WASHINGTON, DC – Today, The Tech Oversight Project issued the following statement and messaging guidance to media and allies as the Department of Justice (DOJ) began its public antitrust trial against Google’s ad business. The trial comes just weeks after Google was found guilty of holding an illegal monopoly in search – its second antitrust loss in the last year.
“The last time Google went to a public trial, we learned about its multi-billion-dollar exclusive default deals with Apple and its anti-competitive designs that make it harder for people to ditch Google. It comes as no surprise they’ve deleted evidence and abused privileged communication standards in a desperate move to avoid a public airing of all the predatory ways they abuse our data and manipulate the entire online ad marketplace for profit. Google’s customers and the public deserve this information,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of the Tech Oversight Project.
Recent Developments:
- Last month, the tech giant was found guilty of holding an illegal monopoly in the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google’s search business.
- Following the antitrust search ruling, Yelp filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google for damages incurred from Google’s illegal monopoly.
- In the DOJ’s adtech case, Judge Brinkema said that Google’s document deletion practices were “a clear abuse of privilege.”
- Last year, U.S. District Judge James Donato called Google’s conduct “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice” during the monopoly case brought by Epic Games.
- During the search antitrust trial, Google advertising executive Jerry Dischler revealed under oath that he and his employees were responsible for “shaking the cushion” to hit Wall Street revenue targets, and they would raise prices by as much as 10% without notifying advertisers.
- Advertisers disputed that figure, saying they observed spikes closer to 100%.
- Google paid the federal government $2.3 million in pre-emptive damages to eight federal agencies that were harmed by Google’s manipulation of the digital ad market, which resulted in fewer tax dollars going toward suicide prevention, access to health care, and keeping our roadways safe.
- According to the Tech Transparency Project, even after charging advertisers monopolistic rates, YouTube (owned by Google) placed ads from prominent brands next to content from hate groups and extremists.
Polling:
A recent poll from More Perfect Union shows that Americans are tired of living with concentrated corporate power in tech and are ready for action to hold them accountable:
- 81% of voters think big corporations are becoming too powerful
- A majority think that without regulation, new technologies like crypto and AI will harm children
- By a 2-to-1 margin, voters think breaking up companies will improve competition and reduce prices
- Almost 80% have an unfavorable view of corporate monopolies; monopolists rank lower than the federal government, Elon Musk, and Project 2025.
Message Guidance and Talking Points:
For years, Google has operated illegal monopolies in the digital economy that have led to decreased competition and increased prices on everyday goods and services (a Google sales tax). When presented with the facts, Google was found guilty (twice) in a court of law for maintaining an illegal monopoly, and we expect that when the facts see the light of day in this trial, the result will be the same. Google is already mobilizing its network of lobbyists and paid spokespeople to work the refs, spread false narratives, and whitewash the damage it has caused to the American people via higher prices. So, let’s set the facts straight:
- Google has an illegal adtech monopoly, and millions of Americans have paid the Google Tax every time they make a purchase online – whether they know it or not.
- Google has become one of the most powerful companies in the world because it manipulates the buy side, sell side, and digital ad marketplace to charge inflated prices that get passed on to consumers.
- Google succeeded because it illegally blocked competitors, gobbled up would-be rivals, and extorted small and large businesses by making it harder to switch to another platform.
- Google believes they are above the law. They destroyed evidence in a desperate effort to avoid accountability, keep its predatory business model out of the public eye, and mask how they collect and abuse our data.
- The American people deserve to know how Google weaponizes our data against us and how it has leveraged its monopolies to push higher prices on American families.
- If Google is found guilty and structural remedies are achieved, this ruling has the potential to revolutionize the digital economy and protect the future of our democracy.
Fast Facts, per the DOJ complaint:
- In the United States, website publishers sell more than five trillion display ads on the open-web each year — more than 13 billion display ads daily.
- Open-web display ads “provide website publishers with over $12 billion in advertising revenue annually.”
- Roughly 80% of Google’s revenues come from digital advertising.
- For display ads, Google makes money by charging a 20% “take rate” – similar to a sales tax.
- According to the DOJ complaint, in a competitive market, the take rate would be closer to 16% or lower.
- Google overcharged publishers and advertisers between $484M and $1.7B between January 2019 and January 2023.
- Google’s anti-competitive actions have given it “a substantial scale advantage over rivals, ranging from 300% to 1200% the size of its next-closest competitor.”
- On DoubleClick acquisition:
- When Google acquired a nascent DoubleClick, its publisher ad server had a 60% market share.
- Google internally valued DoubleClick at $1.8 to $2.2B, but it offered $3.1 because it recognized that another company acquiring DoubleClick “represents a major competitive threat.”
- Through Google’s acquisition of AdX in the DoubleClick deal, if a publisher chooses to use a different exchange and thus forego access to Google Ads on average, it “would decrease publishers’ overall revenue by approximately 14%.”
- Google’s own analysis shows that if it broke the tie between Google Ads and AdX, the number of transactions won by AdX would decrease by “20% to 30%.”
- According to the DOJ, if publishers wanted to use a different publisher ad server, they lost access to AdX, which meant between a 27% and 64% drop in advertising revenue.
- The DOJ asserts that Google recognized that forcing DoubleClick to compete on the merits with other publisher ad servers would be “an existential threat to our business.”
- The DOJ argues that Google “offers ways” for third-party publisher ad servers to connect with AdX, but they intentionally degrade the product. Even Google’s own employees acknowledged the antitrust concerns.