A United States federal judge has ruled that Google illegally monopolized key sectors of the online advertising technology market, marking a significant antitrust setback for the tech giant.
The U.S. Department of Justice, joined by 17 states, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of unlawfully dominating the digital advertising market.
The suit claims Google controls the technology that determines how and where online ads are placed, giving it an unfair advantage.
This marks the second major antitrust case Google has lost within a year.
Google said it would appeal the decision.
“Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective,” the firm’s head of regulatory affairs Lee-Ann Mulholland said.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema stated that Google had “wilfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts” that allowed the company to “acquire and maintain monopoly power” in the digital advertising market.
“This exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” she said.
Google was found liable on two counts, while a third charge was dismissed by the court.
“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Ms Mulholland said.
“The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition.”
Google’s lawyer argued that the case placed too much emphasis on the company’s past conduct and overlooked the presence of other major players in the ad tech space, such as Amazon.
“Google has repeatedly used its market power to self-preference its own products, stifling innovation and depriving premium publishers worldwide of critical revenue needed to sustain high-quality journalism and entertainment,” said Jason Kint, head of Digital Content Next, a trade association representing online publishers.
Google owns major businesses on both the buying and selling sides of the online advertising market, in addition to operating an ad exchange that connects advertisers with publishers—giving it control over nearly every layer of the digital ad ecosystem.
As part of a broader series of antitrust lawsuits, the U.S. government argues that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, should be broken up. This could potentially involve selling off key assets, such as the Chrome browser, to reduce the company’s market dominance.
