In US v. Google, YouTube’s CEO defends the Google way

The connection of the time in US v. Google was “parking.” As in: did Google bargain immoderate of its astir ascendant and unsafe competitors successful the online advertizing business, each the portion readying connected parking them disconnected successful immoderate far-flung country of the institution truthful that nary 1 could perchance upset Google’s dominance? That is simply a cardinal question of the government’s full lawsuit against Google, and it came up implicit and implicit connected Monday morning.

To footwear disconnected the 2nd week of the landmark antitrust proceedings implicit Google’s power of online advertising, the Department of Justice called Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube and a longtime Google advertizing executive. Mohan came to Google successful 2008 done Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, which formed the ground of Google’s now-unstoppable advertizing engine. Mohan besides helped advocator for the acquisition of Admeld, different institution astatine the halfway of the suit. He argued passim his grounds that Google was ne'er attempting to bargain up and neuter its competitors; it was simply trying to compete.

The Justice Department grilled Mohan connected 1 of the halfway tenets of its case: that Google has built an impenetrable advertisement empire by owning each 3 large parts of the adtech stack, including the strategy publishers usage to connection advertisement inventory connected their pages, the strategy advertisers usage to bargain and spot ads astir the web, and the speech successful the mediate wherever each the buying and selling really takes place. This empire, lawyers allege, allows nary existent contention and yet makes things worse for each parties involved, Google excepted. And whenever a imaginable challenger did arise, Google simply bought and shelved — or, perhaps, parked — them.

The “parking” conception came up during Mohan’s two-plus hours of testimony, erstwhile Justice Department lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum showed him an email speech astir whether Google should bargain Admeld. Admeld utilized a exertion called output absorption and was making inroads into the online advertisement marketplace by letting publishers measure request from aggregate advertisement exchanges astatine once.

In those emails, different Google enforcement wrote that “one mode to marque definite we don’t get further down successful the marketplace is picking up the [company] with the astir traction and parking it somewhere.” Acquiring the institution successful that mode “would fto america lick the problems from a presumption of strength.” In the government’s view, this seemed to beryllium wide grounds that Google was trying to instrumentality a menace disconnected the market.

In court, Mohan argued that’s not what “parking” means astatine all. He acknowledged that Google was funny successful Admeld due to the fact that Admeld was further up successful improvement but said Google had nary volition of shelving oregon shuttering the product. “That’s perfectly not what was going on,” helium said.

Parking, helium explained, refers to Google’s acquiring a institution and past letting it run much oregon little arsenic earlier portion it besides begins to rebuild and integrate into Google’s exertion stack. This process takes clip — often years — and Mohan said that leaving the products moving really indicates their value to Google arsenic products and not vanquished enemies.

Mohan argued implicit and over, occasionally seeming frustrated to person to repetition himself, that Google was simply doing what it had to bash to support up. He told Teitelbaum that the extremity was ever “to physique the champion advertizing stack for publishers, arsenic good arsenic tools for advertisers.”

In Mohan’s telling, the advertizing concern has ever been fiercely competitive, and companies similar Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo adjacent attempted to physique likewise all-encompassing strategies. Controlling each 3 parts of the process, helium said, is important to ensuring that lone bully ads are placed connected lone bully websites, that everything happens quickly, and that nary nefarious actors tin origin trouble.

When Jeannie Rhee, 1 of the attorneys representing Google, began to cross-examine Mohan, she had him reiterate the parking constituent successful respective ways. She noted an yearly update email Mohan had written to his squad successful 2008, aft the DoubleClick acquisition, successful which helium compared the integration to “changing the engines connected a level portion continuing to alert it.” Rhee had Mohan spell done immoderate of the DoubleClick team’s astir awesome post-acquisition accomplishments, too, seemingly to amusement the merchandise was inactive being actively developed.

Mohan’s grounds offered a reasonably straightforward mentation of the arguments connected some sides of this all-important trial. In the government’s eyes, Google has an insurmountable vantage successful the ads business, built connected the backmost of illegally tying assorted products to each different and by buying up immoderate institution that adjacent looked similar competition. According to Google, though, heavy integration is the lone mode to physique large advertisement products, and its acquisitions person lone ever been successful work of gathering amended products successful a competitory space.

The authorities has repeatedly presented grounds that it’s astir intolerable to permission Google’s platforms. Switching platforms for immoderate crushed is hard, and the imaginable of leaving down Google’s advertiser request and entree to platforms similar Search and YouTube makes it untenable. Publishers person besides argued that Google’s advertizing products aren’t astatine each impressive. They accidental they consciousness stuck. And arsenic the authorities sees it, Google is blessed to walk hundreds of millions of dollars connected startups to support it that way.

In 2011, Google did get Admeld, for a reported terms supra $400 million. (A number, by the way, that the Justice Department argues is acold supra Google’s existent valuation of the institution — allegedly a awesome of Google’s willingness to overspend successful the sanction of crushing threats.) The Justice Department briefly investigated the deal astatine the clip but yet fto it close. Now, the company’s exertion is portion of Google’s ascendant advertisement exchange, known commonly arsenic AdX. All that’s near of Admeld itself is a Google enactment page telling publishers wherefore AdX is truthful great. 

Is that the bully benignant of parking oregon the atrocious and perchance amerciable kind? That’s up to Judge Leonie Brinkema. She didn’t person overmuch to accidental during Monday’s testimony, but everyone successful the country acknowledged she’s the lone 1 who matters.