Google will confront the U.S. government’s latest attempt to topple its internet empire in federal court on Friday as a judge considers how to prevent the tactics that resulted in parts of its digital ad network being branded as an illegal monopoly.
The courtroom showdown in Alexandria, Virginia, will pit lawyers from Google and the U.S. Department of Justice against each other in closing proceedings focused on the complex technology that distributes millions of digital ads across the internet each day.
After a lengthy trial last year, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in April that pieces of Google’s ad technology had been rigged in a way that made it an illegal monopoly. That set up another 11-day trial earlier this fall to help Brinkema determine how to remedy its anti-competitive practices.
Friday’s closing arguments will give both Google and the Justice Department a final chance to sway Brinkema before she issues a ruling that probably won’t come until early next year
The Justice Department wants Brinkema to force Google to sell some of the ad technology that it has spent nearly 20 years assembling, contending a breakup is the only way to rein in a company that the agency’s lawyers condemned as a “recidivist monopolist” in filings leading up to Friday’s hearing.
