Google Seeks to Dismiss Digital Ad Case For Failure to Allege Relevant Markets

Just under two weeks after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema for Eastern Virginia in Alexandria denied Google’s motion to transfer to the Southern District of New York the digital advertising antitrust case brought against the company by DOJ and eight states (see 2303150002), Google moved Monday to dismiss the complaint for failure to allege “plausible relevant markets.” Success in the digital advertising marketplace “depends on placing advertisements on the most relevant publisher webpages or mobile applications in ways that most appeal to viewers,” said Google’s memorandum of law (docket 1:23-cv-00108) in support of its motion to dismiss. Yet the plaintiffs “characterize Google's every business decision over the past 15 years as evidence of a long-term scheme to amass power and choke out competition, ignoring the competitive pressures and customer interests driving Google in a dynamic and multi-sided digital marketplace,” it said. In the more than three years DOJ has been investigating Google's ad tech business, the government has received more than 2 million documents from Google and taken more than 30 depositions from Google witnesses, it said. DOJ also obtained documents and deposition testimony from numerous third parties, it said. But the plaintiffs “remain unable to find support for their claimed antitrust harms,” it said. They instead repeat “conclusory” statements to “concoct exceedingly narrow relevant markets” as a basis for their claims of monopolization of the markets for publisher ad servers, ad exchanges, advertiser ad networks and tying of Google's ad server and ad exchange, it said.