A new court decision could change the dominant role that Google has occupied on the digital advertising market since the publication of Adwords at the end of 2000. April 17, the American district judge Leonie Brinkema deemed that Google illegally monopolized two markets: one for the advertising servers of publishers and one for the exchanges of online announcements. Antitrust investigators could not prove a monopoly in the Advertiser's advertising networks walk.
Brinkema said that Google is guilty of “acquiring and voluntarily maintaining the power of monopoly”, adding that “this exclusion drives substantially harming the customers of the Google publisher, the competitive process and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
Previous legal problems
This is not the first time that Google has been studied for antitrust violations. In 2020, 10 American states – including Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Northern Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Utah – continued the company, accusing it of associating it with Facebook to illegally manipulate online advertising auctions.
In August 2024, the American district judge Amit Mehta judged that Google had an illegal monopoly in the Online research market. More specifically, this case has revealed that Google has invested billions to make its site the default web browser and the smartphone search engine.
“Even if a new entrant was positioned from a quality point of view to tender for the defect when an agreement expires,” wrote Mehta, “such a company could only compete if it was ready to pay partners more than billions of dollars in income.” A month later, the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Markets Authority (CMA) found that the company actively used anti -competitive practices To remove other online advertising companies.
In the last decision, a trial should start next week to determine if Google will be forced to sell the Chrome browser Or cope with any other consequence for its domination of the online research market.
Potential repercussions
The potential repercussions of the recent decision are still uncertain. While the US Ministry of Justice suggests that Google should be forced to sell its advertising manager platform, a previous trial targeting the Chrome web browser for a possible sale is still awaiting resolution. If the courts have their way, we could see a very different Google in the near future.
