Google is starting to have a monopoly on getting called out for having a monopoly. For the second time in under one year, the tech giant has been deemed to be operating an illegal monopoly, this time for its online advertising technology. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a 115-page ruling on Thursday that found Google violated antitrust laws to establish a firm hold over the online advertising space, allowing the company to charge higher prices and keep a larger portion of ad sales.
In his ruling, Judge Brinkema said that Google was “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” over parts of the web advertising business by connecting its ad server business, DoubleClick, used by publishers to sell ads on their platforms, to its ad exchange operations, Google AdX, which sells ad space off auction-style to the highest bidder.
That combination, the judge found, created a “durable and ‘predominant share of the market’ that is protected by high barriers both to entry and expansion.” The judge also found that this monopolistic hold over the online ad space “substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
The findings of the court suggest Google had a vice grip over the online advertising business. As noted by Search Engine Journal, the case showed that from 2018 to 2022, Google controlled about 91% of the worldwide publisher ad server market. It also handled as much as 65% of all ad placement transactions, which was about nine times larger than the next closest competitor. With that control, Google was able to squeeze users for 20% of the transaction cost, which it pocketed, compared to competitors taking about 10%.
Judge Brinkema’s ruling found Google “liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act” for its monopolistic behaviors in the ad tech tool and exchange businesses, but the judge did dismiss another charge that Google had operated a monopoly in ad networks.
“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs said in a statement to Gizmodo. “The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition. We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”
Do what you will with that interpretation, but what comes next is the remedies stage, which could lead to the potential breakup of Google’s adtech operations. In fact, that’s what the Department of Justice has asked the court to do, forcing the company to sell off some of the ad tech operations that it has amassed during its market-cornering days.
The potential resolution to this case could reshape a significant portion of Google’s profit centers. Per the New York Times, Google’s Ad Manager generated $31 billion in 2023, about one-tenth of parent company Alphabet’s total revenue. It could also represent a redo for the government, which allowed Google to acquire DoubleClick back in 2007 for $3.1 billion without any intervention from agencies that enforce antitrust.
The ruling opens a new front for Google’s fight to keep itself together. On top of this latest finding of monopolistic behavior, Google is staring down a hearing that could result in the courts forcing it to break up its search operations, stemming from a ruling last August that the company operates a monopoly in that space, too. The hearings on how to remedy that case will start this coming Monday.
With this latest finding in the adtech space, which Google will challenge, it’s increasingly starting to look like Alphabet will be losing some letters soon.
