I just returned from Virginia where Index Exchange’s CEO, Andrew Casale, testified on the opening day of the United States Department of Justice’s antitrust trial against Google. The trial assesses alleged antitrust abuses by Google in the open web display advertising market.
This case has the potential to be uniquely impactful in ad tech and I know there’s a lot of interest so let’s discuss in more detail.
In January 2023, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit against Google claiming breach of antitrust laws. Please note that this trial is separate from the search trial that concluded earlier this summer.
In this case, the US DOJ’s suit claims that Google’s anticompetitive behavior creates barriers to entry which reduce competition in the ad tech ecosystem.
The primary remedy at issue in Google’s antitrust trial is what’s called a divestiture order.
In particular, the US DOJ is asking the court to order Google to divest its advertising businesses, including “at a minimum,” the Google …