Google’s bid to dismiss DOJ lawsuit over ad tech denied by judge

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

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

“I’m going to deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss,” Judge Leonie Brinkema said in a federal court in Virginia. Google is a unit of Alphabet.

Google argued that the case should be thrown out because the government had erred in defining the online advertising market and improperly excluded powerful competitors such as Facebook. It also said that the government’s estimate of Google’s ad exchange as having “more than 50%” of the market fell short of the 70% needed to allege market power.

Google’s motion is the company’s latest effort to end costly, time-consuming antitrust lawsuits. It also asked a federal court in Washington to dismiss claims in a 2020 lawsuit filed by the government.

Alphabet shares were down 1.5% on Friday.