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Senators skeptical of Google claim it doesn’t have ad market monopoly

Google and its defenders, such as tech trade association NetChoice, of which Google parent company Alphabet is a member, argue that the platform is big but not a monopoly because it is popular with consumers; has plenty of competition with other large tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft; and advertising costs have decreased significantly over the last 10 years.

“Google is no monopoly,” NetChoice Vice President Carl Szabo wrote in his testimony for the Tuesday hearing. “It’s wildly popular with consumers, yes. And true, it’s also very popular with investors. But the company faces competition from all corners, including from other tech platforms such as Facebook and Amazon (which are simultaneously and thus illogically also dubbed monopolies).”

He added that when looking at the “relevant” market that includes TV and newspaper ads, “Google’s market share is a modest 29%. In other words, it’s nowhere close to being a monopoly, which the Supreme Court informally defines as having at least 75 % market share.”