Judge hands Google partial defeat in ad tech monopoly case

MANHATTAN (CN) — The federal judge overseeing a multidistrict antitrust case against tech giant Google over its digital advertising technology business ruled Tuesday in favor of online publishers and advertisers who pointed to findings of anticompetitive dominance by Google in an antitrust trial in Northern Virginia this year.

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel granted partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain the Daily Mail, owner of the MailOnline newspaper and Inform Inc., a digital media company. Castel abrred Google from trying to relitigate the antitrust conclusions from the case brought the Justice Department in the Eastern District of Virginia.

“The court in the [Eastern District of Virginia] action stated with clarity what it did and did not find as anticompetitive behavior,” Castel, a George W. Bush appointee wrote. “Thus, this court need not parse the possible paths that the factfinder may have taken in an effort determine which facts were actually and necessarily decided.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in her 115-page decision this past April that Google’s grasp of tech tools allows it to wield monopolistic power in the advertising industry in violation of federal antitrust laws.

“The issues that are identical in both the DOJ’s action and certain of the moving plaintiffs’ actions are whether Google violated section 2 of the Sherman Act by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the worldwide markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges and violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by unlawfully tying Google’s publisher ad server (DFP) to its ad exchange (AdX),” Castel wrote.

Brinkema, a Bill Clinton appointee, found Google willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power by entwining its publisher ad server and ad exchange through contractual policies and technological integration.

This enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power. Beyond that, Google imposed anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminated desirable product features.

In addition to depriving rivals of a chance to compete, “this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” she concluded.

While finding Google in violation of antitrust laws, she also dismissed a portion of the government’s case challenging the tech firm’s monopolization of the advertiser ad network market.

Google’s bench trial in Northern Virginia concluded this month, with Brinkema recommending the tech giant reach a settlement with the federal regulators who brought the antitrust case.

Justice Department attorneys called for divestment of AdX, Google’s ad exchange, and DFP — DoubleClick for Publishers — an ad server. Google’s attorneys have argued for a more lenient course of action involving behavior and conduct remedies, calling the the divestiture proposal “radical and reckless.”

Eight states —  California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia — joined the U.S. Department of Justice in the case. Final arguments are set for Nov. 17.

Representatives for Google did not immediately respond to request for comment.

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