US federal judge rules against Google advertising monopoly – JURIST
US Federal District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled Thursday that tech giant Google LLC had violated federal anti-trust law by engaging in anti-competitive acts to attain monopoly power and depriving competitors of the ability to compete.
An accompanying order issued by the judge required both parties to submit a joint proposed schedule for further briefing on their respective positions on remedies in the case.
Judge Brinkema found Google liable under three counts including 1) monopolization of the publisher ad server market; 2) monopolization of the ad exchange market; and 3) unlawful tying of the company’s publisher ad server and ad exchange.
The particular technology in the case includes software that the tech giant uses to assist with transactions between advertisers and online publishers who sell the ad space. Google was accused of holding a monopoly on this software and tying that monopoly to its stranglehold over several of the marketplaces that facilitate deals between advertisers and online publishers.
Much of Judge Brinkema’s opinion was dedicated to explaining the complex world of programmatic advertising while explaining how targeted advertising enabled by technological advances has upended the industry and how advertisers and publishers do business with each other.
Judge Brinkema explained that Google’s free services including its search engine, apps, and location services have enabled the company to collect “detailed knowledge about billions of people who have used its products.” This information has in turn been used to match advertisers to users and “increase its advertiser customers’ return on ad expenditures.” Brinkema concluded that since nearly 80 percent of the company’s revenue has been generated from this activity, “Google is fundamentally in the business of advertising.”
Google’s substantial market share and “supracompetitive” pricing for its services were cited as evidence of the company having achieved monopoly status in the digital ad network and ad tech stack marketplaces.
Google has expressed ambivalence over the ruling declaring that they had won “half the lawsuit” in defeating one of the counts while vowing to appeal the adverse portions of the ruling.
This is the second anti-trust case in the last two years that has ended with a judgment against the tech giant. A case over the company’s search engine was decided in August of 2024 with the court finding that Google had achieved a monopoly in online searches with potential remedies including the sale of the Chrome browser.
