- The U.S. Department of Justice has suggested that Alphabet’s Google should sell off its AdX advertising exchange as well as its ad serving platform, DFP, according to documents filed in court on Monday. This move comes following a federal judge’s determination that the company had unlawfully monopolized two sectors within the online ad-tech industry.
On Friday, the judge established a trial date for September following arguments presented by both Google and the Department of Justice regarding possible solutions to address the company’s significant control over advertising tools utilized by digital publishers.
The Justice Department stated that the suggested solutions, which include asset sales, are crucial to dismantling Google’s monopolistic control and reviving competition within the ad-exchange and publishing advertising server sectors.
Google stated that the company backed behavioral remedies like providing real-time bidding access to rivals, however, legal authorities do not have the power to mandate it to divest portions of its operations through prosecution.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president for Regulatory Affairs, stated, “The Department of Justice’s extra suggestions to compel us to sell off our advertising technology tools extend further than what was concluded by the court. They lack legal grounding and could cause damage to both publishers and advertisers.”
AdX, also known as an Advertising Exchange, serves as a platform where publishers can offer their leftover advertising spaces to marketers for instant buying. These transactions occur in real time. Meanwhile, publisher ad servers refer to systems utilized by webpages to keep and oversee their collection of online advertisement slots.
In addition to ad exchanges, this technology enables news publishers and various online content providers to generate revenue through advertising sales.
A year ago, Google made significant progress toward resolving a European Union antitrust inquiry by proposing to offload AdX. However, this suggestion was turned down by European publishers who felt it did not go far enough.
(Reported by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; additional reporting by Chandni Shah in Bangalore; Edited by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Mrigank Dhaniwala, Miyoung Kim)