U.S. pushing for Google to sell ad exchange

The Justice Department last week sought to persuade a federal judge in Virginia to force Alphabet Inc.’s Google to sell off part of the company and change the way it does business to improve competition for online display advertising.

- By LEAH NYLEN, SABRINA WILLMER AND JIMMY JENKINS

JUSTIN SULLIVAN Getty Images

GOOGLE'S ADX, which controls 56% of the market, connects buyers and sellers in rapid-fire auctions.

Google runs an ad-buying service for marketers and an ad-selling one for publishers, as well as a trading exchange where both sides complete transactions in lightning-fast auctions. Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled earlier this year that the search giant illegally monopolized two of those markets — the exchange and ad-selling technology, known as an ad server. She’s now considering how to remedy the illegal conduct in what’s expected to be a two-week hearing.

After questioning 12 witnesses, the Justice Department is poised to rest its case on Friday. Google is then expected to spend the next several days presenting witnesses who it says will show the Justice Department’s requests are “radical and reckless” and would break technology underlying billions of dollars in online ads.

Brinkema, an 81-year-old who joined the bench in 1993, has homed in on technical aspects of the Justice Department’s demands.

“Where your time should be spent is on the experts,” Brinkema told lawyers near the end of the second day, saying that much of what she had heard so far was “window dressing.” “I’mvery interested in seeing the evidence of what Google thinks is technically possible. That’s the heart of the evidence that I’m interested in hearing.”

The Justice Department’s biggest request — one that has garnered the most air time at the hearing —relates to its push to force Google to sell offits advertising exchange, AdX. The exchange, which controls about 56% of the market, helps connect buyers and sellers in rapid-fire auctions.