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US judge rules Google holds illegal monopolies in ad tech
Antitrust enforcers, however, failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertising ad networks.
A US court ruled on Thursday that Alphabet Inc.'s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, held Google guilty for "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges.
Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory, reported Reuters.
Antitrust enforcers, however, failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertising ad networks.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of Regulatory Affairs, said Google has won half the case and it will appeal the other half. Defending the tech giant, she said publishers have many options, but they choose Google because its ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.
The Justice Department lawyers argued that Google built and maintained dominant market positions in a technology trifecta used by website publishers to sell ad space on their webpages, as well as the technology that advertisers use to get their ads in front of consumers, and the ad exchanges that conduct automated auctions in fractions of a second to match buyer and seller, reported AP.
The judge wrote in the verdict that Google "entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anti-competitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features.”
The judge said Google has tied its publisher, ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, allowing the firm to build and protect its monopoly in these two markets.
Google's lawyers, vehemently denying the Justice Department’s allegations, argued that the government largely based its case on an old concept of a market that existed a decade ago.
The lawyers accused the department of underestimating a highly competitive market for advertising spending that includes the likes of Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, and Comcast.
With inputs from agencies
