Alexandria (United States) (AFP) – Google and the US government will face off in a federal court on Monday, as each side delivers its closing arguments in a case revolving around the technology giant’s alleged unfair domination of online advertising. The trial in a Virginia federal court is Google’s second ongoing US antitrust case as the US government tries to rein in the power of big tech. In a separate trial, a Washington judge ruled that Google’s search business is an illegal monopoly, and the US Justice Department is asking that Google sell its Chrome browser business to resolve the case.
This latest skirmish, also brought by the Justice Department, focuses on ad technology — the complex system determining which online ads people see when they surf the web. Each side will have 90 minutes to make their case, summing up testimony given over weeks of trial in September and October. Presiding judge Leonie Brinkema has promised to deliver her opinion swiftly, as early as next month. Whatever Brinkema’s judgment, the outcome will almost certainly be appealed, prolonging a process that could go all the way to the US Supreme Court.
The government alleges that Google controls the auction-style system that advertisers use to purchase advertising space online. The US lawyers argue that this approach allows Google to charge higher prices to advertisers while sending less revenue to publishers such as news websites, many of which are struggling to stay in business. “This technology may be modern, but the practices (shown by Google) are as old as monopolies themselves,” Julia Tarver Wood, a Justice Department lawyer, told the courtroom during the trial.
The US argues that Google 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. The government wants Google to divest parts of its ad tech business. Google has dismissed the allegations as an attempt by the government to pick “winners and losers” in a diverse market. The company argues that the display ads at issue are just a small share of today’s ad tech business.
Google says plaintiffs ignore ads that are also placed in search results, apps, and social media platforms, and where, taken as a whole, Google does not dominate. “The plaintiff’s case is a little like a time capsule,” Google’s lawyer Karen Dunn said during the trial. She warned that if Google were to lose the case, the winners would be rival tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon, whose market share in online advertising “is ascendant as Google’s share is falling.”
Google also points to US legal precedent, saying arguments similar to the government’s have been refuted in previous antitrust cases. If the judge finds Google to be at fault, a new phase of the trial would decide how the company should comply with that conclusion. And all that could be moot if the incoming Trump administration decides to drop the case. The president-elect has been a critic of Google’s, but he warned earlier this month that breaking it up could be “a very dangerous thing.”
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