The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the U.S. Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust suit against Google on Tuesday, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly in on-line advertising. An Associated Press dispatch to The Globe says that the government alleges that Google's plan to assert dominance has been to "neutralize or eliminate" rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors' products. The antitrust suit was filed in Federal Court in Alexandria, Va. Attorney-General Merrick Garland told reporters Tuesday that "for 15 years, Google has pursued a course of anti-competitive conduct" that has halted the rise of rival technologies and manipulated the mechanics of on-line ad auctions to force advertisers and publishers to use its tools. In so doing, he added, "Google has engaged in exclusionary conduct" that has "severely weakened," if not destroyed, competition in the ad tech industry. The lawsuit demands that Google break off three different businesses from its core business of search, YouTube and other products such as Gmail: the buying and selling of ads and ownership of the exchange where that business is transacted.