A landmark lawsuit by the US Justice Department against Alphabet’s Google over its dominance of advertising technology could help rivals and websites that sell ad space, but is uncertain for advertisers themselves, experts told JEE News. Leave the future.
A Justice Department complaint against Google on Tuesday called for the company to shut down Google Ad Manager, which includes tools that allow websites to offer ad space for sale and another that serves as an ad marketplace. works on that automatically matches advertisers with these publishers.
If the Justice Department’s case is successful, “advertisers and publishers could benefit more from growing players with more options — and more competition as a result,” said Neil Begley of Moody’s Investors Service.
Brian Mandelbaum, chief executive of ad tech company Aten, said Apple, which has been growing its nascent advertising business and promoting it as privacy-focused, could be a winner if Google ads become less effective.
Advertising industry executives say Google’s business of placing ads on websites it doesn’t own gives Google valuable information about ad effectiveness.
He said Apple has “the potential to become a new dominant force” in advertising because of the data Apple owns through phones, its Safari web browser and the distribution of apps through the App Store.
Google’s rivals in ad tech are increasingly developing products that serve both publishers, such as news websites, which sell ad space, and advertisers who buy ads, as Google currently does, said Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer at Café Media. does, offering both. Size publishers sell ad space.
Bannister said that if Google is forced to remove tools that serve publishers, it will benefit competitors like Xandr, which is owned by Microsoft, which still owns both of the ad-buying ecosystem. Will work with sides.
With more options beyond Google, publishers will have more transparency on how much they can sell ad space for, and pay less in fees, Mandelbaum said.
If successful, the lawsuit “could be the beginning of a serious change in the business model for Google,” said Paul Gallant, managing director of the Cowen Washington research group.
The disconnected assets could result in Google losing critical data that helps target ads to relevant users, he said.
If Google loses access to data signals, advertisers could see their Google ads become less effective, said Nikhil Lai, senior analyst at research firm Forrester.
At least twice before, the government has filed lawsuits against dominant companies with far-reaching consequences. A lawsuit to break up AT&T, filed in 1974, led to an agreement to break up the company in 1982. This breakup is credited with many innovations in telephony.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Microsoft, filed in 1998, reined in the company at a time when it was trying to extend its dominant operating system to an Internet browser. After the lawsuit was settled, the fight is credited with paving the way for other Internet innovators, such as Google itself.
