The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken significant steps to address what it considers Google’s monopoly in the online search market. The DOJ’s plan would require Google to divest its dominant Chrome browser. This action includes two of its advertising products, as a third prong in a wider antitrust suite against the tech behemoth. In a major legal victory for the DOJ, a judge recently ruled that Google has established a monopoly in the online search space.
Per the DOJ, Google’s practices have prevented robust competition — competition that normally occurs within the ad tech ecosystem. The DOJ’s proposal suggests that the divestiture of Google’s ad tech tools is necessary to foster competition and prevent future violations.
“This comprehensive set of remedies—including divestiture of Google’s unlawfully obtained monopolies and the products that were the principal instruments of Google’s illegal scheme—is necessary to terminate Google’s monopolies, deny Google the fruits of its violations, reintroduce competition into the ad exchange and publisher ad server markets, and guard against reoccurrence in the future,” stated a representative from the DOJ.
To counter the DOJ’s reach, Google has submitted its own proposed slate of remedies in a separate court filing. One of these proposals includes opening up the capacity to place real-time bids on its AdX platform to all third-party ad servers. Google will continue to be subject to oversight from an independent compliance monitor for three years. This tactic seeks to place pressure on the corporation to follow through on any proposed remedies.
It’s certainly a deeply complicated problem Lee-Anne Mulholland, a Google spokesperson, told CNBC that they were confident in their proposed solutions. As she noted, “The DOJ has accepted that Google’s proposed ad tech remedy goes the distance to fully settle the Court’s decision on liability. The DOJ’s new proposed remedies to compel us to divest our ad tech tools go beyond the Court’s determination. These proposals have no legal basis and would be harmful to publishers and advertisers alike.
This continuing legal fight appears to be from an industry and a government seeking to rein in Google over its business practices and market dominance. The company’s already been dealt a huge antitrust blow related to its search engine dominance.
Meanwhile, over in TechCrunch land, folks there are busy preparing for their big TC Sessions AI event. Save the date for June 5 – Berkeley, California! This year’s event will provide a larger exhibit space for exhibitors to reserve their spaces early on, plus innovations from all public and private sectors, including artificial intelligence.
As the case unfolds, both the DOJ and Google are preparing for potential changes that could reshape the landscape of online advertising and competition among tech companies. The final result will potentially establish key precedential guidelines for what corporate–technological behavior will be accepted at greater scale.