A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Google to retool the system powering its monopoly in digital advertising, sparing the company from a wrenching break-up sought by the US government.
The initial two-page decision by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia marks the second time in a year that Google has received a reprieve from a Justice Department proposal to dismantle its internet empire. Meanwhile, what courts have described as the company’s anti-competitive practices have enriched Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc, which has a market value of US$4.11 trillion.
The judge’s full opinion, which includes the specific remedies, will remain under seal for 14 days to allow the parties to review it and propose any necessary redactions.
“We’re very pleased the court rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice-president for regulatory affairs.
After a judge declared Google’s ubiquitous search engine as an illegal monopoly in 2024, the Justice Department pushed for a penalty that would have required the company to sell its popular Chrome web browser. But it was rebuffed last September by another federal judge overseeing that case.
Now Brinkema has also rejected the government’s argument that Google should be forced to sell parts of the technology underlying a Byzantine system that generates a significant portion of the company’s nearly US$400 billion in annual ad sales.
Critics of Big Tech condemned the ruling.
“It takes an Olympic level of mental gymnastics to find that Google is operating an illegal monopoly and then decide to do nothing about it,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project. “With Big Tech continuing to suffocate new and innovative businesses from gaining traction, Judge Brinkema, like [US District Judge Amit] Mehta before her, is sending the wrong message at the wrong time.”
Brinkema is adopting an approach that the Justice Department adamantly opposed last November when the judge heard closing arguments during the trial’s remedy phase. The ad tech case dates back to the government’s 2023 filing of an anti-trust lawsuit that resulted last year in an illegal monopoly judgment.
Justice Department lawyers warned Brinkema in court documents that if Google is allowed to hold on to all its ad technology, the company will still be able to find ways to “manipulate computer algorithms that are the engine of its monopolies in ways too difficult to detect”.
In its counterarguments, Google contended that it would be unduly harsh to break up a complex network that distributes ads that online publishers depend upon to help finance digital services used by millions of consumers.
The technology underlying advertising exchange targeted in the case handles 55 million requests per second, according to estimates provided by Google in court filings. “This is technology that absolutely has to keep working for consumers,” Google had warned leading up to Brinkema’s ruling.
In her decision, Brinkema said she agreed to most of the remedies suggested by the two sides.
Even though the changes ostensibly will shake up the status quo in ways that could decrease Google’s revenue or at least slow its future growth, the ruling seems likely to be viewed by most investors as the equivalent of a speed bump for a company that has recently been turbocharged by AI technology.
AP
