Google was hit with a US$2.3 billion lawsuit from a group of media companies on Wednesday, over alleged losses at the hands of the firm’s advertising practices.
Some 32 organizations from across Europe filed to case in a Dutch court, which said Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)-owned Google had abused its market dominance.
“The media companies involved have incurred losses due to a less competitive market, which is a direct result of Google's misconduct,” a statement from the group’s lawyers read.
“Without Google's abuse of its dominant position, the media companies would have received significantly higher revenues from advertising and paid lower fees for ad tech services.”
Axel Springer, Norway-based Schibsted, DPG Media and Mediahuis are among the companies attempting to sue Google, with the coalition spanning 17 European countries.
Their claims come after Google was threatened with a fine worth 10% of its annual global turnover by the European Commission last June, following a two-year investigation into supposed anti-competitive advertising practices by the search engine giant.
The news also comes after Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai was forced to issue an apology over pictures generated by its artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini.
This included images black Nazis and American Indian vikings, which Pichai admitted were “completely unacceptable”, as Google looks to keep up with the likes of OpenAI in rolling out such technology.
Shares in Alphabet fell 2% to US$137.22 on Wednesday.