Google and DOJ’s ad tech fight is all about control

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Google and the US Justice Department each believe the other wants too much of one thing: control.

“Control is the defining characteristic of a monopolist,” DOJ counsel Julia Tarver Wood said during opening statements in the federal government's second antitrust trial against the search giant, which kicked off Monday in Alexandria, Virginia. To the government, Google exerts too much control over every step in the way publishers sell advertising space online and how advertisers buy it, resulting in a system that benefits Google at the expense of nearly everyone else.

“Control is the defining characteristic of a monopolist”

To Google, the government is seeking control over a successful business by making it deal with rivals on more...

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