US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers.
Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their digital ad inventory. Along with ad exchanges, the technology lets news publishers and other online content providers make money by selling ads. Those funds are the “lifeblood” of the internet, Brinkema wrote.
However, antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,“ she said, adding that the company disagrees with the decision on its publisher tools. “Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”
The DOJ has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company's publisher ad server and ad exchange.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who previously led the antitrust subcommittee, called the ruling “a big win for consumers, small businesses, and content creators that will open digital markets to more innovation and lower prices.”
Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital, called the ruling a “major inflection point” for Google and the tech sector, underscoring US courts’ willingness to entertain “aggressive structural remedies” in antitrust cases.
Meta Platforms is on trial in a separate antitrust case brought by the US Federal Trade Commission accusing the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram of holding an illegal monopoly in personal social networks. The FTC has accused Amazon.com of unlawfully dominating online retail markets. The DOJ has also sued Apple, claiming it holds a smartphone monopoly.
Google now faces the possibility of two US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices. A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ's request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.
Google argued the case focused on the past, when the company was still working on making its tools able to connect to competitors' products. Prosecutors also ignored competition from technology companies including Amazon and Comcast as digital ad spending shifted to apps and streaming video, Google's lawyer said.
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