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Ken Paxton, attorney general for the US state of Texas, yesterday filed a competition lawsuit against the Internet company Google, which could cause serious problems for the company in its home market.

Under the leadership of the Texans, the states want to prove that Google and Facebook have made agreements with each other.

So that they don't get in the way of the lucrative online advertising network business.

Specifically, the issue is that Google is said to have given its competitor advantages, in return Facebook has foregone its own brokerage business that is disadvantageous for Google.

The entire lawsuit is extremely technical, requiring a detailed understanding of online advertising mechanisms - some Texans may wonder why Paxton is spending his time on it.

Therefore, on Tuesday, Paxton published a suitable image video to present the meaning of the lawsuit as publicly as possible:

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"Google used its market power to control prices for Internet advertising, to form a cartel and to manipulate auctions," says Paxton, accompanied by video snippets of international news about various Google cartel proceedings.

It is about "enormous violations of the law," explains Paxton.

"Whenever you visit a news website, be it your local newspaper or Wall Street, you'll see ads placed there by Google."

Divide the market power

Google kept from the public that the underlying auctions for the advertising space on the Internet had been manipulated - and that money had therefore flowed into Google's pockets, which should actually have flowed to the publishers.

Paxton's explanatory video makes it clear why, from the point of view of the suing states, there is more to it than a competition between the Internet giants for market shares on the Internet: If the allegations are correct, Google has abused its dual role as an advertising broker and advertising space provider on the Internet to get advertising prices at the expense of local media companies to manipulate.

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This also makes it clear why the states - and not the US government alone - are taking care of the case.

For them, it's about the well-being of the local economy.

The complaint has 130 pages and six counts: The group is said to have forced publishers to participate in its advertising network.

It is said to have prevented the site operators from offering their advertising space on competing auction sites.

And he is said to have induced large advertisers to only book ads using Google's own advertising tools.

But the most serious is the accusation that Google and Facebook should have worked together to secure the advertising power on the Internet as an oligopoly.

Specifically, Paxton and his colleagues are interested in a technique called "header bidding".

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The technology is about who can be the first to bid on the advertising space on the Internet.

Facebook had used the technology so that publishers and operators of several advertising networks could collect bids for their advertising space on the net at the same time.

"Brazenly broken laws"

But that didn't suit Google.

So, according to the allegation of the Texans, leading Google executives had agreed with their Facebook counterparts and ensured that Facebook no longer offered the technology in its advertising network.

In return, Google has granted Facebook special conditions.

In a first brief statement, the group denied the allegations: "Attorney General Paxton's allegations are unfounded." Google has invested in advertising technology, which is why prices in the market have fallen.

Google's broker prices are also below the market average.

All of these are signs of a functioning market for online advertising.

Google has already represented this defense several times, but Paxton has an answer ready: Google always shows to the outside that it has only achieved its market position through its own innovations, according to the complaint.

But internal Google documents would refute the image of the ingenious Google engineers, writes Paxton.

"Instead, Google has brazenly broken laws to consolidate its own position."

Paxton now wants to prove his charges in a trial before a jury, together with his colleagues from various other states.

What is noticeable here is that all the states concerned are governed by republicans.

The Republican Party under President Trump has viewed Google with suspicion for years.

The Republicans see their political positions underrepresented in Google's search results and fear manipulation of the search results in favor of the political opponent.

However, Trump and his supporters have never been able to provide evidence to support this claim.

Breaking up the internet giants?

For Facebook, the lawsuit initially only brings another secondary theater of war.

The group currently has to face proceedings by the US competition authority, the Federal Trade Commission, in which the authority is even calling for the group to be broken up.

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Facebook has strengthened its monopoly position in the market for social networks through its acquisitions from competitors like Whatsapp and has violated competition rules in the process, is the allegation of the also Republican-dominated authority, which presented its lawsuit on December 9th.

The protagonists are currently pushing both proceedings as quickly as possible in order to at least formally open the proceedings before the end of President Trump's term in office.

How the proceedings will then be continued under President Joe Biden is open, at least in the case of Facebook:

Biden had spoken out against the smashing of the Internet giants in the election campaign.

However, the social politician could leave the economic policy to his Vice President Kamala Harris.

And until the election campaign as a Democratic Senator from California, she also had an open ear for the interests of the local Internet companies in Washington.