A former Google advertising executive, Eisar Lipkovitz, testified in the US antitrust case against Google, providing insight into the company’s internal politics and potential monopoly on digital ads.
Lipkovitz, a former vice president of engineering at Google, shared his experiences with the Department of Justice, alleging that Google’s ad business is a monopoly. He described the ad-serving team as “lazy and slow” and noted how the entire ads operation could be resistant to innovation.
In his testimony, Lipkovitz discussed internal discussions about lowering Google’s take rate (the percentage of money collected from advertisers) but noted that talks never resulted in any changes. He also expressed frustration with the lack of authority to make decisions, stating that “no one has authority to make decisions” and that he often lost battles.
Lipkovitz also highlighted a conflict of interest between representing both advertisers and publishers at Google, which he claimed led to self-interested arguments.
The Department of Justice is trying to prove that Google’s ad business is a monopoly with tools that control how both advertisers and publishers buy and sell digital ads. Lipkovitz’s testimony focused on AdX, Google’s publisher-focused tool that allows publishers to sell their ads to multiple advertisers at once. He claimed that AdX having exclusive access to Google Ads inventory is a key piece of the DOJ’s case against Google.
The DOJ also alleges that Google has an unfair advantage in ads and has high take rates compared to its competitors. Lipkovitz stated that Google did not lower prices despite header bidding increasing competition in the market, maintaining a 20% take rate.
Source: https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/a-former-google-executive-conflict-google-antitrust-testimony/