Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, we recap our 2-day Future of Democracy conference in Brussels and analyze the recently concluded remedies trial for Google’s monopoly over digital advertising.

Open Markets Convenes High-Level Conference on Future of Democracy and Free Speech

Last week, the Open Markets Institute and Article 19 hosted [[link removed]] a two-day conference in Brussels, “The Future of Democracy: Speech, Thought, Sovereignty, and Power in the Age of Platforms and AI.” The event convened leading thinkers, lawmakers, technologists, and advocates to discuss the direct and growing threats to our democracies and basic liberties posed by today’s dominant online communications platforms, the rise of AI, and interference by foreign states. Nobel Peace laureate Maria Ressa closed the conference with a powerful keynote, in which she urged Europe to “hold the line and implement” laws to fight threats to its digital sovereignty and highlighted the efforts of Brazil to protect information integrity.

Former European Vice President Margrethe Vestager urged European officials to resist U.S. pressure not to regulate U.S. tech platforms, saying, “This is not about U.S. companies—it’s about the misuse of market power, no matter where the headquarters are.” Speakers also discussed algorithmic manipulation, surveillance advertising, and the collapse of trust in communications. Other notable speakers included Mario Monti, former Prime Minister of Italy; Michael McGrath, the EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, and the Rule of Law; U.S. Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Jamie Raskin; former DOJ Antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter; EU MEPs Andreas Schwab, Alexandra Geese, and Alex Agius Saliba; British MP Chi Onwurah; investor Roger McNamee, founder of Elevation Partners; Marietje Schaake, former MEP and author of Tech Coup; and former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression David Kaye.

View a recording of the first day’s proceedings here [[link removed]] and the second day’s proceedings here [[link removed]]. Vestager’s comments were covered in Euronews [[link removed]].

In advance of the event, Open Markets published a policy [[link removed]] brief [[link removed]], “Platform Power, Free Speech, and Political Interference: Defending Europe’s Digital Sovereignty.” The brief describes how dominant U.S. platforms such as Google, Meta, and X wield unprecedented power to manipulate political discourse, censor individuals and organizations, and shape the flow of information across Europe, the United States and elsewhere. It details how the current U.S. administration has launched — in direct concert with these corporations — an “unprecedented assault” on Europe’s right to regulate its news and communications systems in the public interest. Read the brief here [[link removed]].

Google Ad Tech: Remedies Phase Shows Divestitures Viable and Urgent for the Future of News and Advertising

Karina Montoya

In early September, Google sidestepped a federal effort to break up the corporation when U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta rejected a Justice Department demand [[link removed]] that Google spin off its Chrome browser as remedy for violating antitrust law. But in recent hearings on how to remedy Google’s monopolization of advertising technologies (adtech) — found to be illegal in a second antitrust case [[link removed]] — the discussion appeared to point to a more severe outcome.

In the hearings, the DOJ and Google spent two weeks arguing before federal judge Leonie Brinkema about how best to undo Google’s monopoly over ad tech. The hearings, which concluded October 6, revealed a united front between technical experts, news publishers, and adtech providers, who unanimously argued that structural remedies are not merely feasible but necessary to resolve the problem.

Adtech platforms enable the automated buying and selling of online advertising, by connecting online publishers and advertisers. In April 2025, Judge Brinkema ruled [[link removed]] that Google illegally monopolized this market to favor its own business, including by crushing competitors that offered better prices. The decision effectively found that Google has denied publishers much of their freedom to increase their ad revenues while also enabling Google to extract monopoly rents from them [[link removed]].

To end these practices for good, the DOJ ask [[link removed]] e [[link removed]]d the court [[link removed]] to force Google to divest its ad exchange, AdX, which gathers bid requests from advertisers and runs millisecond-long auctions to match them with publishers. The DOJ is also asking for a partial divestiture of Google’s ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), which handles 90% of global publishers’ ad inventory. The government’s plan would transform DFP into an open-source code for publishers and other ad tech platforms to use, effectively breaking Google’s sole control of the algorithms that determine the outcomes of ad auctions.

One key witness was Goranka Bjedov [[link removed]], a former Senior Performance Test Engineer at Google. She laid out timelines and technical steps to fulfill the DOJ’s proposal. Even as Google’s lawyers attempted to delegitimize Bjedov’s expertise, her analysis echoed Google’s own internal analysis (admitted as evidence but sealed to the public) that divesting or shutting down AdX and open-sourcing DFP are both technically feasible. Bjedov is currently a Capacity Engineer at Facebook — where she has worked in redesigning Facebook’s own adtech stack.

On the side of news publishers, the strongest testimony came from former News Corp. executive Stephanie Layser, now head of publisher adtech solutions at Amazon Web Services. Layser emphasized how the future of a viable press for the open web hinges on publishers and advertisers regaining control of the adtech platforms that represent them, which Google’s monopoly has prevented for over a decade.

Asked by Judge Brinkema about the need for structural separations, Layser warned [[link removed]] against relying on behavioral remedies, which she said would only enable Google to create new ways to pursue undetectable anticompetitive practices. Google’s absolute control of the algorithms that decide why ads are sold at a certain price and access to all transaction records is what has made it so difficult to uncover the magnitude of its illegal behavior in the first place, Layser said. “We need publishers to validate [publisher server data] and need the industry to be able to innovate on top of that so we can move forward from this.”

