While much of the focus on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust actions against Google is on the company’s dominance in search advertising, the DOJ in March will bring another antitrust case against Google—this time scrutinizing its role in the advertising technology market. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Jeffrey Westling breaks down each party’s major claims and provides insights into the relative merits of their arguments.

Key points:

• To win at trial, the DOJ will need to show that Google has both monopoly power in a relevant ad tech market and used anticompetitive conduct to either gain or maintain that monopoly power.
• Google’s widespread integration of different ad tech tools into its offerings and vigorous competition will not give rise to antitrust liability in isolation if Google can show that the conduct was pro-competitive or that it lacked the ability to extract monopoly rents.
• As Congress considers future antitrust legislation targeting large technology firms, it should carefully consider how the courts interpret and apply current law in this case.

Read the analysis