Judge rather than jury will render verdict in upcoming antitrust trial

abcnews.go.com:

A judge rather than a jury will decide whether Google violated federal antitrust laws by building a monopoly on the technology that powers online advertising

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A judge rather than a jury will decide whether Google violated federal antitrust laws by building a monopoly on the technology that powers online advertising.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema was a defeat for the Justice Department, which sought a jury trial when it filed the case last year in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

But the government's right to a jury trial was based largely on the fact that it sought monetary damages to compensate federal agencies that purchased online ads and claimed they were overcharged as a result of Google's anticompetitive conduct. The dollar values associated with those claims, though, were relatively small — less than $750,000 — and far less significant than other remedies sought by the government, which might include forcing Google to sell off parts of its advertising technology.

As a result, Google last month took the extraordinary step of writing the government a check for more than $2 million — the $750,000 in damages claimed by the government multiplied by three because antitrust cases allow for trebled damages.

Mountain View, California-based Google argued that writing the check rendered moot any government claim of monetary damages and eliminated the need for a jury trial.

At a hearing Friday in Alexandria, Justice Department lawyers argued that the check Google wrote was insufficient to moot the damages claim, prompting a technical discussion over how experts would try to quantify the damages.

Brinkema ruled in favor of Google. She said the amount of Google's check