There’s an old saying — no doubt you’ve heard it — that justice delayed is justice denied. And so it is with the news business’ longstanding lament that Google engages in monopolistic practices aimed at driving down the value of digital advertising. Gilad Edelman, writing for The Atlantic, describes it this way:
If the story of journalism’s 21st-century decline were purely a tale of technological disruption — of print dinosaurs failing to adapt to the internet — that would be painful enough for those of us who believe in the importance of a robust free press. The truth hurts even more. Big Tech platforms didn’t just out-compete media organizations for the bulk of the advertising-revenue pie. They also cheated them out of much of what was left over, and got away with it.
The Atlantic is among a number of media organizations that filed suit against Google this month. I’m kind of stunned that they are only suing now, because the issue they’ve identified goes back many years. As Charlotte Tobitt reports for the Press Gazette, the federal lawsuit was brought earlier this month by The Atlantic as well as Penske Media Corp., which owns Rolling Stone and She Media; Condé Nast, whose holdings include Advance Publications; Vox Media, owner of The Verge; and the newspaper chain McClatchy, whose papers include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.
Read the rest at Media Nation.
