James Avery, who runs an ad server company for retailers called Kevel, testified he’d like to buy Google’s ad server and exchange, ideally together. Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale is also interested. Google’s cross examination has tried to cast this interest as a way that the industry could reconsolidate under new ownership.
The government will continue its case-in-chief today, where it’s arguing for a break up of Google to restore competition to the markets for publisher ad tools. Yesterday, we heard from a publisher witness and a rival ad exchange CEO. Catch up on our coverage here.
Without a break up of its ad tech monopoly, the DOJ argues, Google will find another way to cheat.
Andrew Casale, CEO of ad exchange company Index Exchange, testifies that Google’s proposed solutions leave too much room for it to maintain dominance. Casale also says Index would consider buying AdX if Google were forced to sell it.
The government’s first publisher witness, Advance Local VP of advertising technology Grant Whitmore, wants Google to sell both AdX and its publisher ad server, DFP. The DOJ is currently asking for a DFP sale only if other remedies don’t do enough. Whitmore says Google has demonstrated it can adapt to changes and maintain its dominance.
Google attorney Karen Dunn argues that the government is seeking to go well beyond what’s needed to restore competition to the ad tech markets, and might even hurt the customers it’s seeking to help.
In the government’s opening statement, Julia Tarver Wood warns Judge Leonie Brinkema against leaving open new paths for Google to distort competition in its favor. That’s why the DOJ is asking the judge to force Google to sell its AdX exchange entirely.
In a statement outside the courthouse, Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater notes how the court known as the “rocket docket” has a statute of the tortoise and the hare outside. Speed is important in tech antitrust cases because of how quickly the markets change.
Google and the Justice Department have returned to a federal courthouse in Virginia for a two-week trial to determine how to restore competition to the advertising technology market that Google monopolized. I’ll share updates to our trial coverage stream during breaks.
