The Atlantic, Penske, and Vox Media have all sued Google for antitrust violations

Lawsuits in search of damages from Google’s unlawful advert tech monopoly are piling up following the Justice Division’s successful antitrust case. Vox Media, The Verge’s guardian firm, is the newest in a wave of media corporations which have filed go well with towards Google, in search of to be reimbursed for the monopoly income the tech firm allegedly made at publishers’ expense.

“Absent Google’s conduct, Vox Media would be capable of make obtainable much more, greater high quality impressions for buy on Vox Media’s webpages and create extra high-quality, premium journalism,” Vox Media alleges in its lawsuit, filed Wednesday within the Southern District of New York. The Atlantic, which is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, filed an analogous lawsuit in the identical district this week, as did Penske Media, which is an investor in Vox Media and owns manufacturers together with Rolling Stone, Billboard, and The Hollywood Reporter. Google can be dealing with lawsuits from advert tech suppliers like PubMatic and OpenX, a few of which testified within the trial about how Google’s dominance shut out competitors.

(The Verge’s newsroom is editorially unbiased of Vox Media’s enterprise choices and was not concerned within the resolution to file this lawsuit. You’ll be able to learn our ethics coverage right here.)

The lawsuits underscore the ways in which the extremely technical topic of the 2024 trial impacts an ecosystem of publishers and tech suppliers. For instance, the media firm complaints define how Google’s unlawful monopoly of the marketplace for writer advert servers, used to handle advert house on the market on writer web sites, has successfully stymied any viable rivals they could contemplate shifting to. The publishers additionally declare this dominance lets Google “depress costs for writer stock beneath aggressive ranges,” finally depriving them of larger income, with “no energy to barter the phrases of their ad-serving agreements.” All the lawsuits embrace related claims below federal antitrust legislation and New York enterprise legislation.

Japanese District of Virginia Decide Leonie Brinkema dominated in early 2025 that the DOJ efficiently proved that it had illegally monopolized the markets for writer advert servers and advert exchanges, which facilitate advert transactions. Brinkema additionally discovered Google had illegally tied the 2 merchandise collectively, making it very troublesome for publishers to modify suppliers. However she additionally dominated favorably for Google on one rely, discovering the DOJ hadn’t proven it monopolized the marketplace for advertiser-side shopping for instruments.

“Vox Media’s high-quality journalism is funded by our means to promote digital promoting towards our content material, and by partaking in over a decade of anticompetitive and illegal habits, Google has disadvantaged Vox Media of this income,” Vox Media Head of Communications Lauren Starke mentioned in an announcement. “In submitting this lawsuit, we’re in search of financial damages and an finish to Google’s misleading and manipulative practices in an effort to shield our means to proceed investing within the trusted content material that our viewers depends upon.”

“We filed this go well with to make sure The Atlantic is pretty compensated for the monetary injury Google has triggered us, and to create a extra honest taking part in discipline for the publishing and promoting industries,” Atlantic spokesperson Anna Bross mentioned in an announcement. Penske Media didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Google spokesperson Jackie Berté known as the allegations “meritless,” in an announcement. “Advertisers and publishers have many decisions and once they select Google’s advert tech instruments it’s as a result of they’re efficient, reasonably priced and simple to make use of.”

Brinkema is predicted to rule this 12 months on the second part of the trial, which targeted on what Google needs to be required to do to revive competitors to the markets it monopolized. The ruling might end in something from new restrictions on Google’s habits, to a break up of its advert tech enterprise.

Replace, January 14th: Added assertion from The Atlantic.