Phoenix 24
The ruling preserves Google’s advertising structure while testing whether behavioural restrictions can restore competition.
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
A United States federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s request to break up Google’s advertising-technology business, choosing instead to impose operational changes intended to provide competitors with greater access to the digital advertising market. The complete details of the remedies remain temporarily sealed while confidential information is reviewed.
Judge Leonie Brinkema previously concluded that Google had illegally acquired and maintained monopoly power in two markets serving online publishers: advertising servers and digital ad exchanges. The court found that Google unlawfully connected its DoubleClick for Publishers platform with AdX, the marketplace where advertisers compete to place ads on websites.
The Justice Department sought the forced sale of AdX and proposed additional structural measures involving Google’s publisher-advertising technology. Prosecutors argued that behavioural restrictions would be insufficient because the company could not be trusted to operate the platforms without favouring its own services. Brinkema declined to order divestiture, citing the complexity and potential disruption associated with separating technology that processes millions of advertising transactions every second.
The remedies are expected to require Google to provide rival systems with improved access to real-time bidding information and limit practices that advantage its own products during advertising auctions. Their exact scope will become clearer when the redacted judgment is released. Google has indicated that it may appeal the underlying finding of unlawful monopolisation.
The decision does not declare Google’s conduct lawful or close the wider antitrust debate surrounding the company. It represents a disagreement over the appropriate remedy after liability was established. Critics argue that restrictions cannot remove the structural advantages created by controlling several stages of the advertising process, while Google maintains that a breakup would damage publishers, advertisers and consumers. The ruling will therefore test whether regulation can constrain a digital monopoly without dismantling the system that sustains it.
Hechos que no se doblan. / Facts that do not bend.