Google has asked the court to ditch the Department of Justice’s ad tech antitrust case before trial. Google filed a motion in a Virginia federal court asking for this to happen.
As a reminder, the DOJ sued Google back in January 2023. Google was accused of monopoloizing digital advertising technologies through “anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct”, reports Bloomberg.
Google is attempting to get the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust case thrown out before trial
This case is scheduled to go to trial in September this year. Google is trying to get it thrown out before that time comes. It remains to be seen if Google’s motion will do any good for the company.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, back when the lawsuit was announced, that Google “has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies”.
The lawsuit said that Google controls digital advertising tools to a great extent. It said that Google “pockets on average more than 30 percent of the advertising dollars that flow through its digital advertising technology products”.
Google argues that the DOJ didn’t show that Google controls at least 70% of the market
Why did Google file a motion to get the case thrown out? Does the company has an argument for it? Well, Google now argues that the DOJ hasn’t really shown that the company controls at least 70 percent of the market when the lawsuit was raised.
Why is that important? Well, 70% of the market was previously used as a threshold for qualifying as a monopoly. Google also said that the DOJ’s case goes “beyond the boundaries of antitrust law”.
It’s anyone’s guess if Google will manage to the case thrown out, but the chances are not high. The court date is already scheduled, and it’s a bit odd Google waited this long to do something like this. It remains to be seen.
