Google intends to keep ad tech industry veterans away from its antitrust trial

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Hotstar in UAE
Hotstar in UAE

Google is attempting to keep ad tech experts away from its upcoming antitrust trial. The search giant is seeking to throw out testimonies from key members of the industry.

Google doesn’t want ad tech executives in the antitrust trial

Google is gearing up to face one of the biggest and potentially precedent-setting antitrust trials. The company is defending its ad tech business, and it is up against the US Department of Justice (DoJ).

One of the first arguments Google presented is that a large number of government witnesses should be excluded from the trial or they shouldn’t testify. Specifically speaking, Google is requesting the court to toss out any testimony from government witnesses who aren’t economists or antitrust experts.

Google claims, “none of these third-party competitor witnesses has the proper foundation of knowledge, expert qualifications or done the required economic analysis to opine as to whether Google is a monopolist whose conduct harmed competition.”

The DOJ has reportedly counterargued that a large number of the witnesses Google has objected to, are “nothing more than competitors of Google.”

“These exchanges make business decisions based in part on their reliance on Google, on both sides of the ad tech stack, to reach publishers and advertisers. Their testimony about being unable to compete with Google’s AdX is based on first-hand knowledge gathered on the job.”

Will the US Court listen to Google’s arguments?

Leonie Brinkema is the the federal judge who is presiding over round two of the United States v. Google LLC antitrust trial. She will decide whether to accept Google’s arguments and dismiss the testimonies of industry experts and veterans.

Google claims, “The experience of third parties in the industry does not render them competent to testify as to conclusions such as whether a firm is dominant, a monopoly, anticompetitive or causing anticompetitive effects.”

Essentially, Google is attempting to label these testimonies as unsupported opinions, hearsay, and conjecture, amounting to speculative testimony. It is not clear if the judge will accept these arguments, especially since most of the testimonies are from people who have been associated with the ad tech business.

Google’s ad tech business, called Google AdX, is one of the biggest in the world. Most of the third-party ad exchanges may compete with Google. However, they are also Google’s customers as they heavily rely on Google’s DSP and its publisher ad server.

The US DOJ has submitted a testimony that states AdX is the “delivery point for the largest source of demand in the display business.” Hence, ad exchanges simply cannot suggest their clients to avoid Google AdX. Such a stronghold over the business has caused many ad tech businesses to shut shop, the DOJ has alleged.

2024-08-31 15:05:29