Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) considered divesting pieces of its ad tech business to address antitrust concerns in Europe and the U.S., but a lawyer for the tech giant claims the Department of Justice has gone considerably further with its proposal by forcing a sale of the company’s advertising exchange, AdX, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
According to Jeannie Rhee, an outside lawyer for the Alphabet Inc. unit, the Justice Department is seeking a “full technical separation and divestiture” of AdX, Bloomberg reported.
The DOJ and Google are set to face off in a two-week hearing starting next week about whether the company must sell off parts of its business after a judge ruled it had illegally monopolized two advertising technology markets.
“Google considered a business divestiture,” Rhee said at a hearing in Virginia federal court. “That is not identical in any way, shape, or form” to the Justice Department’s proposal.
Google currently operates an ad-buying service for marketers, an ad-selling service for publishers, and a trading exchange where both sides complete transactions in auctions.
Rhee didn’t offer additional details on Google’s settlement offer. Before the U.S. filed its case in 2023, Google offered a settlement that would split the part of its business that auctions and places ads on websites and apps into a separate company that would remain under the Alphabet umbrella, Bloomberg previously reported.
Judge Leonie Brinkema, who is overseeing the case, however, ruled that the Justice Department can present limited information about what Google decided internally about the technological possibility of a separation.
“The technical feasibility is the issue here,” Brinkema said.
Both the U.S. and European competition authorities have found Google illegally dominated the advertising technology markets by giving its ad tools a competitive advantage. Earlier this month, the EU fined it €3B ($3.5B) over its business practices—the second-highest fine the Brussels-based regulator has imposed on the company.
The U.S., meanwhile, is seeking an order from Brinkema that Google immediately sell off its advertising exchange, AdX, as well as make its technology interact with rivals.