NEW YORK: Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a federal judge said on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech titan in an antitrust case brought by the US.
US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that Google unlawfully monopolised markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Antitrust enforcers failed to show the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
The ruling could allow prosecutors to argue for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. The US department of justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google ad manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange.