A timeline of how Google became an ad tech monopolist

“Google evolved from a garage-based startup to a multitrillion dollar company in little more than twenty years. Much of that growth was funded by digital advertising.”

That’s how Judge Leonie Brinkema introduced Google’s history in programmatic advertising, as part of a 115-page ruling last week that found the company to be a monopolist in two ad tech product markets.

Over 18 pages, the judge detailed Google’s acquisitions and policies that, in her view, allowed Google to obtain monopoly power in publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. Here’s a breakdown, from the launch of Search to Google’s battle against header bidding:

1998-2007: Search drives advertiser demand

After launching Search in 1998, Google introduced AdWords in 2000, a platform for buying search ads, and later AdSense, that allowed publishers to place ads on their web pages.

(Google was also found to have illegally maintained a monopoly over search in a separate antitrust ruling last August.)

“By 2007, Google’s advertiser-facing AdWords and publisher-facing AdSense, which together comprised the Google Content Network, constituted the largest digital ad network in the world,” Brinkema wrote.

2008: Google buys DoubleClick

This is where things start to get interesting.

In 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick “to prevent Microsoft from acquiring ‘the leading ad serving company’ and thus becoming ‘a major competitive threat’ to Google’s publisher-facing ad tech business,” Brinkema wrote, citing an internal Google email.

At the time, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) had a 60% share of the publisher ad server market and counted nine of the top 10 U.S. websites among its customers.

“By acquiring DFP, Google was able to keep the sell-side control that DFP offered out of the hands of Microsoft, Yahoo, and other digital advertising rivals,” the judge wrote.

2009-2014: Google ties together AdWords, DFP and AdX

The DoubleClick acquisition also gave Google an ad exchange, AdX.

According to the ruling, Google implemented two policies encouraging advertisers and publishers to use AdX. First, it required publishers to use DFP as their ad server if they wanted access to real-time bidding through AdX.

“Although publishers could offer their impressions on non-Google ad exchanges, large publishers were greatly attracted to the unique advertising demand offered by AdWords, and as a result viewed using DFP as essential because it was the only publisher ad server that could effectively access AdX and, consequently, AdWords demand,” Brinkema wrote.

Further, Google implemented a “First Look” policy, giving AdX the chance to buy an impression before rival exchanges could bid.

2011: Google buys Admeld

In 2011, Google bought Admeld, a yield management platform that helped publishers decide which ad networks to transact with. In doing so, the company eliminated a potential threat to its First Look advantage.

Google essentially stripped Admeld for parts, incorporating some of its features into AdX and DFP and shutting down the rest.

2014-2018: Google vs. header bidding

“By early 2014, AdX had emerged as the world’s leading ad exchange and was winning 53% of publisher inventory that DFP made available for auction,” Brinkema wrote.

Competitors responded by creating header bidding, which allowed publishers using DFP to entertain real-time bids from multiple ad exchanges. Google saw header bidding as a threat to the revenue generated by its First Look function.

Instead of participating in header bidding, Google introduced policies and functionalities that reinforced AdX’s advantage. They included, in part:

Last Look, which allowed AdX to respond to the highest bid from rival ad exchanges
Open Bidding (2018), a tool that “mimicked” the functionality of header bidding, but occurred within DFP

Notably, the court found that “Open Bidding was not a substitute for header bidding because it discriminated against non-AdX exchanges …”

2019: Google introduces unified pricing rules

Brinkema stated that by 2019, “Google was facing pressure from publishers to improve the transparency and fairness of its advertising auction processes” and that there was a belief within the company that that “its size in the ad tech space and the policies it had implemented to benefit its products across the ad tech stack posed regulatory” concerns.

In response, Google got rid of Last Look but simultaneously introduced unified pricing rules, according to the timeline. Unified pricing rules prohibited DFP publishers from setting higher price floors for Google’s AdX and AdWords than for rival exchanges.

“Despite its name, Unified Pricing Rules did not require a level playing field between exchanges, as it permitted publishers to set higher price floors on third-party exchanges than on AdX,” Brinkema wrote.

It left some large publishers “disgruntled” as they had little choice but to keep using DFP because it was so closely intertwined with AdX and AdWords.

“The overall result of Unified Pricing Rules was that Google’s ad tech products continued to gain scale in the display advertising space while rival ad tech products lost scale,” the ruling said.

2025: Google is ruled to be an ad tech monopolist

You can read all of our coverage so far on the judgment below:

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc. An individual from The Trade Desk was among the people included on the trial witness list.