Rumble sues Google for $1 billion over digital ad 'monopoly'

On Monday, Rumble filed a lawsuit against Google and its parent company, Alphabet, alleging that the tech giant had engaged in anticompetitive advertising practices.

Rumble argued in their suit that during their time as a client, Google had prevented them from earning more than $1 billion in ad revenue and that the company had illegally hindered their ability to become a viable competitor in the advertising tech sector.

"Google exploits significant conflicts of interest that stem from its multiple roles in this electronically traded marketplace," Rumble argued in their lawsuit, which, according to Axios, was filed in the Northern District of California. 

"As a result, it is able to pocket a supra-competitive portion of every advertising dollar that passes through the Ad Tech markets it controls, ad-revenue that rightly should have passed through to publishers like Rumble and its content creators."

Rumble also claimed that Google "excludes competition by engaging in conduct unlawful under settled antitrust precedent, including through unlawful tying arrangements, a pattern and practice of exclusionary conduct targeting actual and potential rivals."

The video-sharing platform pointed out that Google had even gone so far as to engage in a "market allocation and price fixing agreement with Facebook," which had, at one time, been their "largest potential competitive threat in the publisher ad server and ad network markets."

Rumble stated in a press release, "Rumble's suit alleges that Google has monopolized the ad tech stack by buying companies up and down the chain, concurrently representing both ad buyers and sellers, while also running the exchange that connects those parties. The arrangement creates flagrant conflicts of interest and is analogous to insider trading in financial markets." The ad tech stack is described as Google's "range of digital advertising products."

In a statement to Reuters, Google denied the allegations, and vowed to "show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online."

This is not the first time Rumble has sued Google. In 2021, they accused the tech giant of giving preference to YouTube videos in their search results. A judge denied Google's motion to dismiss the case, and it is currently in the discovery stage.

The more recent lawsuit is set to go to trial in April 2025 in Oakland.