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US judge holds Google’s domination in two markets for online ad technology illegal
- IBJ Bureau
- Apr 18, 2025
Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “wilfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory.
Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, the vice-president of Regulatory Affairs, said Google will appeal against the ruling.
“We won half of this case, and we will appeal (against) the other half,” she said, adding that the company disagreed with the decision on its publisher tools. “Publishers have many options, and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective,” she added.
The decision clears the way for another hearing to determine what Google must do to restore competition in those markets, such as sell off parts of its business at another trial that has yet to be scheduled.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and ad exchange.
Google now faces the possibility of two US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices. A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DoJ’s request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.
Google has previously explored selling off its ad exchange to appease European antitrust regulators, the Reuters had reported last September.
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