According to Bloomberg News, the Biden administration is preparing to sue Google over alleged antitrust violations in the digital advertising market.
The Justice Department is expected to file a federal lawsuit against the search engine’s parent company Alphabet Inc. as soon as Tuesday.
The Post has reached out to Alphabet Inc. and the Justice Department for comment.
The lawsuit is expected to target Google’s advertising business, which accounts for roughly 80% of its revenue. The company is expected to earn $73.8 billion in digital ad revenue this year.
Google generates revenue from its interconnected ad tech businesses, which connect advertisers with newspapers, websites, and other firms looking to host them, in addition to its well-known free search.
Advertisers and website publishers have complained that Google has not been forthcoming about where advertising dollars are spent, specifically how much goes to publishers and how much goes to Google.
Google previously claimed that the ad tech ecosystem competed with Facebook, AT&T, Comcast, and others.
While Google remains by far the market leader, its share of digital ad revenue in the United States has been eroding, falling from 36.7% in 2016 to 28.8% last year, according to Insider Intelligence.
This would be the Justice Department’s second lawsuit against Google, accusing it of monopoly power.
During the Trump administration, then-Attorney General William Barr filed a lawsuit against Google over its search engine, accusing the company of limiting competition through exclusive distribution deals with wireless carriers and phone manufacturers.
The Barr v. Google lawsuit is set to go to trial in September.
Three state attorneys general have also taken the company to court on three separate occasions.
Texas, Indiana, Washington State, and the District of Columbia sued Google last year for what they claimed were deceptive location-tracking practices that infringed on users’ privacy.
Several other states joined the lawsuit. Google eventually agreed to pay $391.5 million to settle with 40 states.