Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

Decision here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1410.0.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.53...</a>

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.md&#x2F;20250417144711&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;17&#x2F;technology&#x2F;google-ad-tech-antitrust-ruling.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.md&#x2F;20250417144711&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;202...</a>

I don&#x27;t think this article explains it well. Google sells ad space on behalf of the publishers and also sells the ads on behalf of the advertisers. It also runs the auction that places the ads into the ad space. See this graphic <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;images.app.goo.gl&#x2F;ADx5xrAnWNicgoFu7" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;images.app.goo.gl&#x2F;ADx5xrAnWNicgoFu7</a>. Parts of this can definately be broken up without destroying Google.

This is necessary now, but it should have been done years back.<p>Nowadays, many companies backed up by investors with very deep pockets are doing this in all markets: start to buy middle-man companies in a space, it does not matter which one, dominate the market thanks to monopolistic power. Screw the clients making them pay too much, screw the providers paying them too little. Go for the next market.<p>Google does this for ads. But, with Apple, does the same for app vendors. Amazon does it for all kinds of brands with physical products. Uber does it for taxi drivers and their clients. All of them take a big chunk of the profit while making things more expensive, but they are the only real option to reach clients as they have used tactics to monopolize entire markets.<p>This should be impossible, because there are laws against it. If it is allowed the future of the economy is one big corporation with all workers working for it, and everybody buying from it. It looks like a scifi dystopia.

I&#x27;m confused how this is a monopoly, is it just the &quot;if we define a market as Google ads, then Google has a monopoly problem&quot;? Like defining iOS apps as a market (and somehow failed)?<p>Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up, at the end of the day X company is spending $5 per thousand clicks (or whatever) because they think it&#x27;s worth it. Google can charge whatever they want, they run the platform, and it&#x27;s not as if anyone is forced to use them.<p>I just don&#x27;t see how you could in the same breath (how the government basically has) that the app store isn&#x27;t a monopoly, but Google ads are. There&#x27;s other ad companies, there is no other way to get an app on iOS.

I would love to see a company compete in the ad space with the goal of making ads <i>less intrusive</i>. If ads didn&#x27;t attack me and cause the viewport to jump and become obscured while reading, my first impression with the products would be better, and the sites the ads are on would get more viewership.<p>Quality ads would be at a huge premium.

I&#x27;ve always been somewhat opposed to this, because there&#x27;s already like 10 different search alternatives, and now AI is taking over, which will further weaken their grip.<p>Google is on top because they do the best job; I use Yandex primarily, but I switch back to google all the time for coding related questions. In terms of advertising, there&#x27;s billions of views on Facebook&#x2F;Instagram&#x2F;X to get, in addition to all the other sites. I get they&#x27;re a big player, but I worry we&#x27;re just beating Google because they&#x27;re down, not because it&#x27;s good for the consumer.

Kinda surprised. Google&#x27;s core business is advertising. Some vertically integrated aux services (like chrome) feel ripe for antitrust, but I wasn&#x27;t expecting ads themselves. What is Google without ads?

First, let me say I&#x27;m glad the FTC is going after monopolies. True capitalism requires competition, not massive corporations.<p>That said, I feel like going after Big Tech is a massive misuse of resources. Not because it&#x27;s not a monopoly (it is), but because there&#x27;s a far more important monopoly that should be broken up: healthcare insurance.<p>Something like 7 corporations dominate 70% of the healthcare insurance market. The AMA had a study last year that concluded these insurance companies are charging monopoly pricing.<p>This is why Americans are paying astronomical prices for healthcare.<p>This is IMO by far the most pressing issue. Yet the FTC is seemingly spending all its time going after Big Tech, which has a comparatively lower impact on the quality of everyday Americans&#x27; lives.

They should dig into admob while they&#x27;re at it. They love screwing devs over and have purposely left their email option broken for years now. They&#x27;ll cut you off even when it&#x27;s their fault and you&#x27;ll have no means of recourse. It&#x27;s a joke, but they have the best ecpm around unfortunately.

There have been similar such statements in the past but nothing happened, What will be different this time ?

The Court&#x27;s Opinion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1411.0_7.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.53...</a>

Court Listener has the opinion here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1410.0.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.vaed.53...</a>

Curious to see how Google search holds up over the next few years. I find myself not using it at all unless I am looking for something very specific such as the website for a company or local restaurants, etc.<p>Anything informational now I use ai.

And the president is doing a lot of illegal things, and senators are doing a lot of illegal things, why do Google has to pay for it&#x27;s crimes if not even politicians have to pay for their crimes?

Google really should start floating some plans for splitting itself up. Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up. Some people thought it would all fail, but the companies have done a good job competing and cooperating at the right times.<p>If Google comes up with the plans, it&#x27;s better than some antagonist.

