US v. Google (Again): A Post-Trial Analysis of the Ad Tech Case

On the heels of an adverse decision in the landmark DOJ v. Google search antitrust case, Google again finds itself in court against the Justice Department. This antitrust lawsuit before Judge Leonie Brinkema in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia involves the company’s Ad Manager suite of ad tech solutions.

In a highly technical and vigorous trial, DOJ has argued Google has a monopoly in three specific ad tech markets: 1) the ad exchange market, with the company’s AdX product, 2) the ad server market, with Google’s Double Click for Publishers (DFP) offering, and 3) the ad network market, with its Google Ads tool. DOJ contends Google has maintained its monopoly power through a wide ranging course of conduct, including refusals to deal, predatory product design, and anticompetitive mergers.

In addition to offering procompetitive justifications for its behavior, Google takes issue with DOJ’s market definition and its claims Google is an ad tech monopoly, and it argues DOJ’s theories of harm are weak.

Watch now for a virtual panel discussion with experts exploring the merits and implications of the DOJ v. Google ad tech case.