Google is confronting a massive £5 billion ($6.6 billion) class action lawsuit in the U.K. over allegations that it leveraged its overwhelming dominance in the online search market to inflate advertising prices and restrict competition.
Filed on Wednesday in the U.K. Competition Appeal Tribunal, the case accuses the tech giant of using its market position to lock out rival search engines and maintain exclusive control over search advertising. The legal challenge is being spearheaded by competition law expert Or Brook, represented by Geradin Partners, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of U.K.-based businesses that used Google’s ad services between Jan. 1, 2011, and the date of filing.
Brook claims that U.K. organizations “have almost no choice but to use Google Ads” and argues that the company has “overcharged advertisers” by exploiting its monopoly-like position. A 2020 report from the Competition and Markets Authority found Google controlled around 90% of search advertising revenues in the U.K.
The lawsuit highlights several practices that allegedly suppressed competition, including Google’s multibillion-dollar deals to make itself the default search engine on Apple’s Safari and Android devices, and prioritizing its own products within its Search Ads 360 platform.
This legal action is part of a broader global crackdown on Big Tech, with companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon also under increased regulatory and legal scrutiny. Google has previously faced a €4.3 billion fine from the EU in 2018 for antitrust violations related to Android bundling—an appeal in that case remains ongoing.
