The clock is ticking on Google’s ad machine

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Google had its final “please don’t break us up” moment in court this week, standing before Judge Leonie Brinkema like a tech giant waiting to hear whether it’s getting grounded or just told to clean its room.

In a key hearing on Friday, the US DOJ and Google made their closing arguments on whether the company’s ad tech empire should be dismantled after Brinkema previously ruled that Google illegally monopolized two ad tech markets and tied its tools together in ways that locked out competition. 

Google stacked the deck, sold the cards, and also owned the casino.

Now comes the hard part: deciding the punishment.

The DOJ wants Google to sell off AdX, its massive ad exchange that sits right in the middle of the internet’s ad money pipeline. (Via: Reuters)

They’re also leaving the door open for forcing Google to sell its publisher ad server, another key piece of infrastructure that helps websites make money. 

Google, unsurprisingly, says a breakup is “totally unnecessary drama” and argues that some new rules and better behavior should be enough to fix things.

Judge Brinkema, playing tech referee, made it clear she’s not blind to reality: whatever she orders, Google will almost certainly appeal. 

And if she forces a breakup, enforcement could get stuck in legal limbo while appeals drag on, possibly for years. 

On the other hand, she pointed out that behavioral changes (think: new rules for how Google can operate) could roll out much faster.

She also acknowledged that “time is of the essence,” which, for the government, is kind of the whole point.

After all, Big Tech moves fast. And legal cases… do not.

That timing problem recently came back to haunt the government in its case against Meta. The case was filed in 2020, when TikTok was more of a dancing app than a global content superpower. 

By the time the trial rolled around, TikTok had eaten a massive chunk of Meta’s lunch, making the government’s “Meta is crushing all competition” argument a little harder to sell.

Clearly, the DOJ learned its lesson, which is why it filed this Google case in the Eastern District of Virginia, aka the legendary “Rocket Docket,” where cases move faster than a new iPhone charging cable gets lost.

Brinkema’s ruling isn’t expected until next year, but make no mistake: this isn’t just about Google. 

It’s about whether US regulators still have the horsepower to rein in Big Tech before the market changes again, meaningfully, and the platforms evolve, so today’s monopoly turns into tomorrow’s pivot.

For now, the courtroom drama is on pause. But somewhere in Mountain View, someone is probably refreshing their browser very, very anxiously.