U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected the Justice Department’s request to sell part of Google’s advertising business, despite the court’s previous finding that Google had hindered competition in the ad tech market for years. Brinkema acknowledged that Google had illegally monopolized the advertising market for years but approved measures to restore competition that were looser than breaking up the company.
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Brinkema said she would accept most of the changes proposed by the parties, but there would be some changes. The changes will not be made public until the parties discuss other changes and review the judge’s confidential information opinion. Such amendments could include Google no longer using its own priority ad auctions or allowing third-party ad tech tools to access the same real-time information as Google.
The Justice Department successfully argued that Google illegally monopolized the ad market for publishers and ad exchanges that offered auctions for the sale of ad space. The court agreed that Google illegally linked its ad publisher DFP (Doubleclick for Publishers) server to the ad exchange platform AdX. However, the court held that the Justice Department could not prove that Google therefore completely monopolized the market.
Once a final decision is made, Google may appeal Brinkema’s ruling that the company illegally monopolizes ad tech, as it recently did against a separate decision that monopolized the online search market. In that case, the court also rejected a breakup of the company, choosing instead to force Google to change its strategy and share data with rivals.
“We are pleased that the court rejected the Department of Justice’s proposal to separate tools that help small businesses attract new customers and grow.”” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs at Google.
The decision on remedial action concludes the third major technology monopoly case filed by the U.S. federal government in district court in recent years. In addition to the two antitrust cases against Google, the FTC also filed a monopoly case against Meta✴which she recently lost. Lawsuits against Amazon and Apple are expected in the coming years.
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