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An American federal judge ruled that Google had acquired illegally and maintained a monopoly on digital advertising, the last antitrust defeat for the technology giant which could lead to its obligation to yield parts of its activities.
Leonie Brinkema, the district judge presiding over the case in Virginia, said Thursday that Google had “voluntarily” monopolized two parts of the digital advertising market: the technology used by online publishers to sell the advertising space and the greatest exchange on which the announcements are subjects by companies.
However, Brinkema noted that the United States Ministry of Justice, which brought the case, was not able to prove that Google has unjustly dominated the third element of the market, the advertising networks of the advertiser.
The decision comes after a federal judge in a separate antitrust case last year concluded that Google had spent billions of dollars on exclusive agreements to maintain an illegal research monopoly.
The second phase of this trial, in which the court will determine the appeals that may include Google forcing to sell parts of its activities, begins next week.
The DoJ asked in the case of Google’s search to sell its Chrome browser, stop $ 20 billion in Apple payments each year to be its default search engine and share more data with competitors.
In his decision Thursday, Brinkema wrote: “For more than a decade, Google equaled its advertising server and its exchange of ads through contractual policies and technological integration, which allowed the company to establish and protect its monopoly power on these two markets.”
“Google has also rooted its monopoly power by imposing anti-competitive policies on its customers and eliminating the characteristics of the desirable products,” she added.
But she rejected the way in which the Doj had tried to define the third part of the market, claiming that the term “advertising advertising network” was rare in industry and “excluded unduly[s]Publishers.
Google said: “We have won half of this case and we will call on the other half … We do not agree with the court’s decision concerning our publisher tools.
The decision is the last victory for the former antitrust officials appointed by Joe Biden who wore and pleaded the case before Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Jonathan Kanter, the former chief of the antitrust unit of the Doj, said Thursday in an article on X: “Today is a huge victory for the application of antitrust, the media industry and open and open internet … Google is now an illegal monopolist twice.”
Antitrust officials appointed by Trump strongly pointed out that they intended to adopt a difficult position on the application, especially against Big Tech. The American Federal Commerce Commission this week began to plead against Meta in a monopoly trial before the Washington Federal Court.
The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
