Google antitrust

Why sue Google now, when so many years have passed? Because “the pattern of anticompetitive behavior continues,” OpenX CEO John Gentry tells AdExchanger.

What’s behind the drop in CTV CPMS; the UK CMA sets its antitrust sights on Google Search; and gen AI job cuts decimate another marketing department.

The DOJ is proposing that Google should give rival ad exchanges and ad servers real-time access to bidding data from AdX – and Google agrees.

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

Welcome to Week Three of the US vs. Google ad tech antitrust trial. Plus, ews publishers are turning to WhatsApp for traffic.

After eight days of the antitrust trial, who’s in the lead: the DOJ or Google? Details on the most gripping testimony so far with guest Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence for Check My Ads.

More than one antitrust regulator is circling around Google. On Friday, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority published a statement of objection to Google’s ad tech practices.

In case you don’t have time to digest a 286-page legal document, we went through Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling and pulled out a few spicy nuggets for you to chew on.

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

The World Federation of Advertisers told members on Thursday that it’s suspending its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative.

“Google is a monopolist.” No need to say “allegedly” anymore, because that’s a direct quote from Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling against Google and in favor of the Department of Justice.

With Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling expected this fall, Adam Epstein, co-CEO of adMarketplace, breaks down the DOJ’s search-focused antitrust case against Google.

Does Google have a monopoly on search? The trial to answer that question is underway, and we go through the juiciest highlights.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. All Is Fair In Love And Panels Nielsen has changed its mind: It won’t force Amazon streaming data into its TV ratings, Ad Age reports. After over a week of drama, which involved exchanging letters with the Video Advertising Bureau, Nielsen is going back […]

Something ostensibly “good” (consumer privacy protection) could also be an antitrust violation. Weird world. Which is why data protection authorities and their antitrust counterparts must collaborate and compare notes.

From the rise of alternative measurement currencies and retail media networks to the launch of Netflix’s AVOD tier, these are the stories that helped us animate the news in 2022.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Snail Mail Prevails Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency sent advertisers looking beyond Meta and Google for attribution-based advertising. Most of those budgets went to test performance on other digital or social channels, like TikTok or CTV. But some brands are giving more love to good ol’ direct […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Google’s Matching Black Eyes Google is reeling from antitrust blows this week. Europe’s second-highest court slapped Google with a record-breaking $4.1 billion fine on Wednesday, Axios reports. Google can appeal to the EU Court of Justice, but it’s also fighting a multifront war. And […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Last week, a federal judge unsealed previously redacted portions of an antitrust lawsuit poking into Google’s allegedly monopolistic ad practices. Will these revelations actually change the way publishers and advertisers spend with Google, or is Google too entrenched? And how much ammunition do these disclosures give regulators in their quest to rein in Google? We asked the experts.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the tentpoles that kick off that final stretch of Q4 spanning Thanksgiving and Christmas. But this Black Friday/Cyber Monday combo was not as record-setting as in years past, according to Adobe and others who track sales data. There are many reasons behind this change. Not only has the pandemic […]

First-price auctions are coming to Google AdSense. The change will go into effect later this year, Google shared in a blog post on Thursday. Google Ad Manager and AdMob have already switched to a first-price auction. Though not nearly as momentous as when Google flipped the switch for Ad Manager, the AdSense change signals that […]

From Ohio to DC and from London to Paris, regulators and consumer privacy advocates are sharpening their pencils and their knives. If you don’t have time to keep track of all the actions underway, the biggest takeaway is not to expect a quiet summer. Regulators are increasingly convinced that scaled data collection can harm competition. […]

No more laissez-faire. Google has agreed to pay a $268 million fine and make changes to its advertising business to settle a precedent-setting anticompetition case in France. The settlement, announced on Monday, was reached with the Autorité de la Concurrence (ADLC), France’s competition authority, and marks the first time that an antitrust regulator has been […]

The European Commission verified in writing on Friday that Google’s use of data to fuel its ad tech business is a focus of its ongoing antitrust investigation. And here’s the kicker: “Google’s proposals to deprecate third-party cookies are within the scope.” As Brussels-based journalist Alexander Fanta highlighted on Twitter, this could mean by extension that […]

Google’s lack of transparency has long frustrated publishers and independent ad tech companies, and its clandestine program “Project Bernanke” has only confirmed their suspicions that Google uses learnings from its auction to benefit itself. Ad tech insiders met the allegations that Google secretly fed publisher ad server data into its buying systems to gain market […]

Google’s legal team just got even busier. On Thursday, less than 24 hours after Google was hit with an antitrust lawsuit digging into its ad tech business, a bipartisan coalition of 38 states and territories served up yet another suit, this one focused on alleged antitrust violations related to Google’s alleged monopoly over the search […]

The multistate antitrust lawsuit against Google that dropped on Wednesday evening is so squarely focused on ad tech that the term “header bidding” shows up more than 110 times. The suit details alleged anticompetitive sins related to the way in which Google runs its multibillion-dollar online advertising business, including the claim that Google colluded with […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by John Donahue, CEO and co-founder of WLxJS. The Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Google alleges that the search giant created and subsequently abused a monopolistic position in, well, search. And […]

As an anti-tracking company and the creator of a privacy extension for the web, you’d think Ghostery would be all about the elimination of third-party cookies. But Jeremy Tillman, president of Ghostery, is wary of Google’s motivation for phasing out third-party tracking in Chrome. “You have to think about the second-order effects of these types […]