\n<\/p>\n
This week we finished making our case in the Department of Justice\u2019s lawsuit about some of our advertising technology.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a recap of what we presented and the arguments we made during the trial as the presentation of evidence concluded:<\/p>\n
The DOJ wants to force Google to build tools that would let other companies, who don\u2019t have our standards for safety and security, market to our customers and use our technology. And that\u2019s despite the fact that we already go above and beyond legal requirements in making tools that others can use. As Neal Mohan, now CEO of YouTube, said: \u201cOur strategy is straightforward. We want to grow the overall display advertising pie for everyone in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Witnesses such as James Avery, founder and CEO of Kevel, and the DOJ\u2019s own economic expert, Professor Robin Lee, confirmed that some competitors simply want Google to build more direct integrations from our tools to competitors\u2019 tools. Others went a step further. Stephanie Layser, formerly of NewsCorp and now of Amazon, testified regarding Google\u2019s ad tech tools that \u201cthe core software should be open source\u201d and a \u201ccommunity asset.\u201d But that \u201cduty to deal\u201d is not what American law requires, since no company would want to invest in complex platforms only to have them handed over to others.<\/p>\n
Nobel-Prize-laureate auction economist Paul Milgrom testified that \u201cevery one of the conducts we\u2019ve described \u2014 Google\u2019s programs \u2014 benefited its own customers, either advertisers or publishers or both,\u201d finding that \u201cGoogle\u2019s changes to its own auction were improvements at the time in which they occurred relative to what had come before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trial testimony made clear that virtually all of the challenged practices haven\u2019t been used for years. The DOJ\u2019s own expert conceded that of the five alleged anticompetitive actions in the case, the \u201conly one that’s in effect today is UPR [uniform pricing rules]\u201d and we heard evidence that UPR had a positive impact on revenue for publishers and simplified bidding for advertisers.<\/p>\n
In his testimony, Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale compared ad exchanges to a platform that facilitates transactions between credit card holders and merchants. In this two-sided market, we showed the Court that Google\u2019s integrated ad tech stack offers services that are cheaper, safer, and more effective. Per Bjorke, Senior Product Manager for our Ad Traffic Quality team, showed how Google\u2019s \u201cend-to-end integration\u201d offers safety benefits by letting us \u201cmuch more effectively keep bad actors out.\u201d<\/p>\n
We also showed how Google\u2019s ad tech fees are lower than reported industry averages. In fact, as Yale Professor Judith Chevalier explained, “using Google tools actually has a lower revenue share\u201d when compared to competitors\u2019 full stack average revenue shares, and it is on average \u201cless expensive to use Google-to-Google than using third-party-to-third-party\u201d tools to connect advertisers with publishers.<\/p>\n
Google witnesses testified that ad buyers and sellers benefit from the integration of Google\u2019s tools. As Neal Mohan put it: \u201cHaving a strong advertiser side benefited our publishers, and having a strong publisher side benefited our advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n