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Gannett Sues Google, Claims It Illegally Monopolized Ad Market

The lawsuit, which also named Google’s parent company Alphabet, was filed in federal court on Tuesday.

Gannett is taking on Google. The embattled news publisher sued Alphabet, the search engine’s parent company, in federal court on Tuesday, accusing it of illegally monopolizing the advertising market in a way that dampens news jobs, reduces ad revenue, and produces less quality journalism. “News publishers depend on digital ad revenue to provide timely, cutting-edge reporting and essential content communities rely on, yet Google’s practices have had negative implications that depress not only revenue, but also force the reduction and footprint of local news,” Gannett CEO Mike Reed said in a statement, according to The New York Times. Alphabet’s vice president of Google Ads, Dan Taylor, called the claims “simply wrong” and said the company would show how their product “benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”