Google returns to court for remedy phase of DOJ ad-tech antitrust trial

Google is heading back to court on Monday for the remedy phase of United States v. Google LLC, where it faced judgment of operating an advertising monopoly.

Up to speed: US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled against Google back in April after closing arguments were given last November, finding that the company maintained monopolies in the open web display publisher ad server and ad exchange markets and illegally tied its ad exchange to its publisher ad server.

The court is reconvening in Alexandria, Virginia, to determine remedies that could have broader repercussions in the ad industry.

Last time around: The US Department of Justice sued Google in January 2023, accusing the tech giant of monopolizing the online advertising industry. The DOJ claimed that Google sought to stave off competition through several acquisitions, essentially forcing publishers and advertisers to use its tech and driving up prices in the process.

Google’s lawyers argued that the strength of the company’s ad-tech is why it rules the roost in the market. They pointed to companies involved in landmark Supreme Court antitrust cases, like Microsoft, Standard Oil, and AT&T, and argued that they had a greater share of their markets than Google does within the digital ads realm. However, during the trial, a lot of internal emails were shared with the court that seemed to illuminate a different view.

• One such email, authored by a Google ads staffer in 2013, said that “our goal should be all or nothing—use AdX as your SSP or don’t get access to our demand.”

Fast-forward to April 2025, when Brinkema ruled in the DOJ’s favor, concluding that “plaintiffs have proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.”

Who’s testifying this time: Both the DOJ and Google filed their witness lists last month.

• The DOJ’s list includes Google employees, such as Heather Adkins, security engineering VP, and Noam Wolf, senior director of engineering.
• Several publisher execs, such as Stephanie Layser, global head of publisher ad tech solutions at AWS, and Jason Taylor, CRO of Gannett Media, are also on the list.
• Ad tech witnesses include James Avery, founder and CEO of retail media firm Kevel, and Andrew Casale, president and CEO of Index Exchange, an SSP.
• On the agency side, Luke Lambert, partner and head of reputation marketing and insights at Omnicom Media Group, and Jay Friedman, Goodway Group strategic advisor and former CEO, will offer testimony.
• The DOJ is supplementing its witness list with academic perspectives, including that of Harvard economics professor Robin S. Lee.

“My sense is that Google has made some enemies over the years,” Andrew Frank, research VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said. “So no doubt there’s going to be organizations who have been harmed—or at least feel they’ve been harmed—by Google’s dominance of the ad-tech world.”

Many folks on the DOJ’s witness list are also on Google’s, such as Adkins and Lambert.

• Some of its other witnesses include former Google software engineer David Maymudes and Jason Nieh, a computer science professor at Columbia.
• Google provided the names of witnesses who may or may not be called, all of whom are also on the DOJ’s list, such as Friedman.

Anyone’s guess: Frank predicts that Brinkema may seek a similar remedy to that of US District Judge Amit Mehta, who presided over a separate antitrust trial that centered on Google’s hold on the search industry.

• In that case, Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly in online search. While the DOJ had asked Mehta to direct Google to sell off its Chrome web browser as a remedy in that case, Mehta did not do that. He did, however, direct it to share search data with rivals, among other stipulations. This case’s remedy could “potentially require them to share more data or be more open about their architecture,” Frank said. Google has said it will appeal the decisions in both cases.

The outcome could impact other lawsuits that have been filed alleging that Google engaged in anticompetitive practices, namely those filed by competitors PubMatic and OpenX, Ashish Chordia, founder and member of the board, LG Ad Solutions, said.

Whatever happens next, “we’ll be in a healthier place after all this is said and done, and I think that’s going to be great for publishers and great for advertisers,” Chordia said. “It’s a journey of figuring out how to get there. That’s what’s happening with the lawsuits and antitrust.”