Credit: Ambitious Studio - Rick Barrett via Unsplash
The Department of Justice (DOJ) in the US wants Google to sell two of its advertising products, AdX, an ad exchange, and DoubleClick for publishers.
The thrust of the argument is that this will help dislodge the giant digital platform’s dominance and restore some order of competition to the advertising market.
“This comprehensive set of remedies — including divestiture of Google’s unlawfully obtained monopolies and the products that were the principal instruments of Google’s illegal scheme — is necessary to terminate Google’s monopolies, deny Google the fruits of its violations, reintroduce competition into the ad exchange and publisher ad server markets, and guard against reoccurrence in the future,” the filing by the Department of Justice said.
A court last month ruled Google deprived “rivals of the ability to compete” running a monopoly in search services and search text ads.
Google had engaged in a “decade-long campaign of exclusionary conduct” to “acquire,” “protect” and “entrench” monopoly power in two markets that are critical to digital advertising.
A hearing for the latest divestment proposal will be heard in September.
Google argued the divestment would hurt publishers and advertisers.
“The DOJ conceded Google’s proposed ad tech remedy fully addresses the court’s decision on liability,” said VP of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland.
“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.”
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