Witnesses from marketing and ad agencies, as well as rival adtech providers, agreed with Layser and Bjedov. Rajeev Goel [[link removed]], CEO at the ad tech company Pubmatic, attacked Google’s argument [[link removed]] that the present structure of the industry is the result of a natural “market dynamic” rather than of Google’s monopoly power. Goel detailed how Google’s dominant position on all sides of this market prevents competitors from developing more transparent and effective products. Pubmatic recently sued Google for damages [[link removed]] based on Brinkema’s liability ruling that Google had built an illegal monopoly.

Judge Brinkema will likely issue a ruling on the remedies in early 2026. Although it is impossible to predict what she will ultimately decide, the witnesses made a strong case for dramatic action. As Jed Dederick [[link removed]], Chief Revenue Officer at The Trade Desk, an ad server that has pivoted from open-web advertising to connected TV ads, put it, if the DOJ’s demands are not adopted, there will be a sense that Google “got away with it.”

The U.S. is not the only jurisdiction where Google is awaiting a decision to break up its adtech stack. In September, the European Commission fined Google [[link removed]] $3.45 billion for abusing its dominance in this market, ordering it to end its illegal conduct in 60 days or otherwise have the Commission impose all necessary remedies to achieve that outcome, including a break-up of its adtech business.

📝 WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO: Open Markets Institute’s transportation analyst Arnav Rao published an article in Washington Monthly [[link removed]] on Trump’s faltering shipbuilding agenda. Rao detailed how the president has “gutted the very offices, funding streams, and foreign partnerships” needed to rebuild U.S. maritime capacity just months after pledging its revival. Rao also describes how staff resignations, budget cuts, and diplomatic blunders have derailed progress, from crippling the Maritime Administration and naval workforce to alienating allies like South Korea. “The administration has launched offices only to defang them, promised investment only to undercut it, and pointed to growth opportunities only to foreclose them,” Rao writes. AlterNet [[link removed]] used Rao’s analysis as the basis of its own article on shipbuilding.

The American Prospect [[link removed]] quoted Open Markets legal director, Sandeep Vaheesan, on the legal recourse a group of California tenants have against their abusive corporate landlord Equity Residential, a client of RealPage, whose rental pricing software has drawn antitrust scrutiny from regulators and a class action lawsuit.

Deutsche Welle [[link removed]] quoted Courtney Radsch, director of CJL@OMI, in an article on the issue of fair compensation for online content by Big Tech platforms like Google, which controls the search and digital advertising markets. “In an economy where a handful of U.S. tech giants control most of the business models online and information flows, there is a very limited set of business opportunities available," she said.

Egyptian news outlet Mada Masr [[link removed]] quoted Dr. Radsch on the selection of Egypt’s former tourism and antiquities minister, Khaled al-Enany, as director-general of UNESCO, an agency with oversight of press freedom.

🔊 ANTI-MONOPOLY WINS:

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid from dominant European software corporation SAP to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit from competitor Teradata, removing the remaining hurdle for the lawsuit, which claims the data management giant illegally tied its products together, to move forward in district court. ( Reuters [[link removed]])

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority officially designated Google as having strategic status in the search market, giving the regulator stricter oversight of the dominant corporation’s practices and other lines of business. ( Associated [[link removed]] Press [[link removed]])

Italian antitrust authorities launched a probe into tobacco giant Phillip Morris over concerns the corporation has been engaging in unfair practices that mislead consumers by labeling hazardous products “smoke-free.” ( Reuters [[link removed]])

We appreciate your readership. Please consider making a contribution to support the continued publication of this newsletter.

DONATE [[link removed]] 📈 VITAL STAT: $14 Billion

The amount Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) paid for Juniper Networks to bolster its cloud computing and AI capacity. The deal would leave HPE and Cisco Systems in control of more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment. A group of U.S. state attorneys general have signaled they may challenge the deal ( Reuters [[link removed]])

📚 WHAT WE'RE READING:

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It [[link removed]] — In a book named after the term he coined and popularized, technology critic Cory Doctorow analyzes the way a handful of dominant platforms took over the online landscape and have used their power to degrade quality and increase profits. Doctorow concludes with an overview of the policy reforms necessary to reverse the decline in our information system, including structural reforms to digital platform business models and the revival of antitrust enforcement.

Pre- Order Chief Economist Brian Callaci's new book:

Open Markets Institute’s chief economist Brian Callaci will publish [[link removed]] his first book Chains of Command: The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy on April 20 through University of Chicago Press. The book offers a sharp critique of the franchise model used by many fast food chains, which has shaped labor markets, corporate power, and inequality in the U.S. In Chains of Command, Callaci shows how franchisors have altered the legal treatment of corporations in their favor through a decades-long crusade of lobbying and litigation, and argues for greater cooperation between workers and small franchise owners. Pre-order the book here [[link removed]].

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Written and edited by: Barry Lynn, Austin Ahlman, Ezmeralda Makhamreh, Anita Jain, and XXXX.

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