Justice Department lawyers took aim at Google’s alleged monopoly over the digital advertising market on Monday in an antitrust case that poses a major threat to the Big Tech giant’s business model.
Opening arguments in the closely watched trial began in a Virginia courtroom and drew a massive crowd of onlookers.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema will decide the outcome of the non-jury trial, which is expected to last about four weeks.
Google’s opening statement was delivered by attorney Karen Dunn — a lead litigator at the Paul Weiss law firm whose close ties to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris have generated criticism from antitrust watchdogs, The Post reported.
The DOJ and a coalition of US states are seeking a break-up of Google’s advertising business, including a forced divestment of Google’s Ad Manager product.
The feds claim Google hurts publishers and businesses alike by abusing its role as the primary gatekeeper for online advertising deals.
“It pays to say the quiet part out loud,” DOJ attorney Julia Tarver Wood said during her opening statement. “A monopoly is bad enough. But a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”
The trial began just weeks after the DOJ won a stunning victory in a separate case targeting Google’s dominance of Internet search.
A federal judge could order a breakup of the company after determining that Google is a “monopolist” that has strangled rival search engines.
The DOJ complaint said Google uses its control of digital ad technology on the buy and sell side of each ad deal to receive up to 35 cents of “every advertising dollar that flows through Google’s ad technology tools.”
Google has relied on a series of shady acquisitions and tactics, such as charging high fees and manipulating the rules for automated ad auctions that connect advertisers and publishers, to build its cash cow, according to the DOJ.
Dunn argued that the DOJ’s case was built on an outdated understanding of the internet and likened it to a “time capsule with a BlackBerry, an iPod and a Blockbuster video card”.
She argued that the case carries a “serious risk of error or unintended consequences” and that any court-ordered crackdown on Google would simply benefit its rivals, such as Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok, rather than businesses.
Donald Trump’s campaign has criticized Harris’ work with Dunn, who served as a campaign adviser and debate preparer, as a “conflict of interest.”
“By picking winners and losers in a highly competitive industry, DOJ risks making it more expensive for small businesses to grow and for websites and apps to make money,” Google said in a blog post ahead of the trial.
Executives from several prominent publishers, including Gannett and News Corp., are set to testify at the trial.
The first DOJ witness was Gannett executive Tim Wolfe, who testified that USA Today’s parent had no choice but to rely on Google’s advertising tools, despite the high fees.
Google suffered a major setback last month during a pre-trial hearing in which Brinkema criticized the company for implementing a policy that automatically deletes employee chat logs.
The DOJ argued in a motion that the judge should draw an “adverse inference” on the deleted logs, which would allow the court to assume that Google acted intentionally to destroy evidence related to the case.
Brinkema described the now-discontinued practice — known within Google as “Vegas Mode” — represented a “clear abuse of privilege” and was “not the way a responsible corporate entity should operate.”
The judge has yet to issue a formal ruling on the motion — though she noted she would issue “findings” as both sides call witnesses to the stand.
By postal wire
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