Google Offers Possible Compromise in Ad Tech Court Battle

Glenn Berntson, an engineering director for Google Ad Manager, testified in federal court in Virginia this week that the company is open to providing publishers with more detailed data. “Providing publishers with these detailed insights, I think, is a good idea,” Berntson said on Tuesday, per Bloomberg. He noted, however, that the exact form of data sharing would require further exploration.

The testimony comes as part of an ongoing federal antitrust trial. In April, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema found that Google had illegally monopolized both the ad server and ad exchange markets, where it controls more than 90% of market share. The Justice Department is now asking the court to consider remedies that could include forcing Google to divest parts of its ad tech business and requiring more transparency in ad auctions, Bloomberg reported.

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Government lawyers have proposed that Google publish the full auction logic it uses to determine winners. Berntson pushed back, warning that such a step could be unnecessarily complex and potentially disruptive to publishers. Instead, he suggested that technical documentation explaining the ad-serving process might be more useful than releasing raw source code. According to Bloomberg, Berntson acknowledged that larger publishers and competing ad servers might still want access to the underlying code itself.

The case highlights longstanding complaints from publishers who describe Google’s ad systems as opaque. At the trial last week, Grant Whitmore, an executive at Advance Local, said the process feels like a “black box,” comparing it to a pachinko machine in which it is unclear why ads end up where they do.

The Justice Department’s case, filed in 2023, seeks to reshape the rules governing how digital ads are bought and sold.

Source: Bloomberg