Adtech company PubMatic has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising technology market. The complaint, filed in U.S. court, seeks billions of dollars in damages, according to a Bloomberg report.
This marks the second time an advertising exchange has taken Google to court since a federal judge ruled in April that the company had illegally monopolized ad exchanges and ad servers. Another trial is scheduled this month to determine whether Google should be required to divest parts of its advertising business.
PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel said the lawsuit goes beyond monetary damages, stressing the need to restore fairness in the digital advertising ecosystem.
“It felt like for many years no matter how well we innovated there was a barrier holding us back,” Goel told Bloomberg. “That barrier wasn’t the limits of our technology. It was Google’s illegal monopoly. Every time we adapted or innovated, Google found new ways to stack the deck.”
PubMatic provides publishers with tools to sell ad inventory, competing directly with Google Ad Manager (formerly DoubleClick). Testimony from last year’s antitrust trial revealed that Google had once considered acquiring PubMatic back in 2011 but instead bought rival Admeld.
The case adds to the mounting regulatory and legal pressure on Google, which faces heightened scrutiny over its dominance across the digital ads supply chain.
