In another major legal kick to Google, a federal judge spent on Thursday that the research giant monopolized some advertising techniques, a ruling that could reshape advertising online.
Judge Leoni Brincom of the American Provincial Court of the Eastern Region in Virginia said in a decision that Google had illegally maintained and gained a monopoly in two markets for advertising technology – advertising servers and the market for advertising exchange.
But in a partial victory over Google, the anti -monopoly bonus failed to prove that the company fell into advertising networks.
The very expected decision can reinstall the online advertising work on which the publishers of the website depend to finance content creation. It also confirms how the United States government tries to curb the power of large technology, which brings together a set of data on its users to feed its advertising work.
The judge wrote in the 115 -page resolution, and eventually consumers of information on the open Internet, “the judge wrote in the 115 -page decision:” Google’s anti -competition behavior “greatly harms Google’s publishers, and the competitive process, and in the end, the open web information,” the judge wrote in the 115 -page decision. Digital advertisements were described as the “internet lifeline” that made it possible for people to use some of the most popular websites in the world without paying the subscription fees.
The ruling represents the latest legal setback for Google. In August, a judge ruled in a separate case that Google kept a monopoly on online search.
The media industry praised the decision, supported that the Google monopoly forced publishers to use its services and that the lack of competition led to less than the dollars of advertisements.
“The publishers must be excited because they hope to get more money for what they sell, and advertisers should also be happy, because they will have to pay less in return. This will be the goal of restoring competition,” said Rebecca Hauo Alinsworth, a professor at the Faculty of Law at Vanderbilt College, who is studying the Anti -Confidence Law.
However, anti -monopoly experts said that the impact of judgment on the press and advertisers will depend on how the judge decides to restore competition.
The judge did not decide the potential treatments, which could force the sale of its Chrome web browser. Google plans to resume both decisions.
The latest ruling comes in the same week that a teacher experience began to combat monopoly between the mother and the Federal Trade Committee.
“The biggest picture is quite clear: the tide has turned against Google and other digital advertising giants.”
In 2023, the US Department of Justice and several states, including California, filed a law against Google, claiming that the technology company participated in illegal behavior to crush its rival in advertising technology. Google’s increasing domination of advertising technology has made creative on web sites less money and advertisers who pay more, according to the lawsuit.
Publishers use advertising technology products to sell ads to companies that market their online products to access more customers. Advertisers also use tools to provide bids for an online advertising space, and inform technology companies such as Google about the amount they want to pay for their ads on web sites.
Website publishers, such as the media, relies heavily on advertising dollars to finance their business and create content. The lawsuit said that the digital advertisements achieved by digital advertisements achieved the revenues of more than $ 20 billion a year for American publishers.
The lawsuit has also claimed that competition in advertising technology is “broken” because Google bought its competitors and the used tactics that intimidate publishers and advertisers to use their tools.
Google has the control of the common advertising technology services used by most major publishers to sell ads and companies use to buy ads. The company also runs what is known as Excination, which helps to match publishers with advertisers who compete with each other to buy an available advertising space.
In addition, Google collects valuable data on its users, allowing advertisers to target people based on the site, interests and what they are looking for.
Since Google has a lot of strength on advertisements online, the company was able to set rules and manipulate the system in ways that benefited from competitors and harmed its damage, according to the Ministry of Justice in the lawsuit. It retains 35 % of each dollar spent on digital ads.
In the verdict, the judge said that Google forced its customers to use its product by linking the publisher’s advertising server and exchanging ads together. The judge can order Google to change the policies that prevented publishers from using other AD Tech products.
“Google’s monopolistic tactics – this time in the advertising market – have starved from creators of the content of the revenues they deserve and need to maintain high -quality press. Today is a big day for our industry,” said Daniel Kofi, President and CEO of the News Alliance/Information, a commercial group representing the media outlets, in a statement.
Google, on the other hand, says it has competitors. During the trial, Google’s lawyers argued that the government focused its case very narrowly on some of the ads presented on web sites, ignoring the technology giant competition with social media platforms, broadcasting services, and e -commerce giants such as Amazon.
“We won half of this issue and we will create the other half,” said Li Malholland, Vice President of Organizational Affairs in Google. “We do not face the court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our advertising technology tools are simple, affordable and effective.
The Battle of the Court was distinguished by executive officials, including Neil Mohan, CEO of YouTube, owned by Google, which has seen that Google has expanded advertising technology tools that it provided in response to customer demands.
Mohan used to work on Doubleclic ads and joined Google after closing its acquisition of the company with more than $ 3 billion in 2008.
The purchase of Google for Doubleclick, who provided services that helped advertisers and publishers manage and track ads online, helped Google Grow. Since publishers searched for ways about using Google products, the search company has also bought possible threats such as Admeld, which helped publishers get better prices for their advertising space.
Although the judge can still order Google to rid these acquisitions, monopoly experts say they are less likely than other possible repairs.
This is because the court found that anti -monopoly enforcement devices failed to prove that Google Doubleclic and Admeld were anti -competing, although it helped the company gain monopoly in two technical markets.
“Structural treatments like those are somewhat unprecedented. They are seen as a type of border, and for this reason I will set them [the likelihood] Perhaps in less than 50 % but not impossible at all. “