Alphabet Inc's Google asked a federal judge on Friday to dismiss the majority of an antitrust lawsuit filed by Texas and other states that accused the search giant of abusing its dominance of the online advertising market.
In a court filing, Google said that the states failed to show that they illegally worked with Facebook, now Meta, to counter header bidding, a technology that publishers developed to make money from advertising placed on their websites. Facebook is not a defendant in the lawsuit.
The states had also alleged that Google used at least three programs to manipulate ads to lure advertisers and publishers into using Google's tools.
The states had a collection of grievances but no proof of wrongdoing, according to Google. The states waited too long to file a lawsuit, according to Google.
They criticize Google for not designing its products to suit its rivals' needs and making improvements to its products that leave its competitors too far behind. The company said that they see the solution to Google's success as holding Google back.
Google has asked for four of the six counts to be dismissed with prejudice, which means it can't be brought back to the same court.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said they would press on with the fight. He said that the company whose motto was once 'Don't Be Evil' now asks the world to look at their egregious monopoly abuses and see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.
The Texas lawsuit was stayed in September despite the fact that it had two other claims based on state law. The search giant did not ask for them to be dismissed on Friday, but may be in the future.
The lawsuit is part of a long list of antitrust investigations and federal and state litigation against the Big Tech platforms.