Arlington, VA – Today, Judge Leonie Brinkema announced a remedies ruling requiring Google to change its ad-tech business practices, while not forcing it to sell its AdX advertising exchange, following an earlier ruling that Google acted illegally to acquire and maintain monopoly power in online advertising. This monopoly has allowed the company to force news and content publishers to use its services, and offer them lower payouts for ad space than they would otherwise receive in a competitive market.
In response to this ruling, Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance, said, “Today’s remedies ruling takes some positive steps towards dismantling Google’s overwhelming dominance of the adtech marketplace. We are pleased that the court has adopted most of the proposed behavioral remedies. But without a requirement to sell its advertising exchange, more will be needed to undo over a decade of market concentration and anticompetitive action. Publishers need stronger guarantees that they can receive appropriate value for impressions they offer advertisers, so they can continue to invest in producing high-quality journalism.
The Department of Justice laid out a compelling case to limit Google’s market power, and the original guilty verdict they won should not be overshadowed by insufficient remedies. We hope to see further legal clarity from a variety of publisher lawsuits currently pending against Google, and will continue to advocate for legislation that would address this market imbalance.”
The News/Media Alliance has spent years advocating on behalf of news media publishers against Google’s unlawful anticompetitive actions. It is strongly supportive of lawsuits filed by its members on the same issues, with plaintiffs including USA Today, the Daily Mail, and others. Much of this was prompted in the U.S. House Report that documented Google’s abuse in the ad tech ecosystem, the scope of which is wide-reaching.
The News/Media Alliance has repeatedly highlighted the extensive harm Google’s anti-competitive actions have caused to both publishers and consumers and has offered repeated testimony on this issue, laying out the damage Google’s monopoly has caused publishers of all sizes, noting a particularly disproportionate impact on media depending on its viewpoint or ownership.
The need for these remedies, when coupled with Google’s dominance in search recently affirmed by the courts in a separate case, illustrates the stranglehold Google has on consumer data and advertising that has led to devastating revenue loss for creators of original, quality content. NMA has weighed in on other Google antitrust cases and has authored a whitepaper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism”.
