"Goliath is a company using his power to manipulate the market," Texas State Attorney Ken Paxton said in a short video on Twitter announcing the lawsuit.
New York:
Several US states led by Texas filed a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday over alleged anti-competitive practices, describing it as a "goliath internet" that eliminated competition in online advertising and harmed consumers.
"Goliath is a company using his power to manipulate the market," Texas State Attorney Ken Paxton said in a short video on Twitter announcing the lawsuit.
He emphasized that Google rigged ad auctions, using its site to provide ads as well as Internet search results.
"If the free market is a baseball game, then Google has positioned itself as the archer, the hitter and the arbiter," he said in a short video.
Texas joined Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah in the lawsuit, according to the court filing.
Amazon, Tripadvisor, Yelp and other internet companies involved in recommending products or services have complained that Google favors their own offers in public search results.
While Google's advertising revenue continues to grow, its share of the thriving online advertising market in the US is shrinking under pressure from competitors such as Facebook, Amazon, and others, according to eMarketer.
Market tracker forecast that this year Google will only capture 30 percent of the US ad market expected to total $ 42.4 billion.
Google software not only crawls the internet and indexes what it finds, it determines which results should be provided for the queries and ads that run.
The California-based internet giant is also handling the ad auctions competing for the show.
Google's long-standing business model combined with a free search engine and free services like email and YouTube with paid ads is already being tested in a high-profile antitrust lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice.
The US government filed a massive lawsuit in October accusing Google of maintaining an "illegal monopoly" in Internet search and advertising.
The country's largest antitrust case in decades opens the door to a possible disintegration of the Silicon Valley giant.
The politically charged case, which could take years to end, draws new battle lines between the US government and Big Tech, with potentially significant ramifications for the sector.
But the government will likely face challenges proving the monopoly claims against the tech company, which has grown into one of the world's most successful companies by leveraging its powerful search engine for a network of services like maps, email, shopping and travel that feed its data - paid digital ads.
Legal experts point to the fact that it can be difficult to prove that Google's behavior was illegal under the long-standing "consumer welfare" standard in monopoly cases because its services are largely free.
The case - which 11 states have joined including Texas, all of which have Republican prosecutors - comes against the backdrop of the political backlash against major tech giants who have expanded their dominance in recent years.
The Department of Justice argues that Google has bolstered its monopoly by using deals with device makers to ensure its apps and services are featured prominently, and in some cases cannot be deleted.
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