Court rules Google must face £13.6bn advertising lawsuit

The case, brought by a group called Ad Tech Collective Action LLP, alleges the search giant behaved in an anti-competitive way which caused online publishers in the UK to lose money.

“This is a decision of major importance to the victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in adtech," said former Ofcom director Claudio Pollack, now a partner in Ad Tech Collective Action.

The cases concerns advertising technology, usually shortened to adtech, which decides which online adverts people see, as well as how much they cost to publishers.

Hosting such adverts is a huge source of revenue for many websites - Ad Tech Collective Action says digital advertising spend reached $490 billion in 2021.

Ad Tech Collective Action says Google has engaged in what is known as "self-preferencing" - in other words promoting its own products and services more prominently than that of its rivals.

It says that means publishers end up getting less money for the ads they host as well as having to pay "very high" fees to Google.

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