Alphabet faces over $3.2 billion in damages claims from publishers

Google wanted a judge to end a major antitrust fight before it reached a jury. It didn’t get its wish. On September 30, 2026, a New York federal judge ruled that Gannett’s USA Today, Daily Mail and a class of approximately 5,000 publishers can pursue over $3.2 billion in damages from Google. The claims center on allegations that the company monopolized the digital advertising technology markets that publishers rely on to make money. What the judge actually decided Judge P. Kevin Castel denied Google’s motion for summary judgment on the major antitrust claims. Summary judgment is essentially a request to skip the trial. A defendant argues the facts are so one-sided that a jury isn’t needed. Castel disagreed, laying out his reasoning in an 88-page opinion. The case now moves toward trial, though no trial date has been set. The damages estimates break down into three buckets: Gannett/USA Today: around $901 million. Daily Mail: $600 million. The publisher class of roughly 5,000: $1.72 billion collectively. Those figures are the starting point, not the ceiling. US antitrust law allows damages to be trebled, meaning multiplied by three, and the ruling noted the estimates may climb if tha...