The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will seek the forced divestiture of Google’s AdX ad exchange and Google Ad Manager platform. According to the department, divesting these assets is the only way to eliminate Alphabet, the owner of Google,’s monopoly on the digital advertising market. Google AdX is the largest platform for bidding on advertising space on the Internet, and Google Ad Manager is used by publishers to place and sell advertising on their sites.
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As an additional measure, the DOJ is requiring Google to provide competitors with access to real-time bidding data. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22 before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Google will file its objections. The DOJ argues that structural measures are necessary to dismantle the persistent monopoly upheld by the court’s ruling. In April, Judge Brinkema found that Google had “willfully” monopolized the online advertising market. The court found that Google had used a strategy of bundling its ad exchange with back-end technology for publishers, allowing the company to lock out competitors and offer lower prices than independent platforms.
The court also looked at the third segment of the digital advertising ecosystem — networks that place ads on behalf of advertisers. In this area, the DOJ failed to prove that Google had a monopoly position. Thus, only two of the three key components were found to violate antitrust laws. Google objects to the proposed structural changes, arguing that it competes with Meta✴, Amazon, and TikTok. The court documents also indicate that Google is willing to share auction data in real time, but refuses to sell assets. Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s head of regulatory affairs, said the DOJ’s demands “go far beyond the court’s findings, have no legal basis, and will harm publishers and advertisers.”
In 2024, a court ruled that Google had monopolized the search market by paying Apple more than $20 billion annually to make Google’s search engine the default in Safari. As part of the case, the DOJ required Google to sell the Chrome browser and give competitors access to search data. Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified in a Washington court, arguing that the proposed measures were excessive and would result in Google’s intellectual property being transferred to competitors. He also stressed that mandatory data sharing could compromise user privacy.
A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered Alphabet to keep its Android mobile operating system open to developers after finding that the company used the Play Store to stifle competition among mobile apps and charged excessive fees. The ruling requires it to remove restrictions that prevent alternative platforms from getting equal access to Android devices.