Congress will launch a bipartisan effort to break up Google's advertising hegemony in another pitched battle between lawmakers and big tech.
The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act would prohibit companies with more than $20 billion in digital advertising transactions from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising process.
The bill was co-sponsored by Sens. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ted Cruz R. Texas Amy Klobuchar D. Minn. and Richard Blumenthal D. Conn.
In the first quarter alone, Alphabet's parent company Alphabet had earnings in excess of $54 billion from digital advertising. In order to comply with the new federal requirements, the bill would need to split up in some form.
In 2020, the company s legal troubles began with a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit, which claimed that Google used exclusive deals with wireless carriers and phone makers to control competition. Then-Attorney General William Burr said that Google held a grip on the internet for millions beholden to an unlawful monopolist. MISINFORMATION Biden's Justice Department began new investigations into Google's antitrust practices regarding digital advertising, but there is no lawsuit yet regarding the issue.
In January this year, Texas filed a lawsuit, which has grown into a multi-state effort, over its advertising practice. The lawsuit by Google Director of Economic Policy Adam Cohen said that the company saw it as more heat than light that did not meet the legal standard to send the case to trial. The complaint misrepresents our business, products and motives, and we are moving to dismiss it because it does not offer plausible antitrust claims, Cphen wrote in a blog post.
Google maintains a role in multiple steps of its digital advertising practice — a practice that Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, lambasted as wearing multiple hats simultaneously.
Lee told the Journal this week that if a company can wear all of these hats simultaneously, it can engage in conduct that harms everyone.
The spokesperson argued that the data brokers who threaten Americans privacy and flood them with spammy ads are the real problem.
If the law goes into effect, companies would have a year to comply with the new requirements.