Another month, another antitrust lawsuit for Google, or in this case two of them as the company is being sued in the UK and the Netherlands over its adtech practices.

According to a report from Reuters, publishers in both regions are seeking damages, claiming that the adtech practices of Google are anti-competitive. To that end, the publishers are looking at roughly €25 billion in damages should the lawsuit prove successful.

“It is time that Google owns up to its responsibilities and pays back the damages it has caused to this important industry. That is why today we are announcing these actions across two jurisdictions to obtain compensation for EU and UK publishers,” noted Damien Geradin from Geradin Partners, in a statement to Reuters.

This is not the first time that the advertising technology platform of Google has been investigated by regulators and watchdogs in the EU, with French authorities fining the company €220 million over its use of ad servers for online publishers mobile apps.

As TechCrunch points out, with Google failing to dispute the facts in that antitrust fine, it looks this latest pair of lawsuits are expecting a positive outcome.

“The French Competition Authority found Google had abused its dominant position by engaging in various forms of self-preferencing in breach of Article 102 TFEU,” highlighted Geradin Partners.

“Specifically, Google used its publisher ad servers by favouring its own ad exchange and had used its ad exchange to favour its publisher ad server. Both practices had been in place since 2014. Google’s anticompetitive conduct was found to have caused harm to publishers. Google did not contest the findings,” it added.

It is unclear whether both lawsuits will be successful, but given the slew of antitrust fines levelled against Google and other big tech firms in the EU of late, is is looking highly likely.

[Image – Photo by Ahmed Shabana on Unsplash]