US poised to sue Google Tuesday in landmark antitrust case

The US Justice Department is poised to sue Alphabet Inc’s Google Tuesday for allegedly violating antitrust laws by abusing its power as the world’s largest search engine, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The lawsuit, the most significant monopoly case to be filed in the US in decades, will accuse Google of squashing competition to protect its dominance over internet search, where it controls about 90 per cent of the market in the US.

The complaint is the first phase of what’s shaping up as a multi-pronged attack against Google. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is preparing a complaint against the company over its conduct in the digital-advertising market, where it controls much of the technology used by advertisers and publishers to buy and sell display ads across the web.