US government to court: Not breaking Google’s ad tech business is ‘frankly, too dangerous’

The US Justice Department have asked a federal judge to break up Google’s advertising technology business, marking the second government request within a year that could fundamentally reshape the $2 trillion giant. During a hearing in Virginia, DOJ lawyers outlined plans to force Google to divest key components of its online advertising system following Judge Leonie M. Brinkema’s April ruling that Google illegally monopolized portions of the digital advertising market.

“To leave Google with 90 percent of publishers beholden to them is, frankly, too dangerous,” said Julia Tarver Wood, the government’s lead attorney in the case. The hearing established September 22 as the date when both parties will present detailed arguments about remedies.