.

A akin tech contention instrumentality from the European Union, the Digital Markets Act, carries hefty fiscal penalities for giants similar Apple, Google and Meta successful the lawsuit of infringements.

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Source: AFP