By Eva Dou and Gerrit De Vynck, washingtonpost.com, 4-17-25
Google’s advertising technology unit is an illegal monopoly, a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled April 17, deepening the internet titan’s regulatory woes and raising the specter that it may have to divest itself of a major source of revenue.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is another major blow for Google after it lost another federal monopoly case last year filed by the Justice Department against its search engine. In 2023, a jury found Google broke monopoly laws in how it operated its app store, and the company is also facing antitrust pressure in the European Union.
Brinkema said in her judgment that Google “has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.” » Read More