Google is an illegal monopolist in online advertising, a federal court has determined, in a ruling that could lead to a breakup of its ad business.
Google monopolised online ads, a court determined.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google unlawfully monopolized advertising markets. The ruling determined that Google had control over a number of advertising markets, to the level of a monopoly, which it used to its advantage.
In the ruling, Judge Brinkema determined that Google’s monopoly affected the market for publisher ad servers and for ad exchanges. In effect, Google was able to influence the way advertisers bought ads, as well as how much publishers sold that ad space for.
