What happened
A federal judge yesterday ruled that Google's online ad technology unit constitutes an illegal monopoly, raising the possibility that the search giant may be forced to divest itself of a lucrative pillar of its business. The decision gave the Justice Department its second major antitrust victory against Google in eight months.
Who said what
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google had "willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power" in the online exchanges that match ad buyers and sellers and the tools web publishers use to sell ad space, "substantially" harming publishers and, "ultimately, consumers of information on the open web." She said the Justice Department had "failed to show," however, that Google's purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld, two of the backbones of its ad-sales dominance, "were anticompetitive."
"We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half," Google's Lee-Anne Mulholland said on X. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling as a "landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What next?
A second federal judge, Amit Mehta, has a hearing on Monday to start deciding the consequences of August's finding that Google's search engine was an illegal monopoly. Possible sanctions include splitting off its Chrome browser. The penalty hearings for Brinkema's ruling will "likely begin late this year or early next year," The Associated Press said. Google's appeals of both rulings "could take years," The Wall Street Journal said.
-
Blue Origin launches Mars probes in NASA debutSpeed Read The New Glenn rocket is carrying small twin spacecraft toward Mars as part of NASA’s Escapade mission
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Microsoft pursues digital intelligence ‘aligned to human values’ in shift from OpenAIUNDER THE RADAR The iconic tech giant is jumping into the AI game with a bold new initiative designed to place people first in the search for digital intelligence
-
How the online world relies on AWS cloud serversThe Explainer Chaos caused by Monday’s online outage shows that ‘when AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu’
-
Supersized: The no-limit AI data center build-outFeature Tech firms are investing billions to build massive AI data centers across the U.S.
-
Is the UK government getting too close to Big Tech?Today’s Big Question US-UK tech pact, supported by Nvidia and OpenAI, is part of Silicon Valley drive to ‘lock in’ American AI with US allies
-
Google: A monopoly past its prime?Feature Google’s antitrust case ends with a slap on the wrist as courts struggle to keep up with the tech industry’s rapid changes
-
South Korea's divide over allowing Google MapsTalking Points The country is one of few modern democracies where the app doesn't work
-
Google avoids the worst in antitrust rulingSpeed Read A federal judge rejected the government's request to break up Google
-
Grok brings to light wider AI antisemitismIn the Spotlight Google and OpenAI are among the other creators who have faced problems
