Google slammed with antitrust lawsuit from DailyMail

The owner of online newspaper MailOnline, popularly known as ‘Daily Mail’, has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant’s power overselling online ad space means that the newspaper sees a little of the revenue of their content produces.

Allegedly, Google controls the tool used to sell an ad inventory and also, the space on the publisher’s page where ads can be placed and the exchange that decides where ads can be played is under Google’s control, says the lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

The lawsuit claims that “The lack of competition for publishers’ inventory depresses prices and reduces the amount and the quality of news available to readers, but Google ends up ahead because it controls a growing share of the ad space that remains.”

A similar allegation has been made by Texas and a group of other states in December.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. David Cicilline are leading a group of U.S. lawmakers which introduced legislation in March which made it easier for the news organization to negotiate with the platforms like Google and Facebook.

Google has not yet responded to the request for comment.