The U.S. Department of Justice has proposed that Google sell its AdX digital ad marketplace and DFP platform for managing and delivering ads on websites, after a federal judge found that the company illegally dominated two online ad-tech markets.
The proposed remedies, including divestitures, are necessary to restore competition in the ad-exchange and publisher ad-server markets, the DOJ said in a court filing late on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, last month found Google liable for ‘willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power’ in those two markets.
The ruling was another blow for Google after a separate judge found last year that Google held an illegal monopoly in online search, as reported by Reuters.
Brinkema set a September trial date on Friday, after hearing from Google and the DOJ on potential remedies for the company’s dominance in ad tools used by online publishers.
Google has said the company supported behavioural remedies such as making real-time bids available to competitors, but that prosecutors cannot legally pursue a bid to force it to sell parts of its business.
“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,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement to Reuters.
