In another major legal blow to Google, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that the search giant held an illegal monopoly over some advertising technology.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a ruling that Google illegally maintained and acquired a monopoly in two markets for advertising technology — publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges.
But in a partial win for Google, antitrust enforcers failed to prove that the company held a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, the judge found.
The highly-watched decision could reshape the online advertising business that website publishers rely on to fund the creation of content. It underscores how the U.S. government has been trying to rein in the power of Big Tech, which collects a trove of data of its users to fuel its advertising businesses.
Google’s latest legal hurdle comes after it lost a separate case in August in which a judge ruled that Google maintained a monopoly in online search.
In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department and several states including California sued Google over allegations the tech company engaged in illegal behavior to squash its competition in advertising technology. Google’s growing control over advertising technology resulted in website creators earning less money and advertisers paying more, according to the lawsuit.
Publishers use advertising technology products to sell ads to businesses that market their products online to potentially reach more customers. Advertisers also use tools to bid for online ad space, telling tech companies like Google how much they’re willing to pay to get their ads displayed on websites.
Website publishers such as news outlets heavily depend on ad dollars to fund their business and the creation of content. Digital display advertising generated more than $20 billion in revenue per year for U.S. publishers, the lawsuit said.
It further alleged that competition in the advertising technology space is “broken” because Google purchased its rivals and used tactics that bullied publishers and advertisers to use its tools.
Google has control over popular advertising technology services that most major publishers use to sell ads and businesses use to buy ads. The company also runs what’s known as an ad exchange that helps match publishers with advertisers who are competing with one another to buy up available ad space.
Additionally, Google collects valuable data about its users, allowing advertisers to target people based on location, interests and what they’re researching.
Because Google wields so much power over online advertising, the company was able to set rules and manipulate the system in ways that benefited itself and harmed rivals, the DOJ alleges in its lawsuit. It keeps an estimated 35% of every dollar spent on digital advertising.
Google, on the other hand, says it does have rivals. During the trial, Google’s lawyers argued that the government focused its case too narrowly on certain ads displayed on websites, ignoring the tech giant’s competition with social media platforms, streaming services and e-commerce giants like Amazon.
“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,”
said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs for Google. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”
The court battle featured company executives including Neal Mohan, chief executive of Google-owned YouTube, who testified that the search giant expanded the ad tech tools it offered in response to customer demands.
Mohan used to work at online ad company DoubleClick and joined Google after it closed its acquisition of the company for more than $3 billion in 2008. Google’s purchase of DoubleClick, which offered services that helped advertisers and publishers manage and track online ads, helped the search giant grow. The DOJ alleged that Google violated federal antitrust law and wants the federal court to order Google to sell off parts of its ads business.
The DOJ also accused Google of manipulating the system to benefit its ad exchange, a virtual marketplace that allows advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads in real-time. As a result of its tactics, the company’s ad exchange could buy up publisher ad spaces often at low prices before other ad exchanges.
As publishers looked for ways around using Google’s products, the search firm also purchased potential threats such as AdMeld that helped publishers get better prices for their ad space.