Google dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling ‘stuck’

Google’s instrumentality that lets publishers merchantability advertisement abstraction connected their websites is ubiquitous, but that’s mostly a testament to however hard it is for customers to get retired of it, 1 erstwhile publishing enforcement testified successful national tribunal connected Tuesday.

“I felt similar they were holding america hostage,” said Stephanie Layser, a erstwhile programmatic advertizing enforcement astatine News Corp (which owns brands similar The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post) who present works astatine AWS. Layser was testifying arsenic a authorities witnesser successful the Justice Department’s 2nd antitrust lawsuit against Google, which is accusing the institution of monopolizing the markets for advertisement tech tools and illegally tying unneurotic 2 of its products.

Layser was 1 of 3 witnesses the tribunal heard from connected Tuesday, covering perspectives from the steadfast side, the advertiser side, and wrong of Google. Through their testimony, the authorities is attempting to overgarment a representation of a institution that exerts truthful overmuch power implicit the markets for advertisement tech tools that customers don’t locomotion away, adjacent successful the look of unfavorable changes. That’s because, according to the government, Google has protected its monopoly power, preventing capable alternatives and existent contention from emerging. Google, for its part, says the authorities is punishing it for occurrence and trying to unit it to woody with rivals connected much favorable terms.

Layser felt captured by a alteration Google rolled retired successful 2019, which prevented publishers from mounting higher level prices conscionable for Google’s advertisement exchange, AdX, nether what it called unified pricing rules (UPR). With UPR, Layser said it was inactive imaginable to acceptable antithetic floors for different exchanges wrong each of their systems but not for Google’s. Publishers mightiness privation to acceptable a higher level terms from AdX to alteration much contention during advertisement auctions successful the anticipation it would effect successful a higher terms than the minimum they’re consenting to accept, she said.

When Google introduced UPR, Layser acceptable up a gathering with Google executives to explicit her concerns and said she believed the programme was “in the champion involvement of Google and not successful the champion involvement of their customers.” She didn’t callback however Google responded but said that “nothing changed,” and the programme was implemented.

Despite her grievances, Layser said switching to a antithetic instrumentality was not a viable option. That’s due to the fact that utilizing Google’s steadfast advertisement server, known astatine the clip arsenic DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and contiguous arsenic Google Ad Manager, was the lone mode to entree the ample basal of Google advertiser request with real-time prices — which is important successful a strategy wherever computer-run advertisement auctions hap successful milliseconds.

Layser adjacent helped enactment unneurotic an investigation astatine News Corp considering the pros and cons of switching to different steadfast advertisement server, AppNexus (later bought by Microsoft and rebranded arsenic Xandr), but determined the hazard of losing gross without the aforesaid access to Google Ads request was excessively great.

The determination didn’t truly person to bash with the prime oregon terms of Google’s product, however, Layser testified. “DFP is simply a 25- to 30-year-old portion of technology. It’s dilatory and clunky,” she told the court. Google besides provided News Corp little penetration into their transactions than they could person gotten with AppNexus, Layser said. She “begged” Google for what she called “log-level data” but ne'er got it. And due to the fact that of DFP’s limitations, Layser said she was incapable to instrumentality connected projects she felt could maximize revenue. “I couldn’t innovate,” she said. “I felt stuck.”

Despite DFP’s expected drawbacks, the Department of Justice alleges the instrumentality has astir 90 percent marketplace stock successful the US. Layser, who antecedently consulted for upward of 70 publishers, said she could deliberation of “maybe 3 publications retired of hundreds that don’t usage DFP.” Because of its adjacent universality, she said determination are “legions” of publishing professionals who person lone ever worked with the Google instrumentality successful their full careers.

During cross-examination, Google’s attorneys pointed retired that News Corp believed itself to beryllium competitory with Google successful immoderate areas, underscoring its assertion that the DOJ is trying to unit deals with rivals. In the investigation astir switching to AppNexus, News Corp wrote that due to the fact that Google owns a media business, it was improbable to person aligned interests with Google agelong term.

Later successful the day, the tribunal heard from Jay Friedman, CEO of the Goodway Group, who shed airy connected the advertiser broadside of the market. Friedman testified that Google’s AdX has been the lone speech his institution has not been capable to negociate fees with, adjacent though its complaint is higher than others. “We were told it wasn’t an option,” helium said.

Then, the tribunal heard prerecorded deposition from Eisar Lipkovitz, a erstwhile VP of engineering for show and video ads astatine Google. Lipkovitz said helium inactive has “PTSD” from his clip astatine Google and expressed vexation with colleagues who disagreed with his presumption of however the tools should enactment oregon moved excessively dilatory connected projects.

Lipkovitz said helium recognized a imaginable struggle of involvement successful the mode DFP and AdX were integrated, and helium described those successful the institution who denied it arsenic making “self-interested arguments.” Still, helium credited a deficiency of alternatives to Google’s DFP to the trouble of moving specified a product. “It’s a concern that cipher wants,” helium said.