A federal district judge ruled on Thursday against technology giant Google in a major antitrust case involving its ad business.
The case may have major implications for the company, which entered the remedy phase of another antitrust case it lost last year related to its search engine.
In the latest ad case, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said the government proved “Google has willfully 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.”
Google tied its advertising services together through contractual policies and technological integration, the judge determined, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power.
She added Google entrenched its monopoly by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features.
“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,” Brinkema concluded.
The case against Google was first filed by the Biden administration and 17 states in January 2023.
In statements on the ruling, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) hinted that further actions may be coming by tying the decision to conservative complaints about Google deplatforming and silencing the views of the right.
“This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action to protect the American people from encroachments on free speech and free markets by tech companies.”
Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said the ruling shows Google is a monopolist and abused its monopoly to impose censorship on Americans.
“Google’s unlawful dominance allows them to censor and even deplatform American voices, said Slater. “And at the same time, Google destroyed and hid information that exposed its illegal conduct.”
In the next phase of the Google case, the court will decide on a remedy, which the government will argue should include the forced sale of the ad businesses and, possibly, the sale of its Chrome browser, a remedy proposed after antitrust decisions went against Google in a previous case.
The judge in that case, which dealt with Google’s monopoly power in the search engine market, set a deadline of August 2025 for penalties to be imposed against the internet search company.
The case bears similarities to the landmark Microsoft case decided in April 2000, which found that the computer behemoth used illegal tactics to bundle its products in an attempt to stifle competition.
The court found that the company tied its internet browser together with its operating system to stifle competition. But Microsoft argued successfully on appeal against the break-up of the company.
Google could likewise be successful in largely negating any penalties against it.
In the Brinkema decision against Google, the judge provided a little wiggle room for the company to argue against penalties.
While finding Google operated an illegal monopoly, Brinkema also found that the purchase of two advertising competitors, Doubleclick and Admeld, weren’t violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, one of the key allegations of the DOJ.
Still, news providers such asGannett, publisher of USA Today, and News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal, saidthat Google’s anti-competitive practices harmed their advertising revenues and their readers, according to the Associated Press.
The penalty phase of the Google’s ad case won’t start until late this year or early next year, according to the AP.
But even if successful in avoiding penalties, Google may still face punitive damages, not unlike what happened to Microsoft, which lost its dominant position in both the internet and in operating systems markets after its antitrust case.
Then-search engine start-up Google, which was founded in 1998 and now has a market capitalization of $1.9 trillion, and a resurgent Apple Computer, helped end the Microsoft supremacy, as the Seattle-based computer company neglected the search engine and mobile markets while fighting antitrust cases.
Similarly, Google’s dominant position in the search engine market, and thus advertising, is being threatened by its trailing position in generative artificial intelligence technology, which many analysts say will replace Google as the dominant search technology.
