Google avoided being broken up earlier this month when a US judge declined to force the company to sell its Chrome browser and instead imposed lighter conditions to remedy the company’s illegal monopoly of the search market. But the tech giant isn’t out of jeopardy. On Sept. 22, a different federal court will hold a hearing to weigh whether Google should be compelled to sell tools it has used to maintain a monopoly over advertising technology. The hearing follows a ruling by the court in April that Google illegally sought to squelch competition in the market used to buy, sell and display advertising around the web.
The cases together mark the biggest effort by the US government in more than two decades to challenge the grip a single company holds over an industry. While Google dodged the most severe remedies in the search case, the company is still at risk of being forced to sell key parts of its business to restore competition in the ad tech market.