The United States government is eyeing Google’s digital ad marketplace AdX and DFP platform after a federal judge ruled that the tech giant illegally dominated two online ad-tech markets. The US department of justice (DOJ) has proposed the sale of Google’s ad platform as a remedy to end the tech giant’s monopoly and instill competition in the ad-exchange and publisher ad-server markets, Reuters reported, citing a court filing by DOJ.
The proposal comes after a US district judge last month found Google guilty of “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in two ad markets. After hearing arguments from Google and DOJ last week on potential remedies to fix the tech company’s dominance in ad tools used by online publishers, the Judge set a September trial date.
This is another setback for the Alphabet-owned tech company. Following a ruling by a federal judge in another case last year, the US administration has proposed that Google should sell off its search engine Chrome as a solution to rebalance the power dynamic in Silicon Valley and ensure competition.
In the ad-tech monopoly ruling, Google suggested behavioural remedies, including ensuring real-time bids are available to competitors. The tech giant contested the government’s proposed remedy and said it cannot legally push it to sell parts of its business.
“The DOJ’s additional proposals to force a divestiture of our ad tech tools go well beyond the court’s findings, have no basis in law, and would harm publishers and advertisers,” Google told Reuters.
Google AdX is a marketplace that allows publishers to sell their ad inventory to advertisers and agencies using real-time bidding technology.
Last year, to end a European Union probe against it, Google had proposed to sell its AdX. But the solution was rejected by the European publishers. The investigation began a few years back and focused primarily on Google’s display advertising market, which includes the banners and other visual formats on websites.
