Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in some online advertising technology, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, adding to legal troubles that could reshape the $1.88 trillion company and alter its power over the internet, The New York Times reported.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a 115-page ruling that Google had broken the law to build its dominance over the largely invisible system of technology that places advertisements on pages across the web.
The Justice Department and a group of states had sued Google, arguing that its monopoly in ad technology allowed the company to charge higher prices and take a bigger portion of each sale.
“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” said Judge Brinkema.
CNN reported: Google has illegally built “monopoly power” with its web advertising business, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled, siding with the Justice Department in a landmark case against the tech giant that could reshape the basic economics running a modern website.
The ruling that Google violated antitrust law marks the US government’s second major court victory over Google in less that a year amid claims the company had illegally monopolized key parts of the internet ecosystem, including online search. And it is the third such decision since a federal jury in December 2023 found that Google proprietary app store is also an illegal monopoly.
Taken together, the trio of decisions highlights the breadth the trouble Google faces, raising the prospect of sweeping penalties that could reshape multiple aspects of its business, through ongoing and expected appeals will likely take years to play out.
Gizmodo reported: Google is starting to have a monopoly on getting called out for having a monopoly. For the second time in under one year, the tech giant has been deemed to be operating an illegal monopoly, this time for its online advertising technology.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued 115-page ruling on Thursday that found Google violated antitrust laws to establish firm hold over the online advertising space, allowing the company to charge higher prices and keep a larger portion of ad sales.
In his ruling, Judge Brinkema said that Google was “willingly acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” over parts of the web advertising business by connecting its ad server business, DoubleClick, used by publishers to sell ads on their platforms, to its ad exchange operations, Google AdX, which sells ad space off auction-style to the highest bidder.