After battle with Uncle Sam over online competition, web giant vows to appeal the bit it lost, celebrates the half it won

For the second time in less than a year, a federal judge has found that some parts of Google broke US antitrust law.

The Chrome titan is spinning the latest ruling as a win, though, as its ad-selling business and the past acquisitions it used to build its ad dominance were given the all-clear for now.

In a 115-page memorandum opinion [PDF] published Thursday, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act "by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market, and has unlawfully tied its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX)."

Judge Brinkema, however, found that the US Justice Department failed to prove its case with regard to Google's "open-web display advertiser ad networks."

The Justice Department in January 2023 ...