Google defended its advertising technology businesses in the court of public opinion on Sunday, just as its attorneys prepared similar arguments against US antitrust allegations now being heard in a Virginia courtroom.

The Justice Department and eight states sued Google in January, claiming the megacorporation has unlawfully monopolized the advertising technology market. The lawsuit differs from the government search advertising litigation that Google lost in August. This one focuses on the technology used to buy, sell, and coordinate the sale of digital ads on the web.

The feds contend that Google:

• Has monopolized the markets for publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks;
• Has monopolized or attempted to monopolize the market for ad exchanges;
• Has illegally tied its products together.

Google Ads has about 80 percent market share, or 40 percent for DV360 (display & video), based on court filings. Google's DoubleClick subsidiary dominates the publisher side of the business - publishers selling ad space - with a market share of about 90 percent. And the Google AdExchange (AdX), which mediates between the sell/supply side and buy/demand side has about a 50 percent market share.

These ads services commonly work together, with fees paid to Google at each stage. According to the feds, "Google keeps approximately $36 of every $100 in advertiser spending where the transaction goes through each of Google's ad tech tools."

As the trial commenced way, Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google VP of regulatory affairs, insisted that the advertising kraken faces plenty of competition.

"By picking winners and losers in a highly competitive industry, the DOJ risks making it more expensive for small businesses to grow and for websites and apps to make money," argued Mulholland. "Let's not break what's working."

Mulholland insisted that there are other vertically integrated "full stack" ad services that help ad buyers and sellers. "After its recent acquisition of Xandr, Microsoft also offers customers a vertically integrated suite of ad tech products, and Amazon and Meta have similar offerings," she observed. "It is a fiercely competitive industry - and new technologies are making it more dynamic each day."

Sarah Kay Wiley, director of policy and partnerships at Check My Ads, a non-profit ad tech watchdog, told The Register in a phone interview that Google's arguments are misleading - they're trying to compare apples to oranges.

"The DOJ here is bringing three separate monopolization claims," said Wiley. "They are arguing that Google monopolized advertiser ad networks. And then the second one is publisher ad servers. And the third one being the ad exchanges."

"So what Google is really trying to do is say, 'Hey, those market definitions are too narrow and there is competition in the broad space of ad tech,'" she argued. "But that's not what we're arguing about here. We're arguing about open web display advertising. I think it's just really disingenuous that they're trying to argue that there is competition in these three different market sections."

Wiley believes the government has a strong case. If the feds prevail, she hopes the remedies that have been contemplated - like forcing Google to sell off DoubleClick or relinquish control over its Chrome browser - might be discussed further.

"What I'm hoping happens is that we have a real conversation about firewalling data of these different types of products. Because at the end of the day, we know that data is the main economic driver of their business model and how they were able to manipulate auction prices [based on that data]," Wiley noted.

Check My Ads has set up a website to track the events of the trial, which is expected to last four to six weeks. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/09/10/google_ad_tech_antitrust_trial/