The Lessons of Google’s Ad Tech Business

Every day this week, we and other close watchers of Google have been holding our breath, waiting for Judge Amit Mehta of the federal court in Washington to issue a ruling on how Google’s illegal search monopoly should be remedied. Options include a forced divestiture of its Chrome browser (where many Google searches originate), ending Google’s right to be the exclusive search engine on Apple’s Safari browser, or forcing Google to share its search data with rivals. (For more, see here).

Judge Mehta’s ruling will be a big deal—it was expected by the end of August, so maybe we’ll see it on Friday—as whatever he decides will add to existing pressure on Google’s giant search business coming from artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT. But that case is, confusingly, not the only antitrust case the company is grappling with. The other one concerns its ad tech business—the far less sexy unit that brokers the sale of ads on independent websites.