Surprise, surprise, Google’s digital monopoly was the plan all along

Thursday’s court ruling declaring Google a monopoly in the online advertising technology market is making headlines, but for many of us, this verdict comes as no surprise; it’s merely confirmation of something we’ve known for years.

When Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion back in 2007, some of us saw what was coming with absolute clarity (link in Spanish): this was the start of a calculated strategy to vertically integrate and dominate the entire online advertising ecosystem. I wrote about it in many occasions. This week’s federal court decision doesn’t reveal anything new — it simply makes official what’s long been obvious.

The monopoly was hiding in plain sight… for anyone who cared to look. Judge Leonie Brinkema’s ruling leaves little room for ambiguity: Google illegally monopolized both the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets, tying them together in a way that stifled competition, clearly violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. How did it pull this off? By acquiring key infrastructure (DoubleClick, Invite Media, AdMeld…), locking it down for use only with Google’s own tools, and consolidating to a staggering 90% market share in publisher ad servers by 2015.

This dominance wasn’t just a product of superior technology — though Google certainly had that…