Business Insider Files Complaint Against Google’s Advertising “Monopoly”

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Business Insider Files Complaint Against Google’s Advertising ‘Monopoly’

Published on: 22nd September 2025 at 12:06 PM

Aimee Edwards

6 Min Read

Business Insider has filed an 89-page complaint in the New York District Courts accusing Google of unlawfully monopolising digital advertising markets and suppressing publishers’ revenues.
On September 8, Insider, Inc., the publisher of Business Insider, lodged a lawsuit against Google and its parent Alphabet, alleging that the tech giant has engaged in a years-long scheme to dominate ad tech and deprive publishers of fair revenue, one that the publisher said is “widely profitable”.
The case follows a wave of global regulatory actions and U.S. antitrust victories against Google, with the publisher now seeking damages and injunctive relief to “restore competition in the
monopolised markets and protect the production of trusted, essential content millions of Americans rely on”.

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At the centre of the filing is Google’s control of two critical pieces of ad tech: its publisher ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), and its ad exchange, DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX). Business Insider alleges that Google unlawfully tied these products together, forcing publishers to use DFP in order to access AdX, where the majority of advertisers are concentrated.
Business Insider claims this tie created a chokehold on digital publishers, leaving them little choice but to accept Google’s terms. With DFP holding over 90 per cent of the publisher ad server market and AdX transacting 60 to 70 per cent of exchange-based ad inventory, the lawsuit argues that Google effectively eliminated competition while extracting monopoly profits.
The complaint details how Google allegedly manipulated real-time bidding processes to its advantage. Among the practices cited are:

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Dynamic Allocation: After acquiring DoubleClick in 2008, Google introduced a rule in DFP that allowed AdX to bid in real time against rivals who could only submit “static bids” based on historical averages. AdX would win if its dynamic bid was equal to or just one cent higher than the highest static bid. The complaint states that this system meant AdX was the only exchange permitted to bid dynamically, allowing it to purchase valuable impressions at depressed prices.
Last Look: To counter publisher innovations like client-side header bidding, which allowed multiple exchanges to bid simultaneously, Google used DFP to pass the winning header-bidding price to AdX as a floor. AdX could then win an impression by matching or slightly exceeding that amount. The complaint describes this as insider trading: AdX “cheated off its rivals” and won impressions without offering the true highest bid .
Unified Auction and Minimum Bid to Win: In 2019, Google replaced Last Look with a “Unified Auction” but introduced “Minimum Bid to Win.” After each auction, DFP told participating buyers the second-highest bid, the lowest price at which the winner could have secured the impression. Google’s bidding algorithms then used this information in future auctions, giving AdX a continued advantage functionally identical to Last Look.

The lawsuit also references other insider practices that allegedly allowed Google to manipulate pricing and reinforce its exchange dominance.
B&T contacted Google for comment but it did not respond prior to publication.
Business Insider’s action comes on the heels of significant regulatory momentum against Google. In April 2025, a federal court in Virginia found that Google “willfully engag