US takes on Google’s ad tech empire in antitrust trial

ALEXANDRIA (United States): Google faced its second major antitrust trial in less than a year on Monday as the US government accused the tech giant of dominating online advertising and stifling competition.

The trial in a federal court in northern Virginia followed a separate case where a judge last month found Google’s search business to be an illegal monopoly. This new battle, also brought by the US Department of Justice, focuses on ad technology — the complex system determining which online ads people see and their cost.

The US government specifically alleges that Google controls the market for publishing banner ads on websites, including those of many creators and small news providers.

“This technology may be modern, but the practices (shown by Google) are as old as monopolies themselves,” Julia Tarver Wood, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, told a packed courtroom.

In her opening statement, Tarver Wood said Google has used its financial power to acquire potential rivals and corner the ad tech market, leaving advertisers and publishers with no choice but to use its technology. Through acquisitions, “Google used its monopoly to make a new set of ad tech tools that are necessary to keep the internet alive,” she added.

“Publishers were understandably furious and the evidence will show that they could do nothing,” she said.

According to the US government, websites show more than 13 billion display ads every day, bringing in roughly $12 billion to publishers, much of which goes through Google’s ad tech.

The US government is seeking to have Google divest parts of its ad tech business.

Google’s lawyer Karen Dunn dismissed the allegations as an ill-founded attempt by the government to pick “winners and losers” in a diverse market that should be dismissed due to US legal precedent.