Google faces the charge of monopoly in search engine. It is also fighting another alleged monopolistic conduct case over technology that puts online advertising for the audience. The closing arguments will be heard in November 2024. The ruling is expected by the end of the year. If the court finds that Google engages in monopolistic conduct, there will be further hearings to explore the remedies.

The Justice department, along with some states believe Google should be forced to sell off its ad tech business. The justice department contends Google has built and maintained a monopoly in ‘open web display’ advertising. Essentially these are rectangular ads that appear on the top and right-hand side of the page when one browses the websites.

Google dominates all facets of the market — DoubleClick technology is used by news sites and other online publishers. Google Ads maintain a cache of advertisers looking to place their ads on right webpage for the targeted audience.

Google also operates AdExchange which conducts instant auctions to match the advertisers to the publishers.

Thus, it is a trifecta of monopolies which google tries to preserve, rather than serving its customers — both publishers and advertisers and winning the bids on merits.

Google brokers transactions between advertisers and publishers by extracting heavy fees, and as a result the content providers and new sites do not generate enough revenues.

In defense, Google says the government focuses only on online advertising which is a narrow niche. There is online advertising on social media, streaming TV services and app-based advertising. According to Google, it controls only 25 per cent of the market, and this share too dwindles in the face of competition.

Google also says it has invested billions in technology that facilitates the efficient match of advertisers and target audience. It says it should not be forced to share its technology and success with competitors.

The ad monopoly case is runs in Virginia and is separate from search engine monopoly case in Columbia.

During the proceedings, Google lawyer raised the issue of AmEx case related to anti-trust activity, but the judge disagreed with the relevance of that 2018 case to the present case.

In fact, the case pertains to monopolizing three separate markets for ad technology: sell-side tools used by websites ( called and servers ), ad exchanges and buy-side tools used by advertisers (called and networks). Google claims that it is wrong to put its tools in three buckets and it’s business be understood as a single market where websites publishers and advertisers transact.