A federal judge determined that Google illegally dominated several online advertising technology markets, causing a major blow to the tech giant’s major revenue streams.
Bloomberg Report US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has handed down a complex ruling in an ad technology antitrust case against Google, finding that he violated antitrust laws in the market due to the ad exchanges and ad server tools that websites use to sell advertising space. However, the judge did not believe that Google was a monopoly in the market for the tools that advertisers use to purchase display ads.
The decision was the second time Google was found by the court to be an illegal monopoly, following another case in which the company was found to monopolize the online search market. The Justice Department is planning to launch in Washington on Monday as Google’s parent company Alphabet attempts to force it to sell its Chrome browser.
In a 115-page opinion, Judge Brenkema wrote, “Google has been deliberately involved in a series of anti-competitive acts to acquire and maintain exclusive rights for Open-Web Display Ads in order to acquire and maintain exclusive rights for Publisher Ad Server and Ad Exchange Markets.” For over a decade, she has discovered that Google uses its tool to place ads on websites, pushing them to manage their advertising business, further entrenching their exclusive power through anti-competitive policies and elimination of desired product features.
The Department of Justice and the state group were about to dissolve Google’s ad technology business when they filed a lawsuit in 2023. However, Judge Brenkema’s decision set high standards for its outcome, and found that the company’s acquisitions, including Doubleclick and Admeld, were inherently not anti-competitive.
Google said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, will appeal to some of the lost cases, saying he “does not agree to the court’s decision regarding the publisher.”
The ruling is a major victory for the antitrust enforcement and the media industry, according to Jonathan Kanter, former chief of the Department of Justice’s antitrust forces. “Google is now an illegal monopoly,” Kanter wrote on LinkedIn.
Many of the Justice Department cases focus on attacking Google’s past acquisitions, particularly DoubleClick. Judge Brinkema agreed that these acquisitions would help Google establish a dominant position in the ad technology stack, and benefited from the “network effect” as more advertisers and publishers used the service.
The judge found that Google’s deals increased the company’s monopoly, but she also ruled that the government failed to show that Doubleclick and Admeld’s acquisitions were anti-competitive. Additionally, Judge Brinkema ruled that sanctions against Google for the purposeful destruction of evidence were not necessary because he controlled the government over the available evidence.
The ruling took a major blow to Google’s stocks in its pro-alphabet. This sank 3.2% following the news before cutting losses slightly. As Google faces the potential for splitting its advertising technology business, the company is currently facing the challenge of convincing the court that it is unfair to sell a portion of its business if only certain aspects are litigated.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News, which covers the issues of freedom of speech and online censorship.
