Federal Judge Declares Google's Digital Ad Network Is an Illegal Monopoly (apnews.com)
(Thursday April 17, 2025 @05:20PM (BeauHD)
from the not-looking-good-for-them dept.)
- Reference: 0177055995
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/04/17/1950221/federal-judge-declares-googles-digital-ad-network-is-an-illegal-monopoly
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/google-illegal-monopoly-advertising-search-a1e4446c4870903ed05c03a2a03b581e
Longtime Slashdot reader [1]schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:
> Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for [2]illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion. The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of [3]a separate decision in August that concluded Google's namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation. [...] The next step in the latest case is a penalty phase that will likely begin late this year or early next year. The same so-called remedy hearings in the search monopoly case are scheduled to begin Monday in Washington D.C., where Justice Department lawyers will try to convince U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to impose a sweeping punishment that includes a proposed requirement for Google to sell its Chrome web browser.
>
> Brinkema's 115-page decision centers on the marketing machine that Google has spent the past 17 years building around its search engine and other widely used products and services, including its Chrome browser, YouTube video site and digital maps. The system was largely built around a series of acquisitions that started with [4]Google's $3.2 billion purchase of online ad specialist DoubleClick in 2008. U.S. regulators approved the deals at the time they were made before realizing that they had given the Mountain View, California, company a platform to manipulate the prices in an ecosystem that a wide range of websites depend on for revenue and provides a vital marketing connection to consumers.
>
> The Justice Department lawyers argued that Google built and maintained dominant market positions in a technology trifecta used by website publishers to sell ad space on their webpages, as well as the technology that advertisers use to get their ads in front of consumers, and the ad exchanges that conduct automated auctions in fractions of a second to match buyer and seller. After evaluating the evidence presented during a lengthy trial that [5]concluded just before Thanksgiving last year , Brinkema reached a decision that rejected the Justice Department's assertions that Google has been mistreating advertisers while concluding the company has been abusing its power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers forced to rely on its network for revenue.
>
> "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." Brinkema wrote. "Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features." Despite that rebuke, Brinkema also concluded that Google didn't break the law when it snapped Doubleclick nor when it followed up that deal a few years later by buying another service, Admeld. The Justice Department "failed to show that the DoubleClick and Admeld acquisitions were anticompetitive," Brinkema wrote. "Although these 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." That finding may help Google fight off any attempt to force it to sell its advertising technology to stop its monopolistic behavior.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[2] https://apnews.com/article/google-illegal-monopoly-advertising-search-a1e4446c4870903ed05c03a2a03b581e
[3] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/05/1859251/google-loses-doj-antitrust-suit-over-search
[4] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/07/04/13/2244251/google-buys-doubleclick-for-31-billion
[5] https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/25/200221/us-says-google-is-an-ad-tech-monopolist-in-closing-arguments
> Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for [2]illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion. The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of [3]a separate decision in August that concluded Google's namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation. [...] The next step in the latest case is a penalty phase that will likely begin late this year or early next year. The same so-called remedy hearings in the search monopoly case are scheduled to begin Monday in Washington D.C., where Justice Department lawyers will try to convince U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to impose a sweeping punishment that includes a proposed requirement for Google to sell its Chrome web browser.
>
> Brinkema's 115-page decision centers on the marketing machine that Google has spent the past 17 years building around its search engine and other widely used products and services, including its Chrome browser, YouTube video site and digital maps. The system was largely built around a series of acquisitions that started with [4]Google's $3.2 billion purchase of online ad specialist DoubleClick in 2008. U.S. regulators approved the deals at the time they were made before realizing that they had given the Mountain View, California, company a platform to manipulate the prices in an ecosystem that a wide range of websites depend on for revenue and provides a vital marketing connection to consumers.
>
> The Justice Department lawyers argued that Google built and maintained dominant market positions in a technology trifecta used by website publishers to sell ad space on their webpages, as well as the technology that advertisers use to get their ads in front of consumers, and the ad exchanges that conduct automated auctions in fractions of a second to match buyer and seller. After evaluating the evidence presented during a lengthy trial that [5]concluded just before Thanksgiving last year , Brinkema reached a decision that rejected the Justice Department's assertions that Google has been mistreating advertisers while concluding the company has been abusing its power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers forced to rely on its network for revenue.
>
> "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." Brinkema wrote. "Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features." Despite that rebuke, Brinkema also concluded that Google didn't break the law when it snapped Doubleclick nor when it followed up that deal a few years later by buying another service, Admeld. The Justice Department "failed to show that the DoubleClick and Admeld acquisitions were anticompetitive," Brinkema wrote. "Although these 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." That finding may help Google fight off any attempt to force it to sell its advertising technology to stop its monopolistic behavior.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[2] https://apnews.com/article/google-illegal-monopoly-advertising-search-a1e4446c4870903ed05c03a2a03b581e
[3] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/05/1859251/google-loses-doj-antitrust-suit-over-search
[4] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/07/04/13/2244251/google-buys-doubleclick-for-31-billion
[5] https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/25/200221/us-says-google-is-an-ad-tech-monopolist-in-closing-arguments
Chrome MUST be divested (Score:1)
by ConstantineXI ( 10114656 )
It ties it all together.
We were almost freed at one point (Score:2)
by xack ( 5304745 )
Firefox had 30% market share at its peak, and forced Microsoft to improve Internet Explorer. If you look at Statcounter maps from around 2008-2012 there was a diversity in browser engines, but then Chrome came along and ruined everything. Also we lost so many mobile operating systems such as WebOS, Bada, Tizen, Meego and Windows Mobile.
Re: (Score:2)
by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 )
> then Chrome came along and ruined everything.
It was Firefox's to lose. Chrome didn't ruin anything. Chrome provided a better browser and the market latched onto it.
While Chrome was building in speed and rendering capabilities Firefox was slowing everything down with Pocket and other nonsense. Firefox is still a sluggish shadow of Chrome. And, that says a lot since Chrome tabs can eat memory faster than anything I've seen besides AutoCAD.
Sell chrome? (Score:1)
Sell it to whom? It's provided free to customers. Who the fuck would want to buy it? And why?
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of people, Microsoft in particular.
The value is in controlling the default search, and replacing all the features behind a Google login with features behind your own login.
Re: (Score:2)
> The value is in controlling the default search, and replacing all the features behind a Google login with features behind your own login.
Or selling those rights back to Google if you don't have your own.
Re: (Score:2)
"Hello my name is [1]Bergey Snrin [youtube.com] and my new startup 'Ghughle' would like to buy your Chrome browser"
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p_FHTV2RSA
Re: (Score:1)
OpenAI would buy it in a heart beat.
Re: (Score:2)
> Sell it to whom? It's provided free to customers. Who the fuck would want to buy it? And why?
Any company currently involved in or interested in joining the data aggregator game for a start. And that's a *LOT* of potential data scraping. A *LOT*. Like, enough to make Meta/Microsoft/OpenAI/Amazon/every other AI company soak their pants at the thought of getting ahold of it.