It's Groundhog Day for a Google Breakup

The remedy phase of Google’s Ad Tech monopoly trial begins today. Google was found liable last April for illegally monopolizing two markets related to open web digital advertising technology. The trial starting today before Judge Leonie Brinkema in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia will decide what remedies the court will impose to try to repair the market from Google’s damage.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Jerry Cayford, and I am a philosopher who has some training in economics and a strong amateur enthusiasm for the law. It may seem odd for Big Tech on Trial to assign a philosopher to cover an antitrust trial. But I believe (with no bias at all) that this is entirely sensible. The Google Ad Tech remedy trial is a very big deal, and philosophy is, after all, the discipline that tries to give us the big picture. There is a bit of philosopher in all of us, a drive when we see important things happening to get a handle on what they mean overall, and where they’re taking us. I’m going to try to help you do that for the two or three weeks that this remedy trial will last. As usual with BTOT, I’ll also be providing color to the daily details, and as always, this is a two-way platform, so subscribe and leave comments below.

How We Got Here: The “Rocket Docket” In Action

It’s been a while since we’ve reported on the Google Ad Tech trial. In the intervening year, BTOT has covered a whole separate trial, the Federal Trade Commission’s monopolization case against Meta (Facebook/Instagram). And starting this month, a separate federal court under the tutelage of Judge Amit Mehta delivered a remedy in the Google Search monopoly case that has attracted round and swift rebuke, including by this publication (“A Judge Let’s Google Get Away With Monopoly.”)

So you can be forgiven for forgetting the details of this case, which the Department of Justice and eight states first filed against Google in January 2023 for illegally monopolizing various digital advertising markets. (Nine more states would eventually join the suit, bringing the total number of Plaintiff states to a bipartisan group of 17.) Meanwhile, the State of Texas filed its own litigation back in December 2020. To give you a sense of why they call the Eastern District of