AI v. Judge — Episode 4: United States v. Google (Ad Tech)

Economic concept: Tying and Foreclosure — The Ad Server Bottleneck

Key Takeaways

• The DOJ challenged Google’s conduct in open-web display advertising, arguing that Google used its dominant publisher ad server (used by more than 90% of major publishers) to tie its ad server to its own ad exchange (AdX) and foreclose rival ad tech platforms through self-preferencing rules, data advantages, and feature restrictions.

• The DOJ’…