Judge Brinkema declined to force Google to sell AdX after an ad-tech monopoly finding
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema on Wednesday declined the Justice Department’s request to make Google sell parts of its ad-tech business, Lauren Feiner at The Verge reported. She will adopt most of the behavioral changes the parties proposed, with modifications.
The full opinion is not public yet. The parties still have to meet on revisions and redactions for confidential information.
A publisher ad server is the dashboard a website uses to manage the slots on a page. Google’s is DoubleClick for Publishers, or DFP.
An ad exchange is the auction that sells those slots in the instant a page loads. Google’s is AdX. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, citing Reuters, notes publishers pay Google a 20 percent fee there.
The Justice Department proved an illegal monopoly of publisher ad servers and of ad exchanges. Brinkema agreed Google illegally tied DFP and AdX together in a way that made it nearly impossible for customers to leave.
She found the department failed to prove an illegal monopoly of advertiser-side tools. The DOJ did not immediately respond, The Verge writes.
She refused a forced sale of AdX and is adopting mostly behavioral remedies that are not yet on the public docket.
Possible changes, until the opinion is out, include restricting self-preferencing auction tactics and letting third-party ad-tech tools see the same real-time information Google sees. Those stay proposed until the opinion is public.
This is the second US monopoly finding that still rejects a forced sale of the core product. Interoperability and play-nicer are the pattern, not the exception.
Judge Amit Mehta declined a Search breakup and ordered data-sharing and behavior changes instead. That is a different case.
Google can appeal this monopoly ruling once the final opinion is out, as it did after Mehta.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s VP of Regulatory Affairs, said the company is very pleased the court rejected a proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow. Search Engine Roundtable also notes the order tells Google to end practices that depress ad rates for publishers.
The sale is still the remedy she would not sign.
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