A federal judge ruled on Thursday Google violated antitrust laws to hold a monopoly over online advertising technology, a major loss for the company in its latest antitrust case as Google may soon be forced to sell its Chrome browser and other assets.

Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion.

The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of a separate decision in August that concluded Google’s namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation.

Google operates illegal monopolies over two separate markets related to digital advertising technology, a federal judge ruled on Thursday – dealing the Big Tech giant another historic antitrust loss that could result in a breakup of its online empire.

The bombshell ruling by US Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia determined that Google violated the Sherman Act by dominating the online publisher ad server market and the ad-exchange market that connects ad buyers to sellers.

Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for U.S. antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.

The FTC’s high-stakes antitrust lawsuit against Meta kicked off today with opening arguments in Washington, DC. Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the stand to defend his company against the federal government’s claims that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp should never have been approved.

In the most significant legal ruling against a major technology giant in more than two decades, a federal judge says Google illegally monopolized online search and advertising by paying companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to install Google as the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust law and acted illegally in order to maintain its monopoly in online searches. There's just one glaring problem: Google isn't a monopoly—not even close.

In a decision by the District Court of the U.S. District of Columbia, Google has been found guilty of monopolizing its leadership in online search by its exclusive deals with browser providers. These deals, the court says, entrenched a position it had won by being the best search engine, keeping competitors from being able to challenge its position. The decision relies on the fact that very few people take advantage of the ability to change their default browser search engines.

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world's default search engine, the first big win for federal authorities taking on Big Tech's market dominance.

The ruling paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, possibly including a breakup of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, which would change the landscape of the online advertising world that Google has dominated for years.

The Justice Department and several dozen state attorneys general won a sweeping victory against Google Monday as a federal judge ruled that the search giant illegally monopolized the online search and advertising markets over the past decade.