A US Justice Department lawyer questioned a Google executive on Wednesday about the methods the search and advertising giant uses to unfairly raise prices for online advertising.
Testifying in the first antitrust trial of its kind in Washington, where the United States accuses Google of abusing its dominant position in search and advertising, Adam Judah, Google’s vice president of product management, said the company uses a formula, including ad quality, to determine the winner of auctions. Used to place advertisements on websites.
Adam Judah’s testimony began Tuesday and continued Wednesday.
The Justice Department accuses Google of manipulating online auctions — a multibillion-dollar business that Google dominates — by using these formulas to benefit its own results.
David Dahlquist, a Justice Department lawyer, asked Mr. Judah whether he agreed with a document prepared by Google for the European Union that said the company could “directly influence prices by biasing adjustments to our auction mechanisms.” Mr. Judah replied in the negative.
Asked whether the “adjustments” could affect prices, Mr Gowda said: “They can.”
The rough formula that gives an ad long-term value, or LTV, depends on the exact bid, the potential click-through rate, or the number of people likely to click on the ad, as well as the quality of the ad, Gowda said. The ad and the associated website can be “edited”.
Google’s advertising business has been criticized by advertisers and website publishers for its lack of transparency, with both accusing Google of siphoning off too much revenue.
The advertising-related certification is a change from the previous certification, which focused on the billions of dollars Google spent to keep its search engine the default on smartphones and other devices.
