Hi community,

It’s been a wild few weeks. As your self-appointed DOJ v. Google guide, I’m here to break down what’s been happening.

The Trial

If you were following along back in September, you know I attended the DOJ v. Google trial and gave a play-by-play on our microsite. While the DOJ exposed Google’s monopoly, I drew the infamous adtech spaghetti football, learned about the internal politics raging inside Google over its own behavior, and even played a little adtech bingo.

If you’d like to catch up on the trial’s daily breakdowns, check out www.usvgoogleads.com.

We've also added trial transcripts, and some of the latest key documents to the site.

The Decision

As of April 17th, Judge Brinkema declared Google an illegal monopoly.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google has been abusing its power in two key markets: its publisher ad server and its AdX exchange.

According to the Court, Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web."

At Check My Ads, we celebrate this landmark decision.

“For years, we've seen how Google's unchecked power has warped the ad tech system, hurting publishers, advertisers, and ultimately, consumers,” said Policy Director Sarah Kay Wiley. “Today marks a huge step toward a fair and competitive digital advertising market.”

Check My Ads Institute has long advocated for transparency and accountability in digital advertising. Dismantling Google’s monopoly is a critical milestone toward establishing healthier market norms.

We urge lawmakers and industry stakeholders to build upon the decision that has been made, toward a future where the digital advertising market operates with transparency, fosters competition, and respects consumer rights.

The Next Steps

With Google being declared a monopoly, the next steps are the Remedies phase of the trial.

The remedies proposal is chef's kiss. Here are some highlights:

✅ AdX divestiture - Google must sell off its ad exchange.

✅ DFP (Google’s publisher ad server) phased divestiture - giving publishers more choice.

✅ Google Ads AND DV360 must work with 3rd party exchanges fairly - no discrimination or favoritism, unless an advertiser specifically asks for it.

✅ While Google still owns AdX or DFP, Google Ads and DV360 must send and receive bids through a third-party exchange or API, adding neutrality AND Google must place 50% of AdX and DFP revenues into escrow, which can be used to fund the industry organization "hosting the ad auction" (i.e. Prebid) and/or to help defray publisher costs in switching ad servers.

✅ Strong data and transparency requirements, including my favorite: Google would be barred from using first-party data from across its properties and products to inform Google Ads/DV360 bidding on 3rd party exchanges/websites, or to preference its own products.

Remedies Trial is set for September 22nd — we will be there and again, sharing with everyone the findings day by day. If you want to come join the party, logistics details are here.

With hope,

Arielle Garcia, COO

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed our adtech drama recaps, spaghetti diagrams, and courtroom tea, help fuel the next chapter. Your donation keeps us in the room where it all happens. Become a checkmate here.

Check My Ads in the Wild 🐾

🔦 The federal court finds that Google illegally held a monopoly over their adtech tools — Adweek writes a synopsis of it’s ruling.

🔍 Our Director of Policy, Sarah Kay Wiley was quoted in response to the landmark Google ruling "For years, we've witnessed how Google's unchecked power has distorted the ad tech ecosystem, disadvantaging publishers, advertisers, and ultimately, consumers. Today, we are one monumental step closer to a fair and competitive digital advertising market.” Read the article to hear from other industry voices who see this as a turning point toward a more fair online ad market.

⚖️ Want the full backstory? Check out this earlier Adweek article covering the DOJ’s final arguments in the Google antitrust trial. It breaks down what led up to the courts landmark decision.

🧑‍⚖️  Judge Mehta, a U.S. judge, ruled that Google is a monopoly in online search and search ads. This means advertisers have to keep using Google even when prices go up, because they don’t have many other good options. As Sarah Kay Wiley notes, there are “so many gems in the DoJ v. Google search decision”. Adexchanger breaks down the 286 page ruling — read the article here.

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