Google is heading for the next showdown in a concerted international antitrust campaign to break the tech giant’s decades-long dominance of the digital advertising market, this time with the future of its $20bn ad tech business at stake. Fresh from its antitrust victory against Google over online search, the US Department of Justice will once again face its parent company Alphabet in court next week over allegations it exerts monopolistic control over digital advertising.
In 2008 Google bought DoubleClick, a publisher ad server, and ADX, a nascent ad exchange, which created an ecosystem that locked in publishers, the DoJ said. “In effect, Google positioned itself to function simultaneously as buyer, seller, and auctioneer of digital display advertising.” The 2023 complaint quoted a Google product manager who wrote: “Our goal should be all or nothing — use ADX as your or don’t get access to our demand.