A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Thursday that Google illegally monopolized two advertising markets, paving the way for prosecutors to push for the breakup of Google’s advertising products, Reuters reported.
According to the ruling from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, Google broke the law by monopolizing the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. Brinkema wrote in a 115-page opinion that Google “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,” Bloomberg reported.
“For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets,” the judge added.
Google also pushed…
