A West Virginia newspaper company is suing Google and Facebook, accusing the tech giants of monopolizing the digital advertising market.
HD Media, which owns the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Gazette-Mail and other papers in the state, filed a 42-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on Friday, according to Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine covering the newspaper industry. The suit is believed to be the first of its kind filed by a newspaper company against the Silicon Valley companies for monopolistic practices.
“We invite every other newspaper in America to join this cause,” Doug Reynolds, HD Media managing partner, said. “We are fighting not only for the future of the press but also the preservation of our democracy.”
HD Media claims Google monopolized the digital advertising market to an extent that it’s been able to extract a supracompetitive share of the newspaper company’s advertising revenues, hindering the ability to effectively monetize its content.
The complaint alleges that Google’s monopolization of the ad market threatens the extinction of local newspapers. The lost advertising revenues from the newspaper industry have directly gone to Google and Facebook as a result of the practice, the complaint reads.
In 2019, it was estimated that Google and Facebook accounted for more than half of all digital ad spending, according to a report by the New York Times.
Tech companies, such as Facebook, have come under scrutiny for a number of issues, including concerns that Silicon Valley giants are engaged in censoring people who carry certain viewpoints.
Last October, the Justice Department filed a suit against Google, accusing them of illegally protecting its monopoly over internet searches and the digital ad market. Two other suits were filed over similar matters by dozens of states in December.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Google and Facebook for comment.
