The Google adtech antitrust remedies are in.
As we know, Google won’t be forced to sell its ad exchange, but federal Judge Leonie Brinkema is imposing a set of behavioral remedies aimed at loosening the company’s grip on open-web advertising. Those remedies have now been unsealed.
The remedies come after Judge Brinkema previously found Google had illegally maintained monopolies in publisher ad servers and ad exchanges and unlawfully tied DFP to AdX.
Why This Matters:
The remedies, while many have criticized them as weak, could at least change how Google operates in certain ways.
Google will be barred from tying DFP to AdX and from restoring practices including First Look, Last Look and Unified Pricing Rules. Publishers must also be allowed to set different price floors across demand sources.
The order also requires Google to:
- Open up to Prebid: AdX and DFP will need to integrate with Prebid, making it easier for publishers to route programmatic demand through it.
- Open AdX to rival ad servers: Competing publisher ad servers will be able to access real-time AdX bids without requiring publishers to use DFP.
- Make publisher data portable: Publishers will be able to export historical DFP data, configuration data and ongoing AdX bid data to competing ad servers.
- Give publishers more transparency: Google must provide more information about how DFP’s final auction works and why particular ads win.
- Stop favoring its own adtech: Google will face restrictions on how AdX and DFP favor its own products, including around data, bids, latency, information sharing and preferential routing.
- Restrict AdWords: AdWords won’t be able to directly integrate with DFP for bidding or favor Google-owned adtech products, though it can integrate directly with Prebid.
- Limit preferential use of first-party data: Google will face restrictions on using its first-party data in ways that favor its own products when bidding on open-web display inventory, with exceptions for privacy and similar requirements.
A court-appointed monitor, Technical Committee and internal compliance officer will oversee Google’s compliance. Google will also face regular reporting requirements and government inspections related to the judgment.
The remedies will remain in place for six years, although the court can extend that period if necessary. The parties must now finalize the judgment, which will take effect 60 days after it is entered.
Experts React:
Here are some immediate reactions to the remedies from X:
We’ll add more tomorrow!
Our Take:
The remedies may not be the breakup many wanted, but they could still matter. Ultimately, the real test is whether these changes make it meaningfully easier for the market to use alternatives to Google.
