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A US federal judge has ruled that Google illegally acquired and maintained a monopoly in digital advertising, the latest antitrust defeat for the technology giant that could result in it being forced to divest parts of its business.
Leonie Brinkema, the district judge presiding over the case in Virginia, said on Thursday that Google had “wilfully” monopolised two parts of the digital advertising market: the technology used by online publishers to sell ad space, and the biggest exchange on which ads are bid for by businesses.
However, Brinkema found that the US Department of Justice, which brought the case, was not able to prove that Google unfairly dominated the third component of the market, advertiser ad networks.
Google said: “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half . . . We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”
The ruling comes after a federal judge in a separate antitrust case last year found that Google spent billions of dollars on exclusive deals to maintain an illegal monopoly on search. The second phase of the trial, in which the court will determine remedies, begins next week.
The DoJ asked in the search case for Google to sell its Chrome browser, cease $20bn in payments to Apple each year to be its default search engine, and share more data with rivals.
The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story
