What's the news: A group of news publishers in the UK sued Google on 30 November alleging that the search and advertising giant abused its dominant position in online advertising, "earning super-profits for itself at the expense of the tens of thousands of publishers of websites and mobile apps in the UK." "The claim against Google is being brought on behalf of 130,000 businesses publishing around 1,750,000 websites and applications in the UK, all of whom will have been impacted by Google’s alleged anti-competitive behaviour. The total loss to these businesses over the relevant period, 1 January 2014 to date, is estimated to be up to £13.6bn," the press release issued by law firms Humphries Kerstetter and Geradin Partners. Google dismissed the lawsuit in an emailed statement to Reuters stating that it "works constructively with publishers across Europe" and that its "advertising tools, and those of our many adtech competitors, help millions of websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers. These services adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers. This lawsuit is speculative and opportunistic." Why does this matter: The UK now joins a long list of countries where news publishers have gone after Google and other tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft. Publishers primarily earn revenue from the advertising shown on their platform and Google takes a significant chunk of this revenue as commission for facilitating ad inventory sales. Moreover, Google takes snippets from news publishers and displays them…
