Google Remedies Trial Wrap-Up

This is the final day of coverage of the remedies trial in US v. Google.

Google Remedies Trial Wrap-Up

After two weeks of living and breathing the remedies I headed back to NYC and let others take the burden of daily updates. Today was the final day of the trial, and featured the testimony of Matthew Wheatland of the Daily Mail as a rebuttal witness for the DOJ. Arielle from Checkmyads has a summary of today’s proceedings.

On Friday, I also skipped writing an update, mostly because nothing happened. Steph Layser of AWS, nee News Corp, gave more publisher-centric testimony and we learned that this tweet exists:

In previous newsletters I gave my estimation of where the remedy is going to end up, and not much in my opinion has changed. Below are the current moneylines with commentary. (For those who are not degen sports gamblers, -200 means you have to bet $200 to win $100, or 1-2 odds; +200 means you bet $100 to make $200 or 2-1 odds).

YES: AdX must bid all types of auctions for display ads into prebid (-500)

Both sides agree AdX should bid into prebid and other ad servers. Google wants that to be restricted to open auction only, which makes no sense and the judge sees through.

YES: AdX must bid the same amount regardless of where the bid is going (-500)

This seems pretty obviously to be important if you want the bids to flow into different systems.

YES: AdWords cannot bid directly into DFP to route around AdX (-500)

If AdWords can bid into DFP directly then it does nothing to solve the publisher ad server monopoly. Judge Brinkema is smart and won’t be fooled here. The only side bet would be whether this is nixed because technically AdWords was not found to be part of the monopoly so there could be a legal argument against it, or it could be a point of appeal.

YES: 5+ year monitoring by the court (-1000)

Google asked for only three years of monitoring, but even they said it “wasn’t a magic number.” Five years is a lock, so the returns on this bet are slim. For the real degenerates maybe we can start an over/under line.

YES: AdWords and DV360 must adopt non-discriminatory bidding (-200)

This issue goes along side the AdWords bidding into DFP one, above. If AdWords can bid wherever it chooses, AND AdX is not spun out, then reasonably we should expect to see the same 95% of AdWords spend going to AdX as it does right now. This is the nightmare scenario for competitive exchanges since they are champing at the bit to gain some of that demand.

I set the odds closer to even, though, since I think a blanket prohibition of Google being able to select demand on its own terms would likely have a lot of negative side effects and the judge may be persuaded to not order this explicitly, or punt it to the court-assigned monitor in some way.

TOSS-UP: AdWords cannot use first party data to bid differently (+100)

Google says they don’t use first party data in this part of their business but also they shouldn’t be restricted from doing so since competitors (i.e. Meta) are allowed to. This issue is in the same category as the non-discriminatory bidding issue, above. But since there’s no evidence this is currently a problem, I think the Judge may pass on it.

TOSS-UP: AdX spin-out (+100)

The most contentious issue of the whole trial is also the biggest toss-up. An AdX forced spin pays even money, less the house’s 20% take (that’s a joke for those following closely).

The DOJ witnesses testified consistently that Google could not be trusted to run a fair auction, even if the bids were routed through prebid. The Judge heard them loud and clear and said from the bench that trust was the most important issue.

Google beat the court over the head with discussion of the technical complexity of the spin-out. They claimed that depending on how the DOJ’s remedies were read, Google could be forced to spin out entire data centers, undersea cables, and more, just to allow AdX to exist.

NO: Open source auction logic (+300)

I wrote about this previously (see: Day 6: What's Up with the Open Sourced Final Auction? ). This remedy strikes me as being made up in a brainstorming session. Google’s witnesses poked serious holes in the feasibility, and the DOJ’s witnesses made this seem like a “nice to have” rather than a key part of the remedy. Bet for this and you get a good return on your money.

NO: DFP contingent divestiture (+500)

The majority of the technical discussion in the trial focused on the potential AdX divestiture, with DFP as an afterthought. This is probably because the DFP divestiture was positioned by the DOJ as “contingent” and wouldn’t even be considered for three+ years after the remedy was in place. Given appeals, etc, we’re talking 2030s.

The DFP divestiture also has the problem of crossing into other ad formats and deal types, since the antitrust ruling only covers indirect sales of display ads. Further, the concern over what to do about the large number of small and medium-sized publishers who get “GAM Small Business” for free would come to the fore should DFP be spun-out. Given all the hair on it, Judge Brinkema will either reject this remedy entirely, or punt and put it at the discretion of the monitor.

When will we find our who wins?

The next big date is November 17th, when closing arguments will be made (Monopoly Report will be there!)

We would then expect a ruling from Judge Brinkema in Q1 of 2026. Then appeals…