PubMatic files lawsuit against Google

PubMatic (PUBM) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Google (GOOG) to seek financial damages and to restore fair competition, following years-long harm caused by Google’s proven and repeated monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior in certain digital advertising markets. The lawsuit follows the ruling from the U.S. District Court in April, which found that Google had “willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.” PubMatic’s complaint outlines how Google’s illegal actions directly and measurably impacted PubMatic, impeding the company’s ability to reach its full potential in terms of market share and revenue growth and compete on a level playing field. Google’s dominance both deprived publishers and advertisers of the benefits of fair competition and caused real damage to consumers in the form of higher prices due to advertising cost increases, less diversity of content and voices, and less transparency.