Justice Department attorneys took aim at Google’s alleged monopoly over the digital advertising market on Monday in an antitrust case that poses a major threat to the Big Tech giant’s business model.
Opening arguments in the closely watched trial kicked off in a Virginia courtroom and drew a massive crowd of onlookers.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema will decide the outcome of the non-jury trial, which is expected to last about four weeks.
Google’s opening statement was delivered by attorney Karen Dunn — a top litigator at white-shoe law firm Paul Weiss whose close ties to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris have generated criticism from anti-monopoly watchdogs, as The Post has reported.
The DOJ and a coalition of US states are seeking a breakup of Google’s advertising business, including a forced divestment of Google’s Ad Manager product.
The feds allege that Google harms publishers and businesses alike by abusing its role as the primary gatekeeper for online ad deals.
“It’s worth saying the quiet part out loud,” DOJ attorney Julia Tarver Wood said during her opening statement. “One monopoly is bad enough. But a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”
The trial began just weeks after the DOJ won a stunning victory in a separate case targeting Google’s dominance over online search.
A federal judge could order a breakup of the company after determining Google is a “monopolist” that has stifled rival search engines.
The DOJ’s complaint said Google leverages its control of digital ad technology on the buy and sell side of every ad deal to siphon up to 35 cents of “each advertising dollar that flows through Google’s ad tech tools.”
Google has relied on a series of acquisitions and shady tactics, such as charging steep fees and the manipulation of the rules for automated ad auctions that link advertisers and publishers, to build its cash cow, according to the DOJ.
Dunn argued that the DOJ’s case was built on an outdated understanding of the internet and compared it to a “time capsule with a BlackBerry, an iPod and a Blockbuster video card.”
She asserted that the case carries a “serious risk of error or unintended consequences” and that any court-ordered crackdown on Google would merely benefit its rivals, such as Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok, rather than benefit businesses.
Donald Trump’s campaign has blasted Harris’ work with Dunn, who has served as a campaign adviser and debate prepper, as a “conflict of interest.”
“By picking winners and losers in a highly competitive industry, the DOJ risks making it more expensive for small businesses to grow and for websites and apps to make money,” Google said in a blog post ahead of the trial.
Executives from several prominent publishers, including Gannett and News Corp., are set to testify at the trial.
The DOJ’s first witness was Gannett executive Tim Wolfe, who testified that the USA Today parent had little choice but to rely on Google’s ad tools despite the steep fees.
Google was dealt a major setback last month during a pre-trial hearing in which Brinkema blasted the company for implementing a policy that automatically deleted employee chat logs.
The DOJ argued in a motion that the judge should draw an “adverse inference” over the deleted logs, which would allow the court to assume that Google intentionally acted to destroy evidence related to the case.
Brinkema described the now-discontinued practice — known inside Google as “Vegas Mode” — represented a “clear abuse of privilege” and was “not the way in which a responsible corporate entity should function.”
The judge has yet to issue a formal ruling on the motion — though she noted she would draw “inferences” as both sides call witnesses to the stand.
With Post wires
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