The parent company of a West Virginia newspaper chain has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook and Google parent company Alphabet, alleging the platforms are siphoning away much-needed digital ad revenue. It appears to be the first such lawsuit by a news organization against the digital giants and makes the argument that the platforms represent a digital monopoly that should be broken up, like Standard Oil or AT&T were back in the day.
“Google and Facebook have monopolized the digital advertising market thereby strangling a primary source of revenue for newspapers across the country,” according to the complaint filed by HD Media, which operates the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Gazette-Mail and several other West Virginia…
