U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema found that Google illegally monopolized online advertising technology, violating antitrust laws.
Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market,” the judge wrote.
“For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power” in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.
“Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features,” Brinkema explained. “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. Accordingly, Google is liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.”
The ruling may allow prosecutors to push for a breakup of Google’s advertising programs
Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said in a statement that the company “won half of this case and we will appeal the other half. The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition.”
“We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools,” Mulholland added. “Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”
A similar ruling against Google was issued last year, when Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that “Google’s distribution agreements foreclose a substantial portion of the general search services market and impair rivals’ opportunities to compete.”
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”
