Last week, a U.S. District Court judge declared that Google has built “monopoly power” in its online advertising business. The outlandish ruling was yet another reminder of just how far some in the U.S. judiciary have strayed from economic common sense.

Usually for an act to be a crime, there has to be a victim. The lawyers can’t find one here.

While Google has been the largest actor in the digital advertising market for several years, its success has coincided with a multi-year DECLINE in online advertising costs. A study published in 2022 by Laffer Associates and Unleash Prosperity found that digital ad time and space that cost $100 in 2009 cost $71 in 2022, a decrease of 29 percent. Newspaper advertising only fell 7 percent during that same period. Perhaps the FTC should sue The New York Times.

A recent study by the Progressive Policy Institute found that from 2010-2022, there was a 27 percent REDUCTION in the price of Internet advertising sales. During the same period, the price of television advertising fell just 1 percent.

Regrettably, the Trump Justice Department hailed the ruling as a “landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.” Hello, there are thousands of places to advertise online.

Ironically, President Trump signed an executive order requiring foreign nations to stop unfairly attacking America’s dominant high tech companies with discriminatory taxes and frivolous lawsuits. Then why is our own Justice Department doing so?