Google’s tech empire worth $95B and ‘too big’ to sell, analysts warn DOJ

Just a few days into the Google ad tech antitrust trial, it seems clear that the heart of the US Justice Department’s case proves that Google Ad Manager is the key to the tech giant’s claims.

Google Ads Manager is a marketing technology platform that was developed after Google acquired DoubleClick and AdX in 2008 for $3 billion. It is currently used to link Google’s ad servers to its own ad servers, combining the two in a way that is said to lock out many advertisers from paying higher rates on the advertisers side because they can’t discount the exchange. of Google ads.

The DOJ has argued that Google’s Ads Manager “serves 90 percent of the publishers who use ad technology to sell their online ad inventory,” AdAge reported, and by doing so, Google is using the power of clearly controlling.

In her opening statement, DOJ attorney Julia Tarver Wood argued that the purchase helped Google manipulate ad auction rules to increase profits while making it harder for rivals to enter and compete in the so-called markets that Google controls. The DOJ argued that the defendants are in the market “for advertisers’ ad servers, ad networks, and ad exchanges that link the two,” Reuters reported.

Google has rejected this aspect of its ad technology regulation, calling the DOJ’s market definitions too weak. The technology company also pointed out that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated and approved the DoubleClick merger in 2007 without conditions, amid what the FTC described as “high-level negotiations of public interest in business competition, where many (sometimes contradictory. ) theories of competitive risk were developed.” At the time, the FTC concluded that the acquisition “was not likely to reduce competition in any significant antitrust market.”

But in its complaint, the DOJ argued that the DoubleClick “purchase elevated Google to a position of control over the tools that advertisers use to sell advertising opportunities, complementing Google’s existing tool for of advertisers, Google Ads, and laying the groundwork for Google’s recent behavior across the ad tech industry.”

To fix things, at least, the DOJ asked the court to order Google to abandon Google Ad Manager, which may or may not include important products such as Google’s Display and Video 360 (DV360) platform. There is also a possibility that the US district judge, Leonie Brinkema, may order Google to sell its advertising business in its entirety.

One problem with the proposed remedies, analysts told AdAge, is that no one knows how big Google’s ad technology business really is or the true value of Google Ad Manager.

Google Ad Manager can have a lower value if Google’s DV360 platform is not included in the sale or if selling the publisher or advertiser side reduces the data to allow Google to set the prices it wants. The CEO of ad platform Permutive, Joe Root, told AdAge that “it’s hard to say what the value of Google’s ad business is because it has this ad product and DV360, compared to what it’s worth.” from Google Ad. One manager.”

Root is skeptical that Google’s Marketing Director is “that important.” However, based on “documents recently released for the case,” some analysts predict that “any new entity from Google” will be “too big for the buyer any,” AdAge reported.

Another estimate from an ad tech consultant at strategic consulting firm Luma Partners, Terence Kawaja, suggested that Google’s technology business as a standalone company “could be worth $ 95 billion” today, AdAge reports.

Kawaja said: “You cannot divide 100 billion dollars. “There is no buyer for it. [Google] it would have to pass it on to shareholders, which is how any forced remedy would appear. ”