A federal judge has allowed core antitrust claims by Gannett, Daily Mail and a class of digital publishers to proceed against Google, rejecting much of the company’s effort to end the cases before trial.
In an 88-page opinion issued Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York denied Google’s requests for summary judgment on the publishers’ principal claims involving its digital advertising business. He also rejected Google’s efforts to exclude key expert testimony supporting their claims of financial harm.
The litigation concerns the technology publishers use to sell advertising on their websites. The publishers contend that Google’s control of its publisher ad server and advertising exchange, along with practices governing advertising auctions, reduced their revenue or forced them to pay excessive fees.
The financial stakes are substantial. The opinion cites expert estimates of approximately $901 million in damages to Gannett and $600 million to Daily Mail. A separate expert for the publisher class calculated $1.72 billion in class-wide damages through March 31, 2024, with additional damages accruing afterward. Those figures are the plaintiffs’ expert estimates; the court did not award damages in this ruling.
“The publishers' case moving forward is the result of many years of work to remedy Google’s massive taking through their ad tech monopoly. This is vindication for our industry and a prime example of holding the powerful accountable,” said Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance.
“I am very pleased with this result,” Coffey added.
The cases build in part on findings from the federal government’s separate ad-tech antitrust case against Google in Virginia. Castel previously ruled that Google could not relitigate certain findings from that case, including that it unlawfully tied its publisher ad server to its AdX advertising exchange. Publishers still must establish the injury and damages attributable to the conduct at issue.
The Sept. 30 decision was mixed. Castel ruled for Google on Gannett and Daily Mail’s claims under New York’s General Business Law, on The Progressive’s claims and on Inform’s federal antitrust claims. He allowed claims by the AdX publisher class and Mikula Web Solutions to continue.
For the publishers whose core claims survived, the ruling preserves a path toward recovering advertising revenue they contend was lost because of Google’s conduct. It is a significant step in the litigation, but it does not establish how much, if anything, they will ultimately recover.
Source: Opinion and Order, In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sept. 30, 2026, Document 2041.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here