The DOJ’s first expert was a familiar face. Harvard professor, Robin Lee, testified during the liability case on a market definitions, monopoly, power, and effect on competitio.

In the remedies phase, he looked at competitive effects and evaluated both proposals. His three objectives were to:

1. Stop Google’s anti-competitive conduct
2. Create a high likelihood of preventing future monopolization
3. Resolve competitive harms from Google‘s conduct

Good morning from Day 3 of DOJ/States v Google ad tech remedy trial.

We’re hearing from the DOJ’s experts, but I want to highlight an exchange made during DOJ’s economic expert (Robin Lee) hinting that the judge may be leaning away from structural remedies/break up proposals. Judge Brinkema: A lot of your opinion is based on another assumption that Google would attempt to re-monopolize. It’s interesting because that ran through other witness narratives, but I don’t see any evidence in the record that Google has been subject to an injunction in another case and has circumvented them.

I was going to point this out but @aripap does a good job.

It’s been 2 days & we’re officially halfway through the DOJ’s case in the ad tech remedy trial where the govt is seeking divestiture of AdX & DFP. But none of the DOJ’s witnesses seem to agree on how this should play out

https://twitter.com/monopoly_report/status/1970627366280905167

To be clear, DOJ is seeking to divest Google’s ad exchange- AdX.

It also wants to open source the final auction logic of Google’s publisher ad server- DFP/GAM

Remaining DFP assets will be subject to conditional divestiture, to be determined at the govt’s sole “discretion.”

The final witness of the day was Jed Dederick, Chief Revenue Officer of The Trade Desk. Dederick also testified during the liability trial and said he was excited and interested in the courts liability ruling because there is a lot of interest and industry hope about this case. Dederick testified that competition is anemic in open web display advertising. There’s not much innovation and buyers are not interested in investing compared to other ad channels.

The next witness the DOJ called was Jay Friedman of Goodway Group

When asked about AI, he testified that it had not impacted publisher ad servers yet, but it’s hard to forecast. That being said, he believed any AI disruption would be leveraged by Google because “nobody on the planet has a broader base of knowledge” to train machines learning models. Friedman believes divesting AdX would result in lower prices because Google’s fee has been an “anchor at the top of the market. The world has accepted that there is Google and everyone else.”

The DOJ’s next witness was Luke Lambert, who works at Omnicom confluence subsidiary, solely focused on Amazon. Lambert testified that he saw open web display advertising slowing down, but thought “disappearing” is an aggressive way to put it. He still plans to purchase as much web display advertising as he can because of scale and because most of his work sits in the upper funnel.

DOJ called its next witness, James Avery, the CEO and Founder of Kevel to the stand in the ad tech remedy trial against Google.

Kevel operates a publisher ad server focused on retailers and marketplaces. Avery was asked about the DOJ’s proposed remedy to open-source DFP’s final auction logic.

Avery testified that Prebid, IAB Tech Lab, and W3C, which operate other open-source projects, could all be good candidates to oversee this open-source remedy.

The next witness the DOJ called in the ad tech remedy trial against Google was a familiar face.

Andrew Casale, the President and CEO Index Exchange, also testified against G last fall during the liability trial. Casale testified that a fair platform is one where the highest price wins, and that he doesn't consider DFP as fair because its features are entwined with AdX and that DFP preferences AdX.

The DOJ called its first witness in its ad tech remedy trial against Google.

Grant Whitmore, VP at Advance Local, an operator of local media groups, took the stand. Whitmore testified that he was closely following this case and viewed the liability ruling as “generally a good thing” because “G has outsized power.”

Google opened with their own Supreme Court precedent,”Caution is key.”

This line appeared in Judge Mehta’s remedy order in the search case, and was part of the reason why he declined to impose divestiture there. Courts refrain from imposing the most drastic outcomes when there is an effective and less severe alternative.

Never before has divestiture been ordered to remove a tie or to bar a competitor from a market entirely, as the govt is seeking here.

The DOJ opened with a quote from Winston Churchill, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

https://twitter.com/1704918901056761856/status/1965157600963731698

They then offered a history lesson, framed as Google engaging in calculated and deliberate decisions to acquire and maintain a monopoly power in open web display- the lifeblood of the internet.

Let's look at the court's remedy order from the top🧵

Judge Mehta acknowledged that courts have broad discretion in crafting remedies, but they must be “tailored to fit the wrong creating the occasion for the remedy" (this is mentioned 6x) & "exigencies of the particular case". Further, judges are not meant to be day-to-day enforcers of a detailed decree (as imagined by the DOJ's expansive proposal).

Judge Mehta knows he's not an expert in privacy, LLMs, economics etc.

Thus, he concludes this discussion of the order by emphasizing "caution is key."

NOW: Closing arguments in the search antitrust remedy trial.

During liability, G’s exclusive contracts were found to be unlawful monopoly maintenance. Now the govt is looking to dismantle the search giant by stripping it of Chrome, Android, user data, search technology & more. I’ll be live-tweeting the entire thing, but here is the planned order of arguments:

Hello from Day 3 at #USvGoogle remedies trial. The DOJ called G exec, Sissie Hsiao to the stand. Hsiao worked on the Gemini app and the DOJ likely called her to bolster their arguments that search & AI go hand in hand to justify their remedies that will impede on AI competition. We saw internal G docs tracking the growth of Gemini and heard about Gemini’s various distribution channels: via URL, iOS app, Play Store app, pre-installation on newer select Pixel/Samsung/Motorola devices, and select hotkey/long-press/corner swipe shortcuts.

Google hasn’t rested, but is pretty close (we're looking at 30 minutes of deposition testimony tommorow). Much of today was spent of their market definition witness, Mark Israel, who took the DOJ’s Robin Lee to task. Israel was actually the market definition witness in last fall’s search case which the court ended up split on (siding with the DOJ on the big one-general search, but split on the ad market definitions).

But hey, new markets new facts.

@ProgressChamber has joined an amicus brief, alongside @NetChoice, @ccianet, and @CatoInstitute regarding Murthy v. Missouri (formerly known as Missouri v. Biden) which is now pending before the Supreme Court.

You can read our full brief here:
supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/2…
Murthy is a case that implicates the First Amendment rights of social media platforms and the ability of the government to censor/control how they host content.

washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technol…

Settlement details between Google and all State AGs in their App Store suit have been released.

You can read the full settlement here, but lets look the key provisions together:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… States brought a similar suit as Epic against G but opted for a settlement over going to trial.

Judge Donato urged, albeit unsuccessfully, Epic and G to seriously discuss settlement. It'll be interesting to see how/if the States' deal influences remedy proceedings going forward.