Mountain View, California, US: Global search giant, Google is facing a $25 billion lawsuit in the United Kingdom and European Union, where the firm has seemingly engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the digital advertising market.

Google, a major player in the online advertising market and a major force in search, has been accused of abusing its power in the ad technology market, which coordinates the sale of online advertising space between publishers.

This claim is being brought against all websites and publishers that run online banner advertising, including newspapers, magazines, blogs and other digital media sites.

Mr. Toby Starr, a partner at the law firm Humphries Kerstetter, highlighted that UK victims may have potentially lost up to $8 billion in earnings since 2014.

“This includes news websites up and down the country with large daily readerships as well as the thousands of small business owners who depend on advertising revenue,” Mr. Starr remarked while adding that, “be it from their fishing website, food blog, football fanzine or other online content they have spent time creating.”

Newspaper advertising revenue has been hit hard by the rise of Google, as a brand advertising and classified ad sales have collapsed over the past two decades.

Law firms Geradine Partners and Humphires Kerstetter plan to bring the claims in a court in the Netherlands and the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Firms applying for class action status over the claims said that the publisher could be owed billions of euros. The case will see a “class” representative bring the lawsuit on behalf of thousands of online publishers.

The claim centers on allegations that Google used Ad Exchange, the online ad auction technology, to distort competition and benefit its own ad publishing service. According to the claimants, this means that Google unfairly secured a large portion of internet advertising revenue.

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