How Google tried to unravel the DOJ’s ad tech case

The Department of Justice argued whether Google has created illegal monopolies in the ad tech market.

Google says it's slicing up the market in a way that doesn’t make sense and that it downplays or ignores Google ’s biggest advertising competition: social media.

The company has a variety of defenses to the accusations, ranging from Supreme Court precedent to security concerns.

Internal Google documents showed it carefully watched competitors the government has defined to be outside the relevant market.

Google argues the DOJ is ignoring a key part of its empire: its demand-side platform DV360 .

The DOJ has largely treated these as separate markets, claiming Google has a monopoly in advertiser ad networks but not in DSPs.

Brinkema said that “market definition is core to this case,” and it’s “somewhat of a problem for Google to take one position in one court and somewhat of a different position in another court.” But, she said, she’d look at the “entire mix” of evidence in reaching her decision. When the parties return to court for closing arguments on November 25th , she’ll have one more chance to ask the attorneys what the boundaries of that market should look like..