Judge in U.S. v. Google (Advertising) Recommends Settlement as Remedy Hearings End

After two weeks of remedy hearings, Judge Leonie Brinkema recommended a settlement in U.S. v. Google (Advertising). The hearings are over for now, but both sides will reconvene in November to deliver closing arguments in the case.

As you may recall, Google was found to have an illegal monopoly in online advertising in the United States in April, with Judge Brinkema ruling that the online giant “willfully acquired and maintained monopoly power” through repeated violations of two sections of the Sherman Act.

For the past two weeks, lawyers representing Google and the U.S. Department of Justice and 17 U.S. states have engaged in remedy hearings in front of the Judge. And the stakes are high: Judge Brinkema has indicated that she was considering breaking up Google by forcing it to sell its advertising exchange business.

That’s the path the DOJ prefers. It argued that the only way to end Google’s abuses and prevent further illegal behavior is to break up the company. It also recommended that Google be forced to open up the code for its ad auction publisher tools and then be forced to sell off that business as well if competition doesn’t improve.

Google predictably would prefer a less dramatic outcome, and it argued that forcing it to sell parts of its advertising businesses would harm advertisers, especially smaller companies. Google claimed that its advertising systems were complex and served 8.2 million requests each second. And it proposed that it could make these systems more interoperable with competing ad systems and allow advertisers to use any combination of systems.

As for Judge Brinkema, she’s expected to issue a ruling within a few months. But she had some advice for Google and the government: Just settle the case before she can decide Google’s fate on her own.