April 17 (UPI) — A federal Judge ruled Thursday that Google has willfully monopolized digital advertising in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google has harmed its publisher customers, the competitive process and consumers of online information.
“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,” the ruling said.
The lawsuit was brought against Google by the federal government and 17 states.
The court specifically said Google has 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 said Google also “has unlawfully tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
The court said it will set a hearing date to determine the legal remedies for the violations of antitrust law.
It found that plaintiffs failed “to show that the DoubleClick and Admeld acquisitions were anticompetitive.”
The ruling said while those acquisitions helped Google gain monopoly power in two adjacent ad tech markets, they are insufficient, when viewed in isolation, to prove that Google acquired or maintained this monopoly power through exclusionary practices.
The judge wrote in the ruling that for over a decade, “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 ruling, “Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features.”
Google, the court ruling said, substantially harmed the competitive process, its publisher customers and consumers of information on the open web.
Brinkema warned Google for a failure to preserve internal communications as Judge Amit Mehta did in the Google search case, but said sanctions were not needed.
That’s because the court was able to render a decision based on testimony and other admitted evidence.
Google argued the government wanted to dictate how it does business and claimed legitimate reasons for its monopoly behavior.
The Justice Department wants the court to sell off some of its ad technology business.
News organizations have long maintained that tech platform advertising dominance has harmed the industry as Google and other companies siphoned off advertising from journalism outlets.
Google attorney Karen Dunn said in her closing argument, “Google’s conduct is a story of innovation in response to competition.”
