/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24016885/STK093_Google_04.jpg "Google and DOJ return for round two of their anticount on fight — this time about ads")
Google and the Justice Department are set for a resuit of sorts on Monday when they return to court to dispute about Google’s alleged monopocatalogic behavior over how ads are bought and selderly on the internet.
The DOJ is recent off a triumph in its search anticount on case agetst Google, where a federal appraise in Washington, DC, consentd that Google had illegassociate monopolized the online search taget. This time, the two parties will dispute before a branch offent appraise in Virginia about whether Google has also illegassociate monopolized tagets for advertising technology.
“This is charitable of a one-two punch,” says Vanderbilt Law School anticount on professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth. “Google is probably licking its wounds from having lost the last one. And it would be terrible for it to leave out this one, for stateive.”
A loss in either case still wouldn’t unkind the “finish of Google,” Allensworth says. But for the handlement, “a second triumph could be genuine momentum in their project of going after Big Tech monopolies.” And in particular, she includes, it would validate the DOJ’s intensify on vertical integration: the way that branch offent business lines can be leveraged to increase a company’s dominance.
The DOJ is arguing that Google illegassociate monopolized the taget for ad tech tools apass the ecosystem. That includes the demand side of ad netlabors for buying space on websites, the provide side of rerenter ad servers for hawking advertising produceory, and the exalters enjoy Google AdX that sit between the two.
The handlement says that Google exerted “a campaign to condition, handle, and tax digital advertising transactions over 15 years” by illegassociate tying its tools together and excluding rivals from being able to fairly vie. The suit portrays it as a ripple effect that began when Google built publicizer demand thcimpolite its dominance in search. Then, Google bought rerenter ad server DoubleClick in 2009, giving it a huge rerenter base that sought to join with publicizers in its ad netlabor, plus a nascent ad exalter. Once Google handleled all sides of the taget, the DOJ alleges, it took exclusionary action to mutuassociate fortify its monopolies, including by manipulating ad auctions to donate itself an get and placing unfair conditions on accessing its tools.
Google, on the other hand, says the handlement is modestassociate watching to punish it for creating precious tools with efficiencies that profit rerenters and publicizers who use them. It says the handlement’s watch of the taget doesn’t mirror truth and diswatchs vigorous competition it faces and the innovations it’s produced to produce its tools drawive to customers.
The case take parts a highly technical taget with lots of complicated tools and processes that most normal devourrs — probable including the appraise — don’t encounter every day. For that reason, Allensworth says, “a lot of it’s going to come down to who’s the best storyincreateer.”
The trial was initiassociate going to be heard by a jury, but it’s now a bench trial after Google cut a telledly $2.3 million check for what it shelp was the “highest amount of harms” the handlement claimed in an effort to moot the jury demand. Google notably lost a recent anticount on jury trial to Epic Games in California.
The case is predicted to last disconnectal weeks and will feature witnesses apass the advertising and rerenting industries. Some of the witnesses the DOJ shelp it could call include YouTube CEO Neal Mohan (who used to labor on Google disexecute ads), The Trade Desk chief revenue officer Jed Dederick, and BuzzFeed chief business officer Ken Blom. (Ryan Pauley, plivent of revenue and increaseth at The Verge’s parent company, Vox Media, is also cataloged as a potential witness.)
A key point of satisfiedion is whether the handlement is seeking to force Google to deal with its competitors. In Verizon Communications, Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, the Supreme Court shelp that generassociate US anticount on law does not need firms to deal with rivals. When it comes to a duty to deal and litigating Google’s product summarize choices, Allensworth says, “the law there is very unlikeable for the handlement.”
Because of that, Allensworth says, “the handlement is sort of frantic to not sketch this as a duty to deal, product summarize case when it comes to the carry out that’s being alleged.” Instead, the handlement will seek to “highweightless the charitable of shenanigans that Google got up to” and the low-term give ups it made to firmify its dominance.
The handlement will seek to “highweightless the charitable of shenanigans that Google got up to”
One of those “shenanigans” is how Google handled a strategy understandn as header bidding. Thcimpolite header bidding, rerenters figured out that they could sfinish their ad calls to other ad exalters before going to Google’s to enhance the bids on their produceory. Recognizing this as an “contransiential” menace, according to the DOJ, Google produced “Open Bidding,” which needd rerenters and ad exalters to donate it visibility into how rival exalters bid. The DOJ alleges that Open Bidding actuassociate gave Google more insight into auctions, helped it pull out more fees, and “disintersettled rival ad exalters from their own rerenter customers.”
Google “did its darnedest to … produce it reassociate challenging to simultaneously have header bidding and also still get the most out of your relationship with Google as a rerenter,” says Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, a better analyst at Etageter who covers the US digital ad taget.
To elucidate why Google’s refusal to execute with rivals’ products is wrong, the handlement may try to align its arguments with a branch offent Supreme Court case, understandn as Aspen Skiing. In that case, a company bought three of four mountains in Aspen, Colorado, then dispersistd a pass schedulement that gave skiers access to all four mountains. While there’s no duty to deal, the court set up that the company give upd low-term profits to hurt its rival and increase its own dominance.
“Google will try to say, we never dealt with these other companies, our rivals, in any way that we alterd,” Allensworth shelp. “And then the handlement’s going to try to come back and point to various leangs and sketch them as a alter in policy.”
For the rerenters and publicizers who count on on Google’s tools, a ruling agetst the company (depfinishing on the charitables of remedies resettled) could direct to a very branch offent way of doing business. Mitchell-Wolf says there could be plenty of “logistical headaches” if the Google ad tech stack were broken up, as these executeers would need to discover alternatives that labor well together in the low term. The extfinisheder-term hope of the handlement would be that such an action would revive competition in the industry. And some publicizers and rerenters would “breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief,” Mitchell-Wolf says, to be able to freen their reliance on Google.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25606145/all_features_four_up.png "Instagram is compriseing novel features for DMs")
