Google Broke the Law to Keep Its Advertising Monopoly, a Judge Rules

A federal judge has ruled that Google acted unlawfully to preserve its monopoly over certain aspects of online advertising technology. This decision adds to the mounting legal pressures facing the tech giant and has the potential to significantly reshape the $1.86 trillion corporation and its far-reaching control over the internet.

The ruling came from Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In a comprehensive 115-page opinion, she concluded that Google had violated antitrust laws by solidifying its control over the complex, behind-the-scenes systems that manage and place digital advertisements across the internet. The Department of Justice, alongside a coalition of states, had brought the lawsuit against Google, asserting that the company’s dominance in ad tech gave it the power to inflate prices and collect an outsized share of ad revenue.

Judge Brinkema stated that Google’s exclusionary practices not only prevented competitors from entering and thriving in the market, but also significantly disadvantaged its publisher clients. These practices, she noted, undermined fair competition and ultimately hurt the general public by limiting access to unbiased and diverse sources of information on the open web.

In making its case, the government claimed that Google held monopolistic control over three essential segments of the online advertising process: the tools publishers use to offer ad space on their websites, the tools advertisers use to purchase this space, and the exchange software that enables these transactions to happen. Judge Brinkema sided with the government on two of the three counts, agreeing that Google had improperly established monopoly power over publisher tools and the transaction software. However, she dismissed the claim that Google monopolized advertiser tools, finding the evidence insufficient to prove that this part of the market was clearly defined or distinct enough to warrant antitrust action.

This legal setback for Google represents just one of several regulatory battles the company is currently engaged in. In a separate case, another federal judge determined in August that Google held a monopoly over internet search services. That same judge is currently reviewing the Justice Department’s request to break up Google’s search business, with proceedings scheduled to begin in a three-week hearing starting next Monday.

Judge Brinkema, in turn, will now oversee the next steps in the advertising technology case. She has asked both the government and Google to submit proposals for the next phase within a week. Among the potential remedies, the Department of Justice has already suggested a structural solution: forcing Google to divest portions of its advertising business that were acquired over time and have contributed to its market dominance.

These two major legal decisions—on search and advertising technology—could together pose the most significant challenge to Google’s business model to date. If the courts ultimately decide in favor of aggressive remedies, the results could include a dramatic reorganization of the company’s structure and influence.

Following the decision, Google expressed mixed reactions. “We are pleased the court rejected one part of the government’s case, and we plan to appeal the rest,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. She also defended Google’s advertising tools, stating that “publishers choose Google because our ad tech products are easy to use, cost-effective, and produce strong results.”

On the government side, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling as a major milestone in efforts to curb Big Tech’s growing dominance over digital spaces. “This is a landmark victory in our continuing mission to prevent Google from monopolizing the digital town square,” she said. “The Department of Justice remains committed to protecting free markets and free speech from the overreach of powerful tech corporations.”

This case is part of a broader wave of antitrust enforcement aimed at reining in the largest tech companies in the world. Other giants have also come under fire: Apple is being sued for practices that allegedly make it hard for consumers to switch away from its ecosystem; the Federal Trade Commission has launched legal actions against Amazon for allegedly exploiting smaller businesses, and Meta (formerly Facebook) is facing scrutiny for eliminating competition through acquisitions like Instagram and WhatsApp. The trial against Meta began earlier this week.

Despite attempts by tech executives to curry favor with political leadership, the Trump administration maintained a tough stance on tech industry monopolies. Trump’s appointees to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division emphasized the need to investigate and potentially dismantle the excessive power of tech companies over online discourse and commerce. Notably, the current case involving Google’s advertising technology stems from actions initiated during Trump’s first term.

Filed in 2023, the Justice Department’s lawsuit, titled U.S. et al. v. Google, targeted the company’s control over the intricate systems used to buy and sell digital advertising slots on the open web. These include technologies used on websites ranging from news platforms to recipe blogs. A key part of Google’s ad tech dominance lies in its Google Ad Manager, which automates real-time ad auctions each time a user opens a webpage. That part of the business generated $31 billion in revenue in 2023, roughly 10 percent of Google’s parent company, Alphabet’s, total income.

Much of this dominance can be traced back to Google’s 2008 acquisition of DoubleClick, an ad software company it purchased for $3.1 billion. According to government figures, Google now controls approximately 87% of the market for ad-selling technology.

During the three-week trial held in September, government lawyers argued that Google exploited its market dominance to lock publishers into its software. This lock-in, they argued, allowed Google to extract a larger share of every ad transaction, leaving publishers and content creators with less income. As a result, websites that rely on ad revenue to offer free content to the public suffered financial harm.

Media groups, including those representing newspapers like The New York Times, have long warned that the overwhelming influence of tech platforms undermines the sustainability of journalism and digital publishing. During the trial, former executives from major publishing companies, such as Gannett and News Corp, testified about the impact of Google’s dominance. The government also brought in representatives from advertising agencies that purchase digital ad space.

“These markets are what sustain the open and free internet,” argued Aaron Teitelbaum, a Justice Department attorney, in his closing remarks in November.

Google responded by claiming it faced robust competition not only from other ad tech firms but also from social media companies like TikTok and streaming services. The company argued that its advertising tools were more efficient because they were integrated. Google’s legal team pointed to a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which supports a company’s right to choose its business partners and reject others, as a defense for its platform design.

“Google’s story is one of continuous innovation driven by market competition,” said Karen Dunn, the lead counsel representing Google, during her final argument.

But Judge Brinkema did not accept that defense. She concluded that Google’s actions amounted to coercion, effectively forcing publishers who wanted to use Google’s tools for managing ad inventory to also use Google’s services for conducting ad transactions.

In her written opinion, Judge Brinkema highlighted that Google made deliberate changes to its policies and system designs that reduced overall product quality while simultaneously suppressing competition. These decisions, she wrote, helped solidify Google’s dominance in open-web display advertising.

However, the court did not fully endorse all aspects of the government’s case. Judge Brinkema ruled that the government failed to convincingly demonstrate how Google’s past acquisitions in the ad tech space directly violated antitrust laws.

Among all the legal actions currently being pursued against Big Tech, the Google ad tech lawsuit has been regarded by legal scholars and antitrust specialists as one of the government’s most solid cases. While it is legal for a company to grow through superior innovation and execution, the government argued that Google crossed the line by deliberately entrenching its dominance and linking its monopolistic products in a way that restricted fair competition—an antitrust violation in classic terms.

“This is a textbook application of traditional antitrust doctrines,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School. “It’s not surprising the court sided with the government on this one.”