Texas Argues for Multistate Antitrust Lawsuit to Proceed Against Google

States have sufficiently argued Google is violating antitrust law through its online advertising agreement with Facebook, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) argued Tuesday in docket 1:21-md-03010 before the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Google asked the court to toss out the multistate lawsuit in January, arguing the state’s lawsuit is “untimely” and fails to “plausibly” allege the agreement with Facebook violates antitrust law. Paxton noted the European Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority launched probes into the Jedi Blue agreement between the two companies, “solidifying the effort to end Google’s monopolization of the internet.” Google “demonstrably diminished publishers’ ability to monetize content, increased advertisers’ costs, and directly harmed consumers,” Paxton said.