Former Google exec expressed concerns about tech giant's ad market domination

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN)  — A former Google executive testified Thursday that he was merely speculating when he wrote a memo expressing apparent misgivings about the tech giant’s domination of the online ad industry.

The remarks came as the Justice Department pursues an antitrust case against Google, arguing the Silicon Valley firm monopolized control of web tools that link publishers and advertisers.

During testimony in federal court in Virginia, former Google ad manager Jonathan Bellack was reminded of a remark he made in one of his emails regarding the company’s grip over the ad industry.

“Is there a deeper issue with us owning the platform, the exchange, and a huge network?” Bellack wrote in his memo. “The analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.”

Bellack’s quote appears in the Justice Department’s 150-page complaint against Google, filed last April. But on the stand Thursday, Bellack argued his comments had been misconstrued by prosecutors.

“I was speculating,” Bellack said when asked about his musings. He explained that he was only trying to understand publishers’ dissatisfaction with the company.

Thursday marked the ninth day of a bench trial against Google. Accusing the company of unfair market dominance, federal prosecutors say that out of every dollar spent on digital advertising, the tech giant kept about 35 cents.

Google reported $300 billion in revenue in 2023 — but the fortunes of the wildly successful tech company could hinge on the results of this trial. Justice Department attorneys have asked the court to order the divestiture of Google’s Ad Manager suite — including both Google’s publisher ad server and Google’s ad exchange — and to enjoin the firm from continuing to engage in what it calls anticompetitive practices.

“Google now controls the technology used by nearly every major website publisher to offer advertising space for sale,” the government’s lawsuit contends. That includes both “the leading tools used by advertisers to buy that advertising space” and “the largest ad exchange that matches publishers with advertisers each time that ad space is sold.”

This antitrust case only adds to Google’s legal woes. In a separate case out of D.C., a federal judge ruled in August that Google had operated an illegal monopoly over internet search.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Bill Clinton appointee, is presiding over the current trial. Witnesses have included tech executives, publishers and economists.

During testimony throughout the week, various Google executives have sparred with government attorneys about company memos and emails — sometimes apparently contradicting internal documents while on the stand.

Aaron Teitelbaum, senior litigation counsel for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, has accused company executives of including attorney-client privilege notices on communications even when there was no indication a lawyer was needed or even involved. Asked about one such designation in one of his memos, Bellack said he wanted a legal point of view and that one of the recipients listed was an attorney.

Earlier this week, Rosa Abrantes-Metz, an economist with the consulting firm Berkeley Research Group who was called to give expert testimony, argued the company’s actions — including imposing restrictions on publisher clients — had negatively impacted the ad industry.

Publishers were unhappy with such restrictions, Abrantes-Metz told the court. But “they had no place to go.”

Other witnesses have included Matthew Wheatland, chief digital officer at the DailyMail.com.

Wheatland testified his company investigated the possibility of using another ad server, ultimately determining it wasn’t doable. Google’s ad server is used by 90 percent of publishers, he said — and if they’d pulled out, DailyMail.com revenue would have been put at risk.