Tech titan Google took a serious blow on Thursday after a devastating federal judge ruling.
According to multiple reports, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that Google had, in fact, been running an illegal monopoly with regards to one of its core business functions.
CNBC reported that Brinkema agreed with the charges that Google “unlawfully monopolized markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges, which sit between buyers and sellers.”
As CNN noted, this is actually the third time that Google has been struck with these sorts of charges since December 2023.
Brinkema’s ruling is critical, as it could open the floodgates to a number of possible outcomes — none of which are particularly favorable for Google.
One of the big changes this could trigger is that Google could finally be forced to break up its suite of advertising products.
CNBC pointed out that the “U.S. Department of Justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange.”
For those unfamiliar with all that lingo, it’s not good for Google, which makes a fortune through its advertising business.
CNN described just a portion Google’s advertising wing as a lucrative $31 billion arm of the tech conglomerate.
Does Google run a monopoly?
For the unfamiliar, Google’s advertising systems actually operate large swathes of all the advertising you see on websites.
Through various systems — now deemed monopolistic — Google would match advertisers with website publishers.
In short, it did give them a tremendous amount of control and sway over what advertisements could appear where, across most of the world wide web.
In lieu of selling off assets, Google could also be compelled to fundamentally alter its business practices.
CNBC also reported that this could just be the beginning of some serious headaches for Google and parent company Alphabet.
Just next week, the tech company will again be in the hot seat when a Washington judge will hold a trial at the DOJ’s request to compel Google to sell off its Chrome browser, as well as other measures to rein in Google’s search engine dominance.
That all being said, changes are unlikely to happen any time in the immediate future.
CNN was sure to point out the inevitable possibility of Google appealing these rulings, which “will likely take years to play out.”
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