By Michael Liedtke, Associated Press Techology writer
The United States Ministry of Justice doubles its attempt to break Google by asking it to give up the underlying technology fueling the company’s digital advertising network. The proposed remedy joins a distinct federal effort to separate the Chrome browser from its dominant search engine.
The government’s latest proposal was submitted on Monday evening before a Federal Court in Virginia, two and a half weeks after a federal judge ruled that parties of its lucrative digital advertising network abused its market power to stifle competition at the expense of online publishers.
In a 17-page file, lawyers of the Ministry of Justice argued that the American district judge Leonie Brinkema should punish Google by ordering the company to unload its ADX Business and DFP platform, tools which bring together advertisers, who wish to market their products and their publishers, who wish to sell commercial spaces on their sites, to generate income.
Unsurprisingly, this is an idea that Google vehemently plans to oppose when the penalty phase of the antitrust case – known as the remedy audience – begins at the end of September. Google has already promised to call on the Brinkema’s decision that technology supplying the advertising network has broken the law, but cannot do so until the judge does not settle in a decision expected at the end of this year or at the start of next year.
Google said in its own file on Monday that the disinvestment of ADX and DFP would not be technically achievable because no technology is able to work outside the owner infrastructure of Google. The company proposed its own appeals to restore competition and reiterated its intention to appeal the decision.
“Disinvestment is not as simple as selling the ADX or DFP source code to a voluntary buyer,” said Google.
The attempt to demolish Google occurs to the continuous efforts of the Ministry of Justice so that the company separates from its popular Chrome browser and to impose other restrictions to reduce the power of its omnipresent search engine, that another federal judge marked an illegal monopoly in a decision last August.
Appeal hearings in the case of research should end later this month, with a decision by the American district judge Amit Mehta awaited by labor festival.
If the Ministry of Justice is able to persuade the two different judges to order its demonstration of Google, it would be the greatest rupture of an American company since AT&T was forced to transform its telephone service into seven separate regional companies more than 40 years ago.
The Google Play Store for applications operating on its Android software which feeds most global smartphones was also declared illegal monopoly by a federal jury in 2023 and fight against the order of a judge who would force him to revise a commission system which generates billions of dollars in annual income.
But copoble its search engine and its digital advertising network would be much more important because it is the key toils of a company that generated $ 265 billion in income last year.
Google is confronted with threats of rupture at the same time as the advent of artificial intelligence changes the way consumers use technology and are looking for online information – a change that could also siphon traffic and money far from a power station that started in a garage of Silicon Valley in 1998.
Despite adversity, Google still offers solid financial growth to its business parent Alphabet Inc., which is currently assessed at 2 dollars.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
