Google antitrust trial hears how employees wanted to crush competition and would rather cannibalize themselves than lose

A former executive at Google described wanting to crush competitors and one employee said it was better to cannibalize ourselves than let other technology companies win, a court heard.

The comments were revealed in an antitrust case in which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused Google of controlling digital advertising, including on news websites, through monopolistic behavior.

The case is being heard in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia by Judge Leonie Brinkema, without a jury.

In 2008 Google acquired a company called DoubleClick and launched an advertising technology tool called DFP, the court heard.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Google has been accused of holding a monopoly in the online advertising business and using anti-competitive strategies to depress news publishers

It is still used by most publishers today to sell advertising space on their websites.

Google also owns the main tool used by advertisers to buy that space, the court heard.

And it has the major exchange where instantaneous auctions are held to match publishers seeking advertisers. The exchange takes a 20 percent commission.

On the third day of the trial DOJ lawyers began to introduce evidence of how Google employees thought about the companys products at the time it is alleged they set out to dominate the advertising technology market.

The court was shown an email from 2009 which recorded the views of an executive from DoubleClick who had gone to work at Google.

It was a note of a presentation he had given to Google sales teams in London.

The note said: I really believe that if we execute on this stuff well be able to crush the other networks and this is our goal.

Google has created whats comparable to the NYSE or London Stock Exchange.

It also described how for publishers switching platforms (away from DFP) is a nightmare, it takes an act of God to do it.

The executive left Google about a year after the email, the court heard.

DFP went on to be used by almost all publishers as they needed it to tap into Googles massive pool of advertisers through its AdX exchange, the court heard.

However, around 2014 a new process called header bidding (HB) emerged, which allowed publishers to use advertising exchanges other than Googles.

In 2018 another Google employee wrote an email outlining how it was responding to the threat.

The problem is that HB exists. The origin of HB is that publishers felt locked in...and HB was born, the employee said.

It was a no brainer for publishers to adopt it (HB), the email added.

Outlining a series of methods being used to counter header bidding the email said one called Exchange Bidding stems the bleeding and I think its better to cannibalize ourselves than see others take share from us.

Another move was codenamed Project Poirot - after Agatha Christies fictional detective.

An internal Google document shown to the court featured an image of a mustache to denote it was part of Project Poirot.

It was also marked privileged and confidential and showed that AdX was doing better, while competing exchanges were faring worse as a result of the complicated strategy.

Google denies the allegations against it, saying it faces fierce competition from rival digital advertising companies.

Rejecting suggestions it monopolized display advertising on websites Google lawyers showed the court an internal chart from 2017 giving projections up to 2020.

The chart showed Googles display revenue flat, with Facebook growing, and Amazon a threat.

Later, the DOJ called Dr R. Ravi, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who said the tech giant engaged in conduct that advantaged Google and disadvantaged its rivals.

That included using advertising technology concepts known by names including First Look, Last Look, Sell-Side DRS and Uniform Pricing Rules (UPR).

Asked about Last Look he said: It didnt give publishers the highest revenue possible.

Google lawyers told the court all the techniques mentioned had ended by 2019 and the only one remaining was UPR.

They said it is not the only company to offer the products advertisers and publishers need, and that Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta have similar offerings.

If Judge Brinkema finds that Google broke the law she would consider DOJ requests to make it sell off parts of its business.