This antitrust trial could potentially be the biggest and precedent-setting that could be facing Google. Mountain View is going to defend its ad tech business against the U.S. Department of Judgement (DOJ).
One of Google’s first arguments is that a large number of government witnesses should be excluded from the trial. Google requested the court to toss out any testimony from people who aren’t economists or antitrust experts. Google reportedly claims that third-party competitor witnesses don’t have the proper foundation of knowledge or expert qualifications to know whether Google is a monopolist and if it harmed competition. The DOJ reportedly argued that the witnesses Google has objected to are Google competitors.
Leonie Brinkema is the judge who will be presiding over round two of the US v. Google LLC antitrust trial. She is tasked with making the decision whether to accept Google’s arguments and dismiss the aforementioned testimonies. Google reportedly said that the experience of third parties in the industry does not make them competent to testify to conclusions about monopolistic or anticompetitive practices.
Most of the testimonies talked about come from people who have been associated with the ad tech business. Google’s ad tech business called Google AdX, is one of the biggest in the world, and many third-party ad exchanges have to compete with Google.
The DOJ testified that AdX is the delivery point for the largest source of demand in the display business, and therefore ad exchanges couldn’t suggest to their clients to avoid Google AdX.
In my opinion, Google’s attempt to exclude testimonies from industry experts in its upcoming antitrust trial raises concerns about transparency. While it’s understandable that Google wants only qualified experts to testify, dismissing those with real-world experience in the ad tech industry could prevent valuable insights from being heard in court.
In my view, this move might make it harder for the court to fully understand the practical impact of Google’s ad tech practices on competition.
