Google is planning to appeal against the court’s decision in the monopoly case filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the United States (US), according to reports.
Last week, Google suffered a major blow after District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the search engine giant was “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power”.
The DOJ, along with various US states, had accused Google of suppressing competition by paying web browser and smartphone manufacturers to make Google their default search engine. In a ruling following a 10-week trial last year, District Judge Amit Mehta agreed that “Google is a monopolist, and it has behaved accordingly to preserve its dominance”.
According to Judge Brinkema, Google abuses its dominance in the publisher ad servers and ad exchanges markets. Publisher ad servers are systems that websites use to organise and manage their digital ad space.
Together with ad exchanges, this technology helps news publishers and other online content creators earn revenue by selling advertising. The judge remarked that Google exploits and dominates two markets for digital advertising.
The landmark ruling sets the stage for what could be a breakup of one of the world’s most profound and successful tech conglomerates relying heavily on online advertising. Google has repeatedly faced allegations that it stifles competition through its pre-installed Chrome browser on smartphones, leaving no room for rivals.
