Department of Justice accuses Google of monopolizing advertising technology

The Department of Justice and eights states sued Google on Tuesday, claiming the internet giant has an illegal monopoly over online advertising.

It's the fifth federal antitrust suit against the Alphabet-owned company since 2020, when the DOJ sued it over what the government claims is a monopoly in search.

By buying up competitors and steering potential customers to its own products, Google "has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry," the government said in its complaint.

"Google uses its dominion over digital advertising technology to funnel more transactions to its own ad tech products where it extracts inflated fees to line its own pockets at the expense of the advertisers and publishers it purportedly serves," the suit states.