Google is facing two lawsuits that could see the tech giant pay up to €25bn (£19.5bn) in damages for its digital advertising practices. Alphabet Inc.`s Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and other telecom giants to illegally maintain its No. 1 search engine spot, the U.S. Department of Justice told a federal judge Thursday. “This includes news websites across the country with a large daily readership, as well as the thousands of small business owners who depend on advertising revenue — whether it`s their angel website, food blog, football fanzine, or any other online content they`ve created and published.” In the coming weeks, separate lawsuits will be filed in the UK and the Netherlands on behalf of publishers seeking “compensation” from Google. Damien Geradin of Belgian law firm Geradin Partners, involved in the Dutch case, said: “Publishers, including local and national news media, which play an important role in our society, have long been harmed by Google`s anti-competitive behavior. As part of our efforts to remain transparent, a copy of any legal notice we receive may be sent to the Lumen Project for publication. Lumen is an independent research project led by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. The Lumen database contains millions of content takedown requests voluntarily shared by various companies, including Google. Its purpose is to facilitate academic and industrial research on the availability of online content.

Lumen blackens the sender`s personal contact information (i.e. h. phone number, email address and address). New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) The Competition Commission has ordered another detailed investigation against Google for allegedly unfair revenue-sharing conditions regarding news content.