Judge Amit Mehta

Google’s search antitrust trial ends with a whimper; the pitfalls of agency-owned SSPs; Perplexity axes its ads business; and brands are still building big-ticket metaverse experiences.

Monday was a busy day for antitrust attorneys in Washington, DC: It marked Day One of the the remedies phase of the Google search trial and the start of the second week of FTC v. Meta.

The Justice Department will ask Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled in August that Google operates a search monopoly, to require Google to sell Chrome. Plus, the ad tech wants the IAB Tech Lab to roll out curation standards.

Just three weeks after it began, the Google ad tech antitrust trial in Virginia is over. The court will now take a nearly two-month break before reconvening for closing arguments right before Thanksgiving.

Curation is the new hot topic, but it’s just another incarnation of bundling. Plus, Google is playing the long game with its US-based antitrust trials.

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 … 

“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.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Excuses, Excuses Performance marketers blame two scapegoats for recent downturns in their sales or ROAS. The first is Temu, which has been pouring money into Google and Meta like it’s going out of style. The second excuse is that the Meta ad platform is […]