Menu Home News Hardware Gaming Mobile Finance Deals Reviews How To Wccftech Mobile U.S. Department Of Justice Defeats Google In Major Antitrust Trial Over Ad Tech Monopoly Allegations Ezza Ijaz • Apr 18, 2025 at 04:14pm EDT The regulatory authorities are increasingly targeting tech giants and ensuring that no anti-competitive practices become the norm and that any company that violates the antitrust laws is held accountable. The legal battle between the U.S. Department of Justice and Google is one such case that has been going on for a while, with the entire tech community focused on the final ruling that would decide the future course of action for the company and even broadly for the industry. After a three-week trial period and follow-up arguments, the court ruled that Google did, in fact, violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, and now the penalties for the violation would be decided. The U.S. Department of Justice has won its antitrust case against Google, as the company is accused of operating a monopoly in the advertising industry The U.S. Department of Justice has been pursuing Google for its ad tech practices for a while, and the trials have been going on for about three weeks, along with extensive post-trial review. The court has now ruled in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice as it has won the antitrust case against Google, and the tech giant has been accused of sustaining a monopoly in the digital advertising technology industry. As per the ruling, Google breached the law in two important areas for the digital advertising space; it kept its monopoly in ad exchanges and and publisher ad servers and also illegally tied its products together, such as its ad server and ad exchange, to block away competition. These findings led to Google violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The US District Judge Leonie Brinkema stated: Plaintiffs have proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.  However, it was a partial win, as the claim that Google maintained dominance in the ad network space was denied. Google's VP of Regulatory Affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, emphasized the case's win and let the community know that the rest would now be appealed via Verge. She further said: The Court agreed that our advertiser tools and acquisitions like DoubleClick don’t harm competition. However, we respectfully disagree with the ruling on our publisher tools—publishers have plenty of choices and they use Google because our ad tech is easy to use, cost-effective, and delivers results. Now, Google and the DOJ will face each other again for the remedies phase of the search antitrust trial. While the Department of Justice believes that Google should divestiture and break off its Chrome browser, we are yet to see the penalties that would be charged to fix the violations. Subscribe to get an everyday digest of the latest technology news in your inbox Follow us on Topics Sections Company Some posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com © 2025 WCCF TECH INC. 700 - 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada