Nov 25Lauren FeinerGoogle and the DOJ make their final arguments in the ad tech monopoly case Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle and the Department of Justice met one final time in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom to debate the future of Googles online ad tech juggernaut.Over about three hours of closing arguments, attorneys for each sideplaying out in a separate DC District Court case over Google search. Read Article >Nov 25Emma RothGoogles empire is under siege Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesToday, Google will have a final chance to prove to a federal judge that its advertising business isnt a monopoly. The US Department of Justice spent several weeks earlier this year arguing that Google maintains too much control over web advertising and uses that power to lock in customers, leaving little room for competition. The trial wraps up this week. If it loses, Google could have to make sweeping changes to the core of its business.Even if the tech behemoth emerges from this trial unscathed, a spreading legal fire still jeopardizes everything it has created. For many years, Googles sprawling empire has faced little legal scrutiny, allowing the company to freely build up its search engine, browser, operating systems, and line of hardware products that all intersect to bolster one another. Its the overlap of Googles massive businesses that has attracted attention from government agencies and tech industry rivals, who are set on taking apart Googles stronghold piece by piece.Read Article >Oct 22Lauren FeinerTech critics want a Google exec punished for deleted chatsThree advocacy groups are trying to amp up the pressure on Google for allegedly destroying company records. The American Economic Liberties Project, Check My Ads, and the Tech Oversight Project are urging the State Bar of California to investigate Kent Walker, Googles President of Global Affairs and a member of the Bar. They claim Walker coached the company to engage in widespread and illegal destruction of records relevant to multiple ongoing federal trials. In a letter shared exclusively with The Verge, the groups point to a 2008 memo Walker sent to employees while he served as general counsel. The so-called Walker Memo was highlighted in the Department of Justices recent antitrust trial, one of multiple cases where Google has been accused of obscuring potentially incriminating documents. The memo referenced several significant legal and regulatory matters Google faced at the time as the rationale for a new policy limiting employee chat message retention. The DOJ claimed it marked a turning point for company secrecy as Google changed the default setting on chats from history on to history off.Read Article >Oct 17Emma RothGoogle is replacing the exec in charge of Search and ads Illustration: The VergeGoogle is making a big change to company leadership. In a memo to staff posted on Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Prabhakar Raghavan, the senior vice president in charge of search, ads, and other important segments, will now take on the role of chief technologist. Prabhakar has decided its time to make a big leap in his own career, Pichai writes. After 12 years leading teams across Google, hell return to his computer science roots and take on the role of Chief Technologist, Google. In this role, hell partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence.Read Article >Oct 1Lauren FeinerHow Google tried to unravel the DOJs ad tech case Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesThe Department of Justice just wrapped up three weeks of trial where it argued whether Google has created illegal monopolies in the ad tech market. During much of it, Google kept asking a more fundamental question: what is that market?The company has a variety of defenses to the DOJs accusations, ranging from Supreme Court precedent to security concerns. One of its biggest, however, is that the agency simply doesnt understand online advertising. Google alleges that its slicing up the market in a way that doesnt make sense and that it downplays or ignores Googles biggest advertising competition: social media.Read Article >Sep 27Lauren FeinerGoogle and the DOJ are out of court until November 25th.Closing arguments in their ad tech antitrust trial will start at 10AM that day. But for now, its a wrap.The final day saw a couple of depositions from Google including testimony from Ryan Pauley, chief revenue officer at Verge parent company Vox Media plus a Daily Mail executive who returned in a short but heated DOJ rebuttal.US v. Google redux: all the news from the ad tech trialLauren Feiner31 seconds agoSep 26Lauren FeinerGoogle says a closed ad ecosystem isnt anticompetitive its just safer Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle took a page out of a familiar playbook in court this week, defending itself from claims of anticompetitive conduct by raising security concerns. While the government argues it locked up the ad tech market to make more money, Googles witnesses say that a more closed ecosystem is often safer