Google has illegally dominated markets for ad tech, judge rules

Alphabet's Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled yesterday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.

- Reuters

The US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory. Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, the judge wrote.