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Google Illegally Engaged In Anticompetitive Monopolistic Ad Tech Practices

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Google Illegally Engaged In Anticompetitive Monopolistic Ad Tech Practices


Google Illegally Engaged In Anticompetitive Monopolistic Ad Tech Practices

A US judge ruled Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in some ad tech. This is the second time a judge ruled Google willfully engaged in monopolistic practices. The remedies for these rulings are still being worked out but may strengthen the case to have Google’s business broken up.

The 115 page PDF court document concluded, “Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive
acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets
for open-web display advertising.”

Google quickly responded on X saying, “we won half of this case and we will appeal the other half” of the US antitrust ruling, and “we disagree” with the decision on its publisher tools.

Here is the full conclusion written by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia:

Plaintiffs have proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive
acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets
for open-web display advertising. For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and
ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled
the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets. Google further
entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and
eliminating desirable product features. In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive
process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web. Accordingly, Google is
liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.

For the foregoing reasons, by an Order to be issued with this Memorandum Opinion,
Count III (monopolization of the advertiser ad network market) will be dismissed, and the parties
will be ordered to submit a joint proposed schedule for briefing and arguing their positions as to
the remedies that should be imposed in light of Google have been found liable for
monopolization of the publisher ad server market (Count I), monopolization of the ad exchange
market (Count II), and unlawful tying of AdX and DFP (Count IV).

Last August, Google also was ruled a monopoly, which we covered.

There are a number of remedies being explored over these rulings. According to Axios, The DOJ and 17 US states that brought the antitrust case seek to force Google to sell off its “network” ad business, which is about 12% of Alphabet’s total revenue.

The ruling goes on to read:

Google evolved from a garage-based startup to a multitrillion dollar company in little
more than twenty years. Much of that growth was funded by digital advertising. In keeping with
its professed mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful,” Google provides many of its key services at no financial cost to Internet users.

Over the past two decades, Google has established increasingly detailed knowledge about the billions of people who have used its products, including by collecting data pertaining to their web browsing, search activity, physical location, demographic characteristics, app usage, communications, shopping activity, and device and network information.

In sum, Plaintiffs have shown that Google engaged in “willful acquisition or maintenance
of [its monopoly] power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a
superior product, business acumen, or historic accident” by tying DFP to AdX and committing a
series of exclusionary and anticompetitive acts to entrench its monopoly power in two adjacent
product markets. Kodak, 504 U.S. at 481 (quoting Grinnell, 384 U.S. at 570–71). The
procompetitive justifications that Google proffers for its anticompetitive conduct are both invalid
and insufficient, and any procompetitive benefits of this conduct were far outweighed by its
anticompetitive effects. Therefore, Google cannot evade liability under Sections 1 and 2 of the
Sherman Act.

It looks even more evil:

Google’s internal messaging application deleted records of chats between employees
unless an employee explicitly turned on “chat history,” and the application’s user interface made
it difficult for employees to turn on chat history for every conversation they had. Chat deletions occurred when employees discussed substantive topics at issue in this litigation and continued after the federal government began an antitrust investigation into Google’s conduct.

Google employees and executives also misused the attorney-client privilege.

Google’s systemic disregard of the evidentiary rules regarding spoliation of evidence and
its misuse of the attorney-client privilege may well be sanctionable.

This is a big deal and a lot of the folks in our industry were waiting for this to drop.

Again, what will these rulings lead to exactly is still not known.

Here is the first thing I saw Google respond with so far:

Here is some commentary:

Forum discussion at X.





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