Day 5: Another Bad Day for Google as the Spirit of De Tocqueville Looms

Day Five of the Google ad tech remedy trial—the end of week one and almost the end of the Department of Justice presenting its side—saw two very solid witnesses cementing DOJ’s case. Or at least cementing one important part of its case: the feasibility of its structural remedies. Michael Racic, President of Prebid.org, which offers publishers an alternative to Google-run auctions, testified to Prebid’s readiness to take on administration of the Final Auction Logic (the code that makes the final determination on which ads get placed and where), should Judge Brinkema order it divested from Google. And Goranka Bjedov extended and strengthened the testimony we heard Thursday from Jon Weissman on the technical feasibility of all the proposed divestitures.

It was less a display of eye-catching, guns-blazing virtuosity than of unflappable, irresistible competence. And that can be surprisingly entertaining.

Michael Racic was first up, questioned by the Justice Department’s Julia Wood. Prebid has been mentioned a lot here, but I’ll recap, because it is a vital piece of the puzzle. Prebid was started ten years ago to implement an effective version of “header bidding” (which I described on day one of the trial). Header bidding is an attempt by all the rest of the advertising technology world to find a workaround for Google’s abusive monopoly, essentially setting up an auction to let multiple ad buyers bid for the same ad inventory. Friday, the court got a thorough introduction to this unique member of that ad tech world.

Prebid.org is a non-profit that administers a bunch of open-source software on behalf of internet advertisers. (Rather, it’s almost a non-profit. Racic says they’ve applied for non-profit status, but the government is being slow to understand how an organization serving for-profit advertisers could possibly be “non-profit.”) Prebid’s main software enables publishers to hold auctions of their advertising space, and those auctions must conform to a set of rules designed to ensure a fair process. In particular, the auctions are fully transparent, in opposition to Google’s opaque system. Racic called the Prebid software “pipes” through which auction communications flow. He said that pipes should not be making decisions, and that ad servers should not be calling auctions. Prebid itself is shielded and does not see or know auction results.

Prebid’s software is free, and no fees are charged in the auctions. One of the first things Judge