A major ad-tech player claims Google’s practices cost it nearly 7 trillion ad impressions. Teads seeks damages and market changes after a federal court ruling. The case could reshape digital ad competition.
Digital publishers and ad-tech professionals are watching closely as Teads Holding has filed a lawsuit against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc., alleging that anticompetitive conduct by Google led to the loss of approximately 6.88 trillion ad impressions between 2017 and 2023. The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York on August 3, 2026, seeks treble damages and injunctive relief, referencing a prior Virginia federal court decision that found Google’s practices in the digital ad-tech market unlawful.
According to Teads CEO David Kostman, the company is pursuing legal action to recover financial damages and to push for a more transparent and competitive environment for publishers and advertisers. The complaint, detailed in an 85-page filing and disclosed in Teads’ U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 8-K report, claims Google unlawfully forced advertisers to use its AdX exchange by restricting access to Google Ads buyers, resulting in significant business losses for Teads.
The legal action follows an April 2025 ruling by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Judge Leonie Brinkema determined that Google had monopolized the publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets for open-web display advertising and unlawfully tied these services together. Teads’ lawsuit quantifies the impact, stating that the alleged anticompetitive tie directly caused the loss of trillions of ad impressions to rival exchanges.
Teads also noted that a substantial portion of its revenue depends on transactions involving Google’s advertising technology. The company warned that the ongoing legal dispute could expose it to business risks, including potential retaliatory actions by Google. Despite the current conflict, Teads has a history of collaboration with Google, including a recent partnership to expand connected TV ad inventory on Google TV, which provided brands with prominent placements on devices in major markets such as the U.S. and U.K.
In addition to ad inventory partnerships, Teads previously integrated Google BigQuery, Cloud Dataflow, and Cloud Storage to process tens of billions of daily ad-related events, later scaling to 100 billion. These collaborations evolved from data engineering to multimillion-dollar ad-tech integrations and consumer product expansions, but now face new legal and operational challenges as a result of the lawsuit.
Legal disputes over digital ad market practices are not isolated. For example, UK publishers have recently taken steps to enforce new contracts and pursue compensation from AI companies for unauthorized content use, as reported in recent coverage of publisher actions against AI firms.
Teads, founded in 2011, operates as a global platform for outstream video and display advertising, serving publishers and advertisers in over 50 countries. The company reported processing more than 100 billion ad events daily at scale, and has established partnerships with major media brands and technology providers worldwide.
