Google faces a lawsuit in Britain over its dominance in search engines. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Google is being sued in Britain for the alleged creation of a monopoly that allowed it to overcharge its advertisers.
In a press release from the Geradin Partners law firm, the Or Brook Class Representative Limited company, owned by Dr. Or Brook, alleged that Google “has used its dominant position to exclude actual and potential competitors from the general search and search advertising markets, allowing Google to charge supracompetitive ad prices.”
The class action suit was filed Tuesday by Brook’s company at the British Competition Appeal Tribunal. The filing purports that Google, owned by the U.S. company Alphabet, contracted phone makers to pre-install Google and the Chrome browser on iPhones and Android devices.
The suit alleged this allows Google to shut out its competition, as it makes its own advertisements work better within the search engines over ads from competitors.
The claim, filed on behalf of thousands of plaintiffs, seeks potential damages of up to $6.6 billion.
“Today, U.K. businesses and organizations, big or small, have almost no choice but to use Google ads to advertise their products and services,” Brook said.
“Google has been leveraging its dominance in the general search and search advertising market to overcharge advertisers.”
A spokesperson for Google said it would “argue against it vigorously.”
“Consumers and advertisers use Google because it is helpful, not because there are no alternatives,” the spokesperson said.
Google is already under investigation by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, which had opened investigations into Apple and Google in January to examine if their mobile ecosystems are breaking the country’s competition rules.
The CMA announced in September 2024 that it “provisionally found that Google is using anti-competitive practices in open-display ad tech, which it believes could be harming thousands of U.K. publishers and advertisers.”
