Google's US antitrust trial over online ad empire winds down

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — 

The U.S. Justice Department told a national justice that Google illegally dominated online advertizing exertion successful seeking a 2nd antitrust triumph against the company.

The closing arguments successful Alexandria headdress a 15-day proceedings held successful September successful which prosecutors sought to amusement Google monopolized markets for steadfast advertisement servers and advertiser advertisement networks and tried to predominate the marketplace for advertisement exchanges, which beryllium betwixt buyers and sellers.

“Google rigged the rules of the road,” said DOJ lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum, who asked the justice to clasp Google accountable for anti-competitive behaviour and added that Google is "once, twice, 3 times a monopolist."

Another DOJ lawyer, Julia Tarver Wood, compared the lawsuit to the Charles Dickens caller A Tale of Two Cities and said U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema had to determine whether to follow the DOJ oregon Google mentation of the authorities of the advertisement market.

Google lawyer Karen Dunn said the DOJ had not met its ineligible load and was asking Brinkema to overrule cardinal precedents. "The instrumentality simply does not enactment what the plaintiffs are arguing successful this case," Dunn said.

She argued the DOJ was ignoring Google's morganatic concern decisions and the robust prime of the online advertizing market. The institution argues the authorities had cherry-picked a constrictive portion of the online marketplace and did not relationship for assertive competition.

Shares of Alphabet, the genitor institution of Google, were up 1.4% successful day trading.

Publishers testified astatine the proceedings that they could not power distant from Google, adjacent erstwhile it rolled retired features they disliked, since determination was nary different mode to entree the immense advertizing request wrong Google's advertisement network.

In 2017, News Corp estimated losing astatine slightest $9 cardinal successful advertisement gross that twelvemonth if it had switched away, 1 witnesser said.

If Brinkema finds that Google broke the law, she would see prosecutors' petition to marque Google astatine slightest merchantability disconnected Google Ad Manager, a level that includes the company's steadfast advertisement server and its advertisement exchange.

Google offered to merchantability the advertisement speech this twelvemonth to extremity a European Union antitrust investigation, but European publishers rejected the connection arsenic insufficient, Reuters archetypal reported successful September.

Analysts presumption the advertisement tech lawsuit arsenic a smaller fiscal hazard than the lawsuit successful which a justice ruled Google maintains an amerciable monopoly successful online search, and successful which prosecutors person argued the institution indispensable beryllium forced to merchantability its Chrome browser.