Judge rather than jury will render verdict in upcoming antitrust trial Boston 25 News [Video]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — (AP) — 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 …