Google’s ad technology bid to dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit has been rejected by a judge

Tech

By Reuters

April 28, 2023 | 12:28 p.m

A federal judge on Friday denied Google’s request to dismiss a Justice Department antitrust case focused on ad technology.

The government, which filed the ad tech lawsuit in January, argued that Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite.

Google has denied any wrongdoing.

“I deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss,” Judge Leonie Brinkema said in federal court in Virginia.

Google is a unit of letters.

Google argued that the lawsuit should be thrown out because the government mischaracterized the online ad market and unfairly excluded powerful competitors like Facebook.

He said the government’s estimate of Google’s ad exchange having “more than 50%” of the market fell short of the 70% required to cite market potential.

Google’s move is the company’s latest effort to end costly and time-consuming antitrust lawsuits.

A lawsuit filed by the government in 2020 asked a federal court in Washington to dismiss the claims.

Alphabet shares were down 1.5% on Friday.