A federal judge has ruled that Google violated antitrust law in its advertising technology practices, marking another major loss for the company and teeing up potentially large-scale changes to its business.
The ruling was issued as Google headed toward potentially large-scale remedies in another antitrust case in Washington. There, District Judge Amit Mehta held in 2024 that the tech giant violated antitrust law in its search business.
Part of Brinkema’s opinion stated that the plaintiffs, which included the DOJ and a number of states, failed to prove a particular market involving display ads. She ruled, however, that the plaintiffs proved Google possessed monopoly power in its use of a publisher ad server.
“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.”
Google did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Brinkema also indicated that Google could face sanctions, citing its employees’ improper use of attorney-client privilege and chat deletions.
“Google’s systemic disregard of the evidentiary rules regarding spoliation of evidence and its misuse of the attorney-client privilege may well be sanctionable,” Brinkema said, adding that she didn’t need to impose sanctions at this juncture.
“After a three-week trial, it’s clear that the DOJ’s case missed the forest for the trees: There’s intense competition in ad tech, where ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choice,” Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said. “And Google’s services have helped publishers, advertisers, and consumers.”
