America's largest media corporation sues Google.

Gannett, owner of USA Today and more than 200 local newspapers in the US, accuses Google of monopolizing the online advertising market.

Gannett filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York on June 20, seeking damages. In the lawsuit, Gannett alleges that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, control how publishers buy and sell online advertising.

"This significantly reduced revenue for publishers and Google's competitors, while Google reaped huge profits from its monopoly," the lawsuit states. Gannet currently owns USA Today and more than 200 other local newspapers in the U.S. They are the nation's largest newspaper conglomerate by circulation.

Google controls approximately 25% of the online advertising market in the US. Meta, Amazon, and TikTok together hold over 30% of the market share. Other publishers and websites collectively hold nearly 40%. The market share of these tech giants has begun to decline slightly, but Google remains the biggest player.

This means that publishers still have to rely in part on Google's advertising technology to support their operations. Gannett said that Google controls 90% of the advertising market for publishers.

The Gannett logo outside its headquarters in Virginia (USA). Photo: Reuters

In a statement yesterday, Chairman and CEO Michael Reed said that Google's dominance in the online advertising market "has impacted publishers, readers, and many others." "Online advertising is the lifeblood of the digital economy . Without free and fair competition for advertising space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms," he said.

Dan Taylor, Google's vice president of global advertising, told CNN that the allegations were "completely false." "Publishing houses have many options when it comes to generating advertising revenue. In fact, Gannett used dozens of different advertising services, including Google Ad Manager. When publishing houses choose Google's tools, they also retain a significant portion of the revenue. We will demonstrate to the court how our advertising tools benefit publishing houses and help them finance their digital content," he said.

Gannett's move comes as Google faces increasing accusations of monopolistic practices in the US and Europe in the advertising sector, which is its main source of revenue.

Last week, EU officials said Google's advertising business should be broken up. They accused the tech giant of being involved in too many stages of the advertising supply chain, creating conflicts of interest and threatening competition.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice and eight states also sued Google, accusing the company of threatening competition due to its dominance in the digital advertising market. They also called for the breakup of this division.

Ha Thu (according to CNN)

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