The market is being unfairly defined based on how things worked decades ago instead of looking at the modern landscape. Tech evolved rapidly and the way things worked decades ago may not be optimal for the end user as things change.

If the Meta case goes this way too, the ripple effects could be huge. Might affect the bay area, startup scene and a lot of others in ways we can&#x27;t even grasp yet. All we can do is wait and see..

Happy to see this and hopefully there are some changes. Right now I&#x27;m dealing with a crazy Adsense issue and there is no recourse, no customer support and no alternative.

Google isn&#x27;t a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable.<p>For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argument applies to Chrome or any other customer acquisition vehicle.<p>The real barriers to making Google competitive are fixable but require a different sort of regulation outside of antitrust.

I think this decision would have been impactful 10 years ago. Why did the government wait until Google started becoming irrelevant?

Not to say Google is in the right but Google seems to be pitted against the entire industry constantly.

Pretty crazy how this case gets the full support of thr DOJ, along with actions against Harvard, Colombia ect. I dont mind Google being broken up, but how am i supposed to respect the law when the same DOJ lets out ponzi schemers and bond villians because they donated 500k to a Trump friendly super pac.<p>If im Google or anoother tech company im going to be Divesting from the United States as much as possible.

The big question now is whether this will have any noticeable consequences.

Talk to the ruling directly: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;radpod.ai&#x2F;share&#x2F;court-ruling-google-violated-the-sherman-antitrust-act-snapshot-b0a313d0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;radpod.ai&#x2F;share&#x2F;court-ruling-google-violated-the-she...</a>

This is fantastic news. Break up the Google monopoly.

Sundar booking flights to Mar A Lago

Part of the problem is the Capitalist system. Google shares are traded on the market. They have an obligation to grow every year. Sure when your a small hungry startup you can grow fast, but when you are the size of Google and try the same thing you inevitably get into these types of problems where you try to dominate, but you are also the biggest player because of pressure from your shareholders.

A decade too late for Appnexus

Go figure that it&#x27;s taken so long to do this that it was possibly almost mooted by Google enshittifying itself out of existence.

Could this be used as a shakedown by Trump (give me 1 billion and I&#x27;ll get the case withdrawn)

What are the odds this case will continue to be pursued honestly under the Trump administration?

No shit

Wait until you see AI

So happy to see big tech&#x27;s &quot;kiss Trump&#x27;s ass and hope all the legal troubles go away&quot; strategy failing spectacularly.

The most surprising thing about big tech is that most of them seem to be less useful than ever and yet they are making more money than ever.<p>For example, it seems like nobody uses Oracle products anymore, yet Oracle stock is at an ATH.<p>Microsoft Windows is less popular than ever and yet Microsoft stock is at an ATH.<p>Apple peaked years ago and yet ATH.<p>Does anyone still use Facebook regularly? FB stock is ATH.<p>Something doesn&#x27;t add up.

I don&#x27;t know whether they are a monopoly but I would like them to fix several things<p>1) Fix your search engine. Stop ignoring keywords, your product as it is currently sucks<p>2) Stop antagonizing people with user hostile actions in Chrome<p>3) Enough with the ideological censorship

All the ads i see on youtube are nothing but scams. Google has become evil.

Google also destroyed journalism as we know it. Who knows how the industry would look like, if it wasn&#x27;t suffocated by its monopoly

the FTC is like Jim Cramer. Once they judge a business to be a monopoly, the business falls apart and the monopoly is irrelevant. Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows &#x2F; IE monopoly trial. the AT&amp;T break up set American technology back by decades and killed our domestic chip production.

It seems the judge went with reasoning resembling an orange monkey logic. &quot;I know online advertising better than anyone else on the planet, and Google is a monopoly&quot;.<p>US&amp;A has already turned into idiocracy.

Advertisement seems to be a hot topic for endless discussion these days.<p>Throw in some &quot;that thing sells ads&quot; and endless tarpit discussion ensues with no clear conclusion.<p>We should be better than this.

Weird calling them a monopoly when they only control 26% of the market for digital marketing. For comparison when Microsoft was found guilty, they had 90% of the desktop market. Att was at 100% when they were broken up. Standard oil was at 90%.<p>Is this lowest percentage of market for a company being found monolopy?

People are illegally thinking of nothing but &#x27;google.com&#x27; when they are about to search for something, rules judge.<p>In so doing, they leave Google no choice but to reluctantly comply in behaving like a monopoly.<p>This flagrant behavior is punishable by exposure to pages and pages of spam, advertising, inauthentic content, nonsensical AI summaries (unless &#x27;fucking&#x27; is added to the query) and malware.<p>Our reporter tried reaching out to a few representatives of the people to see what they have to say for themselves, but they were too busy doom-scrolling YouTube shorts or TikTok to even blink their eyes.