US Court Orders Google to Change Advertising Auction Rules

A US court has ordered Google to change its online advertising auction rules after finding that the company had illegally obtained monopoly power over technologies connecting publishers and advertisers.

The decision was made by Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema, who rejected the Department of Justice's request to require Google to sell its advertising exchange or open the source code of its publisher platform technology.

Google will not be able to apply policies that tie its DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) platform to its AdX advertising exchange. The company was also prohibited from restoring features that required publishers using DFP to give AdX preferential treatment when bidding for advertising space.

The court ordered Google to ensure that DFP and AdX are compatible with header bidding software, which allows publishers to offer advertising space to several exchanges before bidding ends. AdX must also be compatible with competing publisher platforms, and Google must provide publishers with data from AdX and DFP.