AUSTIN – Texas looks to be following the U.S. Department of Justice and targeting Google with an antitrust lawsuit, according to media reports.
The pending lawsuit comes as no surprise, as Texas has been investigating Google for more than a year and is participating in the DOJ’s complaint, which alleges Google violated antitrust laws by entering into exclusionary agreements to distribute the company’s flagship search engine.
The DOJ’s complaint asserts that Google’s anticompetitive practices have had harmful effects on competition and consumers – practices such as restricting search competition and suppressing competition in advertising.
For the state’s upcoming suit against Google, Paxton has tapped two notable law firms, The Lanier Law Firm in Houston and Chicago’s Keller Lenkner.
Lanier told The Record the AG’s office would be handling all press-related matters but did add that “antitrust laws exist to break up monopolies like those of the tech barons.”
Lanier gave a total of $10,000 to Paxton’s 2018 campaign, according to Transparency USA.
If Paxton does file suit against Google this month, it won’t be his first antitrust suit against a tech company.
Last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly monopolizing the market for personal social networking services.