Google Facing Breakup of Ad Business as DOJ Recommends Divestiture After Antitrust Ruling

[MacRumors]

The United States Justice Department wants Google to make major changes to its ad business in order to restore competition, with the government suggesting that Google divest both Ad Exchange (AdX) and Ad Manager (often referred to as DFP).

The DoJ made the recommendation in an updated filing submitted as part of its ongoing antitrust fight with Google. Last month, Google was found to have an illegal monopoly in online advertising, manipulating the market to cause harm to advertisers, publishers, and consumers. The court is now mulling remedies to curb Google's behavior, and it is considering suggestions from the DoJ.

AdX is Google's ad exchange marketplace where advertisers can purchase ad space from publishers in real-time through auctions, while DFP is an ad management platform that publishers can use for ad inventory management, selling, scheduling, and managing ad inventory. The DoJ wants Google to sell off AdX right away, and do a phased divestiture of DFP.

The DoJ also suggests that Google's AdWords product should deal with all third-party ad tech tools on non-discriminatory terms for bidding, matching, and placement of ads, and that Google should be prohibited from preferentially routing buyside demand from AdWords to any as exchange or publisher ad server. Google may also be required to share key ad server data and prohibited from using data gathered from Google Search, Gmail, and other Google properties to evaluate digital ad inventory on third-party tools and websites.

Google is also facing off with the Department of Justice over search, as the company was found to have an online search monopoly as well. Google could be forced to sell off the Chrome browser and make major changes to data sharing that would impact Google Search's market dominance.

Article Link: Google Facing Breakup of Ad Business as DOJ Recommends Divestiture After Antitrust Ruling

 

[turbineseaplane]

"Good"

That's all I have to say on this one

There is so much antitrust enforcement that needs to be done, across all industries in the US.

 

[rizzo41999]

This is actually pretty wild.

 

[Spock]

How will the search portion of Google make any money without ad revenue?

 

[Amazing Iceman]

How will the search portion of Google make any money without ad revenue?

Very good question. So this only proves that if you make progress and get to the very top, you will be punished!
As you would say: “It’s illogical”.

 

[needsomecoffee]

Pichai (and Tim) are simple "ShareholderValue-Heads". Something Steve hated (Google "Toner Head"). It is complicated as maximizing SHV near-term can leave long-term value either deficient (not enough innovation... Tim), or subject to DOJ (Pichai). For both Tim and Sundar they could not care less as they became billionaires leveraging easily available, yet unsustainable brand/technical bulwarks. One thing about "Steve"... if you go back and analyze what he did, he likely never made a decison on near-term stock price. Tim & Sundar... not so much.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Tim praying for the services revenue when that search deal gets banned

 

[fatTribble]

Google do evil? Thats unpossible.

 

[HQuest]

Up next: the EU puts the US DOJ on notice for stepping over their jurisdiction of finding American mega-corporations guilty of stiffing innovation.

 

[Zapski]

I use google for nothing, intentionally at least. I use Ad blockers, Duck Duck Go, Apple Mail and calendars… it’s hard to pin down any specific thing they do that I see.

Soooooo yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[delsoul]

Good, I’m totally fine with this. Google acts like they can just do what they want and there’s zero consequences. Also, those who own Google, alphabet, need to be dragged into the light so everyone can see who exactly they are. Very mysterious and hidden folks that should be more well known.

 

[SnowPenguin]

If it actually happened, it will be the first time one of the FAANG corporate get dismantled. These companies got way too powerful, so it's all good.

In the long term, this can lead to good things.

 

[airwalk331]

How will the search portion of Google make any money without ad revenue?

Will it matter if google search goes away? Won’t AI take over search? (To be clear- I literally have no idea one way or the other, just throwing this idea out there)

 

[AppleMad98004]

The risk is this makes most of the internet invisible to the average user as websites still get most of their traffic from Google. It will give Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon more power.

 

[johnsc3]

If it actually happen, it will be the first time one of the FAANG corporate get dismantled. These companies got way too powerful, so it's all good.

In the long term, this can lead to good things.

Do this across all sectors. Wells, Walmart, and AT&T for starters.

 

[SnowPenguin]

Do this across all sectors. Wells, Walmart, and AT&T for starters.

Yes, please!

 

[Baritone_Guy]

How will the search portion of Google make any money without ad revenue?

Very good question. So this only proves that if you make progress and get to the very top, you will be punished!
As you would say: “It’s illogical”.

No where does it say they won't make money off ads. This is all about the backend ad exchange markets. Not the actual displaying of ads in search results.

 

[vantelimus]

I'm not a Google fan, but some of this is going too far. Yes, force Google to divest from the Ad business because they've got a monopoly and shown that they cannot be trusted to act fairly. However, an unfair monopoly on search? The dynamics of the search market calls that into question. The market is evolving away from traditional search and towards AI-based search, where Google is clearly not a monopoly.

 

[platinumaqua]

Good. Allowing Google to acquire DoubleClick was a mistake.

 

[rp2011]

It's kinda late for the DOJ to get their **** together, but better late than never. I mean, with their. monopoly, they were able to throw money around like it was nobody's business. Paying Apple BLLIONS a year for doing nothing, buying YouTube, Google Maps, building Android, on and on. They couldn't spend it fast enough.

Good for them to get away with it for as long as they did, but nothing lasts forever. For me, the worst of their sins was manipulating search results to better their bottom line. Making search results far worse as a result. That was their deadly sin. They got greedier.

 

[Cappy]

This will be surprising if this actually happens where they get broke up. During the MS mess once Bush got into office suddenly the talk of breaking up MS just fizzled.

I do find it interesting that it's not until now that they go after them and it's now when there might be the most competitive search engines...at least compared to years back.

 

[Analog Kid]

This is the problem with anti-trust in the tech world. This will go to appeal, and then another appeal, and eventually be as toothless as the Microsoft ruling. All the while, the "monopoly" is getting undermined by technology. AI is disrupting search, and while Google is trying hard to hold their position, competitors like OpenAI are more likely to break the Google monopoly in the next 5 years than the government is.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Microsoft were to be broken up into three different companies after Justice Jackson's thought to be landmark ruling. George W. Bush, signed an Executive Order charged them $250 million for their sins and they are still one company to this day.

Hell, I expect Trump to do the same an charge them $250k as a mockery to the Courts and as he sees it, "his Justice Department."

 

[cupcakes2000]

Good, I’m totally fine with this. Google acts like they can just do what they want and there’s zero consequences.

Sounds a lot like another well known tech company, currently also subject to government regulation.

 

[svish]

This will be a huge blow for Google. Waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks with all the different products/services from Google.