for users echoing a defense both it and Apple have made of their mobile app stores.Googles attorneys have spent the last few days mounting its defense against the Department of Justice. The company argues that conduct the Department of Justice paints as anticompetitive like locking customers into its services and exerting control over the rules of the industry through its dominance actually has justifiable business purposes. The point was emphasized by two Google executive witnesses: Per Bjorke, director of product management for ad traffic quality, and Alejandro Borgia, director of product management for ad safety. Combined, theRead Article >Sep 24Lauren FeinerHow Google made the ad tech industry revolve around itself Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogles mission statement seems made to evoke warm and fuzzy feelings about how its products help everyone. Our mission is to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful, Google says on its corporate site. The company used to have an even more saccharine motto: Dont be evil.But the decisions Google made in growing its massive advertising technology business were cold-blooded and carefully crafted to primarily benefit itself, the Department of Justice argued during the first two weeks of its antitrust trial.Read Article >Sep 19Lauren FeinerTL;DR on the DOJs ad tech antitrust trial against Google.Ive been going to this extremely wonky and jargon-y trial almost every day, and I joined Decoder to translate the highlights so far. The trial which is only accessible in-person from an Alexandria, VA courtroom is in its second week. Google is expected to start calling witnesses any day now, once the Justice Department wraps its chief case.Sep 19Nilay PatelWhy Google is back in court for another monopoly showdown Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesToday on Decoder, were talking about the big Google antitrust trial thats currently taking place in a federal courthouse. No, not the one youre thinking of its the second Google antitrust case in just as many months. The company lost a landmark case in August in which a court ruled that it had an illegal monopoly in search.This time around, the Department of Justice is claiming Google has another illegal monopoly in the online advertising market.Read Article >Sep 19Lauren FeinerGoogle employees attempts to hide messages from investigators might backfire Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle employees liberally labeled their emails as privileged and confidential and spoke off the record over chat messages, even after being told to preserve their communications for investigators, lawyers for the Justice Department have told a Virginia court over the past couple of weeks. That strategy could backfire if the judge in Googles second antitrust trial believes the company intentionally destroyed evidence that would have looked bad for it. The judge could go as far as giving an adverse inference about Googles missing documents, which would mean assuming they would have been bad for Googles case.Read Article >Sep 17David PierceIn US v. Google, YouTubes CEO defends the Google way Image: Cath Virginia / The VergeThe word of the day in US v. Google was parking. As in: did Google buy some of its most ascendant and dangerous competitors in the online advertising business, all the while planning on parking them off in some far-flung corner of the company so that no one could possibly upset Googles dominance? That is a central question of the governments entire case against Google, and it came up over and over on Monday morning.To kick off the second week of the landmark antitrust trial over Googles control of online advertising, the Department of Justice called Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube and a longtime Google advertising executive. Mohan came to Google in 2008 through Googles acquisition of DoubleClick, which formed the basis of Googles now-unstoppable advertising engine. Mohan also helped advocate for the acquisition of Admeld, another company at the center of the suit. He argued throughout his testimony that Google was never attempting to buy up and neuter its competitors; it was simply trying to compete.Read Article >Sep 16Lauren FeinerHow Google got away with charging publishers more than anyone else Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesFor years, Google took the same 20 percent commission for ad transactions that ran through its platform, even though it was higher than what any other industry player charged. Executives privately worried the fee was difficult to defend. Now, the Justice Department argues its a key sign of Googles monopoly over online ads.Googles so-called take rate took center stage on the last day of week one in the Justice Departments second antitrust trial against Google. Citing internal Google documents and the testimony of former Google sell-side ads executive Chris LaSala, the DOJ sought to demonstrate that Google never experienced any real pricing pressure due to its unshakable dominance in the market, despite knowing its fee was higher than