The DOJ wants to break up Google’s ad tech business
The Trade Desk
We’re committed to making digital advertising better, because the future of the open internet depends on it.
Welcome to the latest edition of The Current, I’m Travis Clark. This week, the Justice Department proposed remedies in the Google ad tech monopoly case, including selling AdX and DFP; Google was not a fan and called the idea “legally unavailable.” We have all the details on the two sides’ proposals. Plus: VaynerMedia’s Jordan Bilfeld predicts a “whole new era of TV” for live sports.
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Top stories you need to know:
1. Google and DOJ pitch their remedies in the ad tech monopoly case
The Justice Department is asking for a sale of Google’s AdX and a “phased” sale of DFP, which Google argues would disproportionately impact small businesses.
2. ‘A perfect storm’: Can networks help advertisers weather uncertainty?
Experts predict a softer upfront next week amid hesitancy to commit long-term investments — but CTV and live sports will remain resilient.
3. The top 4 things advertisers need to know about the Google search remedies hearing
In other monopoly remedy news, the DOJ also wants Google to sell Chrome — and Yahoo and OpenAI would be among the interested buyers.
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Inside track:
The secret to VaynerMedia’s upfront strategy this year
Jordan Bilfeld, director of video activation at VaynerMedia, says that digital channels are playing as big a role as TV during this upfronts season, as people “bundle different channels together.”
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Hot takes:
‘Let the data do the work’: 6 zinger quotes from Miami’s Possible
“CPM as a metric for success in CTV is a flawed metric and it’s also a dangerous metric. The reason it’s scary is [you question] ‘what is TV?’ And that’s where it’s changed. We don’t consider YouTube as CTV. We consider TV as TV content. We don’t consider UGC [user-generated content] or short clips as connected TV. There’s definitely a gray area. You get cheaper inventory appearing that [looks like] it’s the same quality, but it’s not.”
— Dan Larkman, CEO and founder, Keynes Digital
To beat threats from Big Tech, publishers need to act like retailers
“Retailers say that they are ‘customer-obsessed’ all the time. Publishers don’t. It’s not that they don’t care about their audiences, they do very much, but they haven’t invested in audience insights, personalization and stickiness as much as retailers have.”
— John Durkee, COO, TrueData
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