Google and Facebook targeted by newspapers in new lawsuit

On Tuesday, Axios reported that around 200 newspapers have been building a legal movement to challenge big tech companies on antitrust grounds.

"What started as a small-town effort to take a stand against Big Tech has turned into a national movement, with over 200 newspapers involved across dozens of states," reported Sara Fischer and Krystal Dixon. "'The intellectual framework for this developed over the last 3-4 years,' said Doug Reynolds, managing partner of HD Media, a holding company that owns several West Virginia newspapers, including the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Reynolds, along with a group of lawyers, filed the first newspaper lawsuit of this kind in January in West Virginia."

According to the report, newspapers and media holding companies around the country are part of the legal effort, including AIM Media LLCs in Indiana and Texas, Gould Enterprises in Tennessee, and Robinson Communications, which owns papers from Iowa to Washington State.

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"The lawsuits were filed after the House Judiciary Committee published its major digital competition report last October, which included a section on newspapers," said the report. "Lawmakers have expressed keen interest in understanding how Google and Facebook's dominance affects the newspapers industry."

This comes as the Justice Department and several state attorneys general have been advancing an antitrust lawsuit against Google's parent company.