competitors and being aware of customer complaints about its tools. The trial continues this week, with YouTube CEO and former Google ads executive Neal Mohan testifying on Monday.Read Article >Sep 13Lauren FeinerHow Google altered a deal with publishers who couldnt say no Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle changed the rules of its publisher ad product in a way it knew online websites selling ad space would protest in order to gain back more control in the ad tech market, the Department of Justice alleged on the trials fourth day in its antitrust case against the company. Through the testimony of a former Google executive, internal company emails, and a recording of a contentious 2019 meeting with Googles publisher customers, the DOJ painted a picture of a company that ignored its customers preferences to strengthen its own business position, knowing they had few real alternatives. Googles attorneys countered that executives listened to customer feedback and made some adjustments, even though it kept the core of the change in place.Read Article >Sep 11Lauren FeinerGoogle dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling stuck Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogles tool that lets publishers sell ad space on their websites is ubiquitous, but thats largely a testament to how hard it is for customers to get out of it, one former publishing executive testified in federal court on Tuesday.I felt like they were holding us hostage, said Stephanie Layser, a former programmatic advertising executive at News Corp (which owns brands like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post) who now works at AWS. Layser was testifying as a government witness in the Justice Departments second antitrust case against Google, which is accusing the company of monopolizing the markets for ad tech tools and illegally tying together two of its products. Read Article >Sep 10Lauren FeinerGoogles ad server is slow and clunky but virtually everybody uses it.Were moving through witnesses in the Google ad tech trial, including Stephanie Layser, a former consultant and News Corp advertising VP. Layser bolstered the DOJs claim that Google Ad Manager (formerly Doubleclick For Publishers or DFP) dominates the market thanks to its links to AdX. DFP is a 25 to 30 year old piece of technology.Itsslow and clunky, Layser lamented. It takes a long time to load on the page.Sep 10Adi RobertsonDay 2 of the Google-DOJ antitrust trial begins.The Virginia courthouse is a stickler about security, so Im posting on behalf of Lauren Feiner, who sent the following this morning:The government didnt say who would be testifyingbefore court adjourned yesterday, but we left off with several industry players explaining the publisher side of the market. Blissfully, the DOJ said were running ahead of schedule already. About to say goodbye to my phone, take my last sip of water (neither allowed in the courtroom!) and head back in.Sep 10Lauren FeinerGoogle and the DOJs ad tech fight is all about control Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle and the US Justice Department each believe the other wants too much of one thing: control. Control is the defining characteristic of a monopolist, DOJ counsel Julia Tarver Wood said during opening statements in the federal governments second antitrust trial against the search giant, which kicked off on Monday in Alexandria, Virginia. To the government, Google exerts too much control over every step of the way publishers sell advertising space online and how advertisers buy it, resulting in a system that benefits Google at the expense of nearly everyone else.Read Article >Sep 9Lauren FeinerGoogle and the Justice Department have made their opening salvos in court.The government is trying to make this case about Google imposing control over a market, with DOJ counsel Julia Tarver Mason Wood arguing that Google acquired its way to success. Google, meanwhile, says the suit is about the government unlawfully forcing it to deal with rivals. It claims its not consolidating three markets, just working in one market with a buy and sell side.The Google ad tech trial is kicking off this morning.The Verges Lauren Feiner will be reporting on Googles latest antitrust battle from Virginia, where the Department of Justice will argue that its not just a search monopolist, but an advertising monopolist as well.Sep 6Lauren FeinerGoogle and DOJ return for round two of their antitrust fight this time about ads Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesGoogle and the Justice Department are set for a rematch of sorts on Monday when they return to court to argue about Googles alleged monopolistic behavior over how ads are bought and sold on the internet.The DOJ is fresh off a win in its search antitrust case against Google, where a federal judge in Washington, DC, agreed that Google had illegally monopolized the online search market. This time, the two parties will argue before a different judge in Virginia about whether Google has also illegally monopolized markets for advertising technology.Read Article >