Google has been facing an antitrust investigation focused on the company’s dominance of the advertising technology market for ten months now. Last year, attorney generals from 48 states, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia announced this investigation led by Texas. Since then, the investigation has expanded to other aspects of the company’s business, including its conduct in the search market.
During this time, California’s Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra neither accepted to join the investigation nor answered questions about why the state was not a part of it.
However, only recently, the state has opened its own antitrust investigation into Google. This means the search giant is now facing antitrust probes from every state in the US except one. Details about this new investigation are scarce at this point, and we don’t know what aspect of the company being investigated. However, according to anonymous sources, the scrutiny focuses on Google’s acquisitions and dominance in the ad tech market and search markets.
Apart from this, Google is facing probes from the justice department as well as from Congress. Hearing for the latter is scheduled for later this month, where Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to testify as part of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee’s inquiry. Amazon, Apple, and Facebook CEOs will also testify as part of the investigation.
