United States v. Google/Conclusions of Law/Section 6
VI. EFFECTS IN THE MARKET FOR GENERAL SEARCH TEXT ADVERTISING
To prove a Section 2 violation in the general search text ads market, Plaintiffs again must show that the exclusive agreements “indeed [have] the requisite anticompetitive effect.” Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 58–59. Plaintiffs contend that Google’s conduct has caused three anticompetitive effects particular to the text ads market: (1) market foreclosure, (2) supracompetitive text ads pricing, and (3) product degradation through diminished transparency regarding text ads auctions. As before, Plaintiffs argue that the exclusive deals deprive rivals of scale, which freezes competition in the text ads market in the same manner as in general search.