Google's Ad Business Is a Monopoly, US Federal Court Rules

Google's advertising business, which generates key revenue for the tech giant, is an illegal monopoly, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. In the ruling, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema wrote that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, a landmark antitrust law from 1890. Google broke the law "by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market," Brinkema wrote. The ruling marks the second major loss Google has faced in less than a year. Last August, a judge declared Google to be operating an illegal monopoly in online search. As with that ruling, Google plans to appeal today's decision. "We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half," Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said in a statement. "We disagree with the Court's decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools ... Read full article.