Google has avoided a court-ordered breakup of its advertising technology division after a federal judge declined to endorse the Department of Justice’s push to force a sale of key parts of the business.
Google spared from selling its advertising business
A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to compel Google to divest major elements of its advertising technology operations. The decision spares the company from the most severe remedies that had been proposed after it was found to be holding an illegal monopoly in the digital advertising market.
The ruling means Google can keep its ad-tech business intact, sidestepping what would have been a significant structural change to how the company operates. It marks another instance in which the company has fended off a potentially business-splitting antitrust outcome.
Behavioural remedies accepted by the court
The outcome does not leave Google entirely without consequences. The court confirmed that it has accepted most of the proposed behavioural remedies designed to address and curb the company’s anticompetitive conduct.
These measures are intended to place limits on how Google conducts its advertising operations, rather than requiring the company to break apart or sell off portions of its business. The distinction is central to the ruling, which separates the finding of an illegal monopoly from the question of how that conduct should be corrected.
With the request for a forced sale set aside, the focus now shifts to the behavioural conditions the court has approved as the mechanism for addressing the company’s practices in the digital advertising market.
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