The Squiz 

Today, a historic trial between the US Justice Department and tech giant Google kicks off as the Biden administration continues to take the company to task over alleged antitrust violations. In simple terms, in this case, the US government claims Google uses anti-competitive tactics in the digital advertising part of its business, which has significantly harmed news publishers. The US Government goes in with some momentum – last month, it won a major lawsuit when a judge agreed that Google had spent billions to create an “illegal monopoly” to make it the world’s default search engine.

Back it up a bit…?

Put simply, Google is the world’s biggest digital advertising platform, making $460 billion in ad revenue last year. US regulators reckon that’s down to the company tying together its tools for publishers and advertisers, giving it a “privileged position as the middleman”. And they’ve alleged Google has control over the digital ad market because it actively shuts out competition. Another aspect of the case is how that affects news organisations as traditional news outlets (especially newspapers…) and digital publishers continue to shut up shop because they can’t compete for ad dollars. As a result, Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter says “journalism is under threat”. Google rejects the allegations and says it doesn’t have to give its rivals technological advantages.

What could happen?

The case in Virginia will run for several weeks with dozens of potential witnesses including current/former Google employees, big publishers like News Corp, and antitrust experts. The verdict will be decided by a federal judge, and reports say the outcome will have a global impact. It’s been a hot topic for our consumer watchdog for several years, and in the UK, regulators say Google’s practices are “harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers”. If the US government wins, Google could be forced to break up its adtech business which experts say would shake up the entire ad industry, boost competition and alter the future of big tech’s role in media/journalism. But Google will do everything it can to stop that, claiming it would “slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder” for small companies to grow. We’ll just have to watch this digital space…