The US Department of Justice said it will seek to force Google parent Alphabet to sell key parts of its digital advertising business, which was found to constitute an illegal monopoly.
The DoJ on Friday told a federal judge that divestments of Google’s ad exchange and publisher ad server businesses are the only way to break its dominance. The former is the largest marketplace for bidding for online ad space and the latter is the technology online publishers use to list and sell ads on their websites.
The tech giant should also be required to share data on real-time ad bidding with competitors, the DoJ said in a Virginia court. US district Judge Leonie Brinkema set a trial date of September 22 to hear the proposals and Google’s rebuttals.