DOJ

The publisher-focused DOJ v. Google ad tech antitrust trial is finished. A judge will now decide the fate of Google’s sell-side ad tech business.

The phrase “caution is key” has become a totem of the new age in US antitrust regulation. It was cited this week by both the DOJ and Google in support of opposing views on a possible divestiture of Google’s sell-side ad exchange.

The fate of the open web will be decided on who controls the data that drives monetization and the AI that determines distribution. Google controls both, and proposed remedies to its ad tech monopoly do not address this imbalance.

American publishers are hamstrung by antitrust law; should marketers lean into ragebait?; and Pexplexity is hitting pause on its ads business.

Publishers must coalesce to gain a credible bargaining position and stop the bleeding caused by AI search. From there, we must put the processes in place to actually operate a licensing mechanism.

Law firms are targeting marketers for class action suits; Discord is trying to go mainstream; and ICE’s media presence is getting unavoidable.

Where the DOJ v. Google ad tech antitrust trial stands after one week’s worth of remedies arguments.

Court is back in session. And the fate of  the open internet is in the balance.

The Google trial remedy phase is about to begin; not all of YouTube’s AI plans are hitting; and The Trade Desk’s Kokai pitch decks leave something to be desired.

Judge Mehta defends his light touch in addressing Google’s search monopoly; the de minimis exemption for imports is over, and it could ding Q4 ad spend; and a whistleblower says Meta ignored WhatsApp’s privacy lapses.