Google is in the middle of its quarter-life crisis.
The 25-year-old company is in its biggest legal trouble yet: The US vs. Google. In Washington, DC, this September, the US Justice Department started trying its case against the online search giant.
Google commands more than 90% of the US search market, according to Similarweb. Did it get there through monopolistic practices?
The Justice Department is arguing that Google’s payments to phone makers and web browsers were illegal. Noted as “traffic acquisition costs” in its quarterly earnings, these payments to Apple, Firefox and others made Google the default search engine.
We are four weeks into what’s expected to be a 10-week trial that’s been researched for years on both sides, with millions of dollars in legal fees.
Though the antitrust trial is focused on search, not display, it will set the tone for two other cases: the states’ antitrust case against Google over, among other allegations, how it amassed market power through its integration of its DoubleClick acquisition, which linked its ad server to its SSP. In addition to the states’ antitrust case, filed in 2020, the federal case over Google’s control of the digital advertising market was filed at the beginning of 2023.
While much of the search trial (e.g., Apple’s entire four-hour testimony) has been closed off to press, some of the names that have testified so far include names familiar to Big Story listeners, like Google’s ad head, Jerry Dischler, who is also overseeing the end of the cookie, and Branch Co-Founder Alex Austin. Satya Nadella didn’t disappoint with his testimony, even as Bing’s AI tech presents a threat to Google’s search business. Listen in as we recap what’s happened in the trial so far, and what we will be looking out for as it unfolds in the coming weeks.
Update: The podcast recording refers to a Wired story that has since been removed from the site for not meeting editorial standards. We also discuss allegations in the ad tech antitrust suit about Google’s deal with Facebook that were in the initial filing but have since been thrown out by the judge.
