Google dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling ‘stuck’

Google dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling ‘stuck’

Photo collage of a gavel smashing an ad.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Google’s tool that lets publishers sell ad space on their websites is ubiquitous, but that’s largely a testament to how hard it is for customers to get out of it, one former publishing executive testified in federal court on Tuesday.

“I felt like they were holding us hostage,” said Stephanie Layser, a former programmatic advertising executive at News Corp (which owns brands like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post) who now works at AWS. Layser was testifying as a government witness in the Justice Department’s second antitrust case against Google, which is accusing the company of monopolizing the markets for ad tech tools and illegally tying together two of its products.

Layser was one of three witnesses the court heard from on...

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Summary

In a recent antitrust trial against Google, former News Corp advertising executive Stephanie Layser testified about the company's dominance in online advertising tools. She described the situation as feeling "held hostage," highlighting the difficulties publishers face in moving away from Google's services. Layser's testimony is part of the U.S. Justice Department's case, which accuses Google of monopolizing the ad tech market and improperly bundling its products. The trial underscores the challenges that publishers encounter due to Google's pervasive influence in the digital advertising landscape.

This article was summarized using ChatGPT

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