North Georgia media firm sues Google and Fb

Times-Journal Inc., a media company that publishes several northern Georgia newspapers, including Catoosa County News and Walker County Messenger, is suing Google and Facebook.

The editor claims the social media giants have violated the Federal Cartel and Monopoly Act to an extent that “threatens the extinction of local newspapers across the country”.

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The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, relates to the results of a 2020 antitrust investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives into the digital advertising market that found the “Anticompetitive and monopoly practices by Google and Facebook had a profound impact”. on the free and diverse press in our country, especially the newspaper industry. “

“There is no longer a competitive market in which newspapers can compete fairly for online advertising revenue. Google has vertically integrated itself through hundreds of mergers and acquisitions to give dominion over all sellers, buyers, and middlemen in the market. It has the market internally and have consumed most of the revenue, “says the complaint. “Google’s unlawful anti-competitive behavior is directly depriving newspapers across the country, including plaintiffs, of their primary source of income. The freedom of the press is not at stake, but the press itself. “

In addition to Catoosa County News and Walker Messenger, Times-Journal Inc. publishes the Calhoun Times, Marietta Daily Journal, Cherokee Tribune, Cherokee Tribune & Ledger News, and Morgan County Citizen.

Google and Facebook have not yet responded publicly to the lawsuit, but Adam Cohen, Google’s director of economic policy, wrote a blog post in January addressing similar allegations by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who attended a 10- States lawsuit against Google was involved for “anti-competitive behavior” in the online advertising industry.

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In the post, Cohen argued that Google was working to “do the right thing” to allay concerns from publishers, advertisers, and those who use the company’s services.

“Our ad tech competitors and big partners don’t always like every decision we make – we will never be able to please everyone. But that is little evidence of wrongdoing and certainly not a credible basis for an antitrust lawsuit, ”Cohen wrote.

The lawsuit argues that Google and Facebook have harmed the press with a deal known as “Jedi Blue” from 2018, in which Facebook agreed not to contest Google’s advertising business in exchange for special treatment at Google’s ad auctions.

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“The consideration was as follows – Facebook would largely forego its advance in header bidding and instead bid via Google’s ad server. In return, Google agreed to give Facebook preferential treatment at its auctions, ”said the lawsuit. “This deal has contained a growing threat to Google’s primacy and has further strengthened its stranglehold on the market.”

The Jedi Blue deal isn’t the only way Google and Facebook have harmed the media industry, according to the lawsuit. It also claimed that they were “directly” responsible for large declines in sales across the industry.

“Since 2006, newspaper advertising revenue, which is critical to funding high quality journalism, has decreased by over 50%. Newspaper advertising declined from $ 49 billion in 2006 to $ 16.5 billion in 2017 and the newspaper industry is under threat, “the lawsuit said.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1990-2016 were almost 30,000 newspaper jobs disappeared – a decrease of 60% in the industry. “

The decline in newspaper revenue across the country was “directly” caused by corporate actions, the lawsuit said, and contributed to the rise in public distrust of the media.

“Despite a significant increase in online traffic among the country’s leading newspapers, print and digital newsrooms across the country are laying off reporters or folding altogether. As a result, communities across the United States are increasingly relinquishing sources of local news, ”the complaint read. “The rise of platform gatekeepers – and the market power of Google and Facebook – has contributed to the demise of trusted news sources.”

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Contact Kelcey Caulder at [email protected] or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @kelceycaulder.

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