Google’s antitrust woes hold mounting. This time it’s with OpenX, an unbiased supply-side centered outfit that has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit towards the internet marketing big, accusing it of orchestrating a decade-long marketing campaign to monopolize the digital promoting trade.
The lawsuit towards Google was filed earlier this week within the U.S. District Court docket for the Jap District of Virginia – the identical district as the continuing advert tech antitrust case the place Justice Brinkema dominated in favor of the Justice Division in two of the three fees it first introduced towards Google in 2024.
The grievance alleges that Google, by way of a sequence of acquisitions, specifically DoubleClick, and self-preferencing practices, established dominant positions throughout the advert tech stack — controlling the instruments advertisers use to purchase advertisements, the advert alternate that brokers them and the advert server publishers use to promote them.
OpenX claims that this integration enabled Google to limit competitors by tying entry to its advertiser demand by way of Google Adverts completely to its alternate, AdX, after which requiring publishers to make use of its advert server, DoubleClick for Publishers, to entry that alternate. The lawsuit additional alleges that Google manipulated auctions in favor of its personal platforms, undermining rival exchanges, equivalent to OpenX, and responded to initiatives from the unbiased sector, equivalent to header bidding, by deploying inner countermeasures, i.e., Mission Poirot.
Subsequently, OpenX is now searching for damages (the greenback determine was not detailed within the authorized submitting) and injunctive reduction, asserting that Google instantly harmed its enterprise and distorted truthful competitors with federal antitrust legislation violations.
Digiday spoke with OpenX CEO John Gentry to gauge the rationale behind the case.
The dialog beneath has been flippantly edited for brevity and readability.
How lengthy has OpenX been getting ready the newest antitrust case, and was there any particular catalyst for submitting the antitrust claims towards Google?
It’s been occurring for months, largely prompted by what we have been monitoring with the DOJ, and we got here to the conclusion that we wish to transfer ahead.
It was not solely tied to the [April 2025] responsible verdict towards Google, however that clearly contributed to the choice; there was much more behind it. Our objective is twofold: one is to recuperate the damages for the hurt that was carried out to the corporate over time, and two, we’d actually wish to see a judgment that results in truthful competitors within the market, which implies that Google shouldn’t be doing these items going ahead.
What elements of Google’s conduct have precipitated essentially the most direct monetary hurt to OpenX, and may you quantify that?
That’s not one thing I can quantify, however I can inform you there are many elements.
For instance, within the advert server case, Google set it up of their favor, requiring publishers to make use of DFP to get entry to AdX, and that clearly has [Google-owned demands-die platform] DV 360, and extra importantly, it has the AdWords demand from thousands and thousands of advertisers. In consequence, it was just about inconceivable [for OpenX] to compete on the advert server entrance.
Additionally they rigged programmatic auctions… they actually arrange the public sale in a manner that, as a result of that they had management of the advert server, they may take a look at the bids from OpenX, after which modify their very own bids, after what that they had seen within the public sale. That’s terribly tough for us to compete with, and has the impact of taking so many transactions away from different SSPs, as a result of they’ve the power to resolve how the public sale ought to shut.
Additionally, what they did by way of publishers’ public sale ground costs. Many had a way the place they put out the next floor-price for AdX than they might for different SSPs. This allowed publishers to get their cash from a extra broadly distributed market, and to not be so depending on AdX. However what Google did was to mandate that publishers couldn’t set totally different flooring for various SSPs, you’d have one ground throughout all of them. That’s one thing that actually restricted aggressive SSPs like OpenX from having the ability to win impressions.
Turning to the advert tech antitrust case, which is about to recommence in mid-September, if Google has to endure a structural treatment, such because the pressured divestiture of AdX or DFP, what may this unlock for the remainder of the market?
All of it will depend on the way it happens, and the phrases… there’s so much you are able to do to nullify the consequences of what appears like a change within the market. In order that’s very onerous to foretell, however the hope could be that for those who break up Google and its management of {the marketplace}, it could allow all of us to compete pretty.
In your accompanying weblog put up, you made reference to OpenX’s relationship with Google. How is that more likely to proceed going ahead, with this ongoing case?
It is a very considerate course of; we wished to be very thorough, so we didn’t discuss to {the marketplace} about it.
We nonetheless have a really important relationship with Google, whether or not it’s with DV 360, that’s a very necessary one for us, or whether or not it’s with GAM [Google Ad Manager], we even have GCP [Google Cloud Platform], these relationships are worthwhile to us and we consider that these relationships are very worthwhile to them, these relationships ought to proceed as enterprise as common.
Editor’s notice: A Google spokesperson was unable to supply touch upon document by deadline, though Google’s protection group has earlier outlined its rebuttals of comparable fees made by the DOJ. The timeline for any potential developments is unclear. Nevertheless, the Jap District of Virginia has a status for dealing with such circumstances rapidly, with commentators typically utilizing the time period “rocket docket” when discussing to circumstances on this jurisdiction.
