• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, September 11, 2024

Google’s antitrust trial is drawing more coverage than many lurid murder cases. As well it should: at stake is Google’s very survival as an SSP and the probable impact on publishers.   

Many millions of dollars are on the line – and probably jobs, too – as the sometimes tedious proceeding continues in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

On Tuesday, as MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan reported, a former News Corp. vice president testified that the company would have lost at least $9 million in revenue in 2017 if it had switched advertising services. 

“I felt like they were holding us hostage,” said Stephanie Layser. 

That feeling is not uncommon among publishers who must still rely on the revenue from Google even as they resent it. Ken Blom, executive vice president of strategy and operations at BuzzFeed, said in a deposition that his  firm’s online sales via Google’s exchange are three to four times those from the next largest vendor, The Washington Post writes. 

Indeed, the winners (if Google loses and the DOJ prevails) are major news organizations like Gannett (which sued Google in 2023), News Corp., the Guardian and The Washington Post that pay Google a percentage for brokering their website ads, the Post reports.

What will happen if Google is defeated?

“A trial loss for Google means its SSP and publisher ad server would no longer live within the Alphabet family (Google’s parent company),” says Mo Allibhai, senior analyst at Forrester. “This introduces several new variables – primarily, who will purchase or finance the new entity (or entities)?” 

Allibhai adds,“Absent Alphabet’s financial largesse, Google’s SSP may be ‘too big to survive.’ Given current capital constraints and lending conditions, there is a possibility that no buyer will come forward. Google may be forced to consider the largest product sunset in the history of software – shuttering a product generating billions in revenue – or pawn the venture off to banks or private equity.”   

Advertisers are unlikely to be affected by such an outcome, although some unwanted attention may be focused on Google’s inner mechanisms and team deliberations.

Either way, publishers may find that “their relationship with Google and other big tech companies gets even more complex and fraught,” Allibhai  continues. “With Google search serving as their primary driver of traffic and Google’s SSP as a major revenue-sharing partner, publishers are taking a closer look at how age-old practices (like scraping website content to determine search relevance) might power cutting edge technologies like AI-generated summaries. Many publishers find that a more proactive and strategic approach to their Google partnerships yields more favorable results.”   

And if Google wins?  

“If Google wins, the status quo holds – at least until a judge decides the fate of its search monopoly sometime next year,” Allibhai  says. The DOJ could appeal a loss, but staff turnover at agencies and a new administration with different priorities may alter its momentum.   

However, the “trial itself will likely slow Google efforts to ‘streamline’ search and programmatic offerings, and change how the company approaches auction mechanics for buyers vs. sellers,” Allibhai states. “This could include Google giving more third-party, accredited vendors access to its proprietary signals and metrics, and/or more collaboration with vendors (e.g., DSPs, video sellers, etc.) that compete with Google’s non-SSP lines of business.”  

Get there early if you want a seat in the courtroom.