A federal judge ruled Thursday that Google has willfully monopolized digital advertising, violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google harmed its publisher customers, the competitive process, and online information consumers.
“Plaintiffs have proven that 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,” according to the ruling.
The federal government and 17 states jointly filed the lawsuit against Google.
The court specifically ruled that Google violated the Sherman Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market.”
The judge also stated that Google “has unlawfully tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.”
The court announced that it will schedule a hearing to determine the legal remedies for the antitrust violations.
It found that plaintiffs failed “to show that the DoubleClick and Admeld acquisitions were anticompetitive.”
The ruling stated that while those acquisitions helped Google gain monopoly power in two adjacent ad tech markets, they are insufficient to prove that Google acquired or maintained this monopoly power through exclusionary practices.
The judge stated that for more than a year, “Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets.”
According to the court order, “Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features.”
The court ruled that Google had significantly harmed the competitive process, its publisher customers, and open web information consumers.
Brinkema warned Google of a failure to preserve internal communications, as Judge Amit Mehta did in the Google search case, but said sanctions were unnecessary.
This is because the court was able to make a decision based on the testimony and other admitted evidence.
Google claimed that the government wanted to dictate how it did business and that its monopolistic behavior was justified.
The Justice Department wants the court to sell off some of its advertising technology assets.
News organizations have long argued that tech platform advertising dominance has harmed the industry, with Google and other companies siphoning off advertising from journalism outlets.
Google attorney Karen Dunn stated in her closing argument that “Google’s conduct is a story of innovation in response to competition.”
