A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Thursday that Google illegally monopolized two advertising markets, paving the way for prosecutors to push for the breakup of Google’s advertising products, Reuters reported.
According to the ruling from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, Google broke the law by monopolizing the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. Brinkema wrote in a 115-page opinion that Google “engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising,” Bloomberg reported.
“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 these two markets,” the judge added.
Google also pushed “anticompetitive policies on its customers” and “harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” according to Brinkema.
Google’s lawyers pushed back, arguing that the case brought against the company focused on its past practices when it was seeking to connect tools to competitors’ products. The tech giant’s defense also said that prosecutors ignored some of Google’s large competitors, such as Amazon and Comcast, when digital ad spending shifted to streaming services and apps, Reuters reported.
The ruling against Google in Virginia comes as the tech giant faces a separate antitrust case, with the Department of Justice looking to force the company to sell its Chrome browser, which processes 90% of internet searches in the United States. The DOJ argues that “Google’s unlawful behavior has deprived rivals not only of critical distribution channels but also distribution partners who could otherwise enable entry into these markets by competitors in new and innovative ways.”
Last year, a federal judge sided with the DOJ and agreed that Google has a monopoly over search engines. A trial to decide a remedy for Google’s search engine monopoly is set to begin on Monday in Washington.
Google has also been accused of censoring Right-leaning news and favoring legacy media outlets in its search function. Republican lawmakers investigated Google last year after its search recommendations appeared to remove mentions of the assassination attempt on then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Google claimed that the assassination attempt search recommendations were omitted because of a safety protocol.
