“Google rigged the rules of the road,” said Aaron Teitelbaum, a DOJ lawyer, during closing arguments in the Google adtech antitrust case yesterday in Virginia—a case that Terry Kawaja has described as one where “guilty is good” for Google (and everyone else).
The DOJ has accused Google of running a monopoly, while Google insists it’s a good actor, operating fairly in a competitive industry. Hell, according to Google, it’s even competing against retailers, like Walmart and Target, and their media networks.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, has previously said, “It’s clear that the DOJ’s case missed the forest for the trees. There’s intense competition in adtech, where ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choice. And Google’s services have helped publishers, advertisers, and consumers.”
Presiding over the case is the honorable Judge Brinkema who is expected to issue a ruling by the end of the year.
Why This Matters:
This case is probably the most, consequential adtech antitrust case in history. However, even in a worst-case scenario, the impact on Google is likely minimal compared to their search antitrust case, where potential remedies include selling off Chrome. Analysts, as noted by Reuters, view the adtech case as posing “a smaller financial risk” for the Big Tech company.
As a refresher, here’s a breakdown of each side’s core arguments.
Google’s Position: Google claims it competes in a diverse, competitive adtech market alongside players like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. According to Google, its tech innovations and investments have benefited everyone — publishers, advertisers, and consumers — by keeping costs stable and improving ad experiences/quality. Google also argues the DOJ’s market definitions, which divide the adtech ecosystem into separate categories (e.g., ad servers, exchanges), are flawed. Instead, Google advocates for a broader, two-sided market definition that better represents how adtech tools serve both publishers and advertisers.
DOJ’s Position: In comparison, the DOJ describes Google as having a monopoly over three segments of the adtech market: publisher ad servers, ad exchanges, and advertiser ad networks. The DOJ also says Google uses its control to restrict competitors and compel publishers and advertisers to heavily rely on its tools. The DOJ highlights practices like Google’s integration of AdX and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), which allegedly lock customers into Google’s ecosystem. According to the DOJ, these moves have limited competition and driven up ad prices for smaller buyers and publishers.
We also summarized these main arguments in a table which you can see here.
Experts React:
On X, Vidushi Dyall, Director of Legal Analysis at the Chamber of Progress, an organization that supports Big Tech, highlighted an interesting exchange during the DOJ’s argument between the DOJ and Judge Brinkema.
According to Dyall, “Judge Brinkema noted that the DOJ’s case notably lacked direct testimony from advertisers, asking, ‘Aren’t advertisers themselves the customers? Don’t you think it would be valuable to hear from them?’”
The judge added, “I certainly got a sense of publisher dissatisfaction but saw no direct evidence about advertisers and how satisfied/dissatisfied they are with the system.”
Dyall’s take: the judge “clocked how imbalanced this case has been in favor of publishers.”
Our Take:
An interesting exchange, for sure. But does it mean anything?
If a monopoly benefits certain groups, it’s still a monopoly. Or maybe this reveals something deeper about the DOJ’s case—where the lack of buyer testimony could suggest a miscalculation in proving harm across the broader ad ecosystem. Not sure.
As the kids would say, maybe the case has “no motion.”
