Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Online > Web Feature Series > Northeast

Title of entry: 
The Most Important Ad Tech Story Of The Decade – And We Had A Front-Row Seat

Issue or Publication date:
August 28, August 30, September 10, September 11, September 12, September 13, September 13, September 16, September 18, November 25

Publication name: 
AdExchanger

View Website home page:
https://adexchanger.com/

Links to entry URLs

Please note: These URLs are only required for entries in the Online division categories, or digital entries in appropriate Overall Excellence, Design or All Content division categories.

Entry URL(s), if applicable:
Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.adexchanger.com/platforms/thanks-to-the-doj-we-now-know-what-google-really-thought-about-header-bidding/
Additional URLs, if needed:
https://www.adexchanger.com/antitrust/google-is-fighting-to-keep-ad-tech-execs-off-the-stand-in-its-upcoming-antitrust-trial/
https://www.adexchanger.com/antitrust/your-day-one-recap-doj-vs-google-goes-deep-into-the-ad-tech-weeds/
https://www.adexchanger.com/antitrust/the-doj-vs-google-day-two-tales-from-the-underbelly-of-ad-tech/
https://www.adexchanger.com/antitrust/doj-vs-google-your-day-three-download-a-former-googler-on-the-stand-and-auction-dynamics-in-the-spotlight/
https://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/buried-doj-evidence-reveals-how-google-dealt-with-the-trade-desk/
https://www.adexchanger.com/antitrust/doj-vs-google-day-four-behind-the-scenes-on-the-fraught-rollout-of-unified-pricing-rules/
https://www.adexchanger.com/marketers/doj-vs-google-day-five-rewind-prebid-reality-check-unfair-rev-share-and-jedi-blue-sorta/
https://www.adexchanger.com/publishers/publishers-feel-seen-at-the-google-ad-tech-antitrust-trial/
https://www.adexchanger.com/platforms/what-judge-brinkema-zeroed-in-on-during-closing-arguments-in-us-v-google/

Entry Essay: 
In early 2023, the Department of Justice filed its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Google for allegedly monopolizing the online advertising industry for more than 15 years.

The trial took place in Alexandria, Virginia over three weeks in September, and to say that what played out in the courtroom was the most important ad tech story of the year would be an understatement. This is the most important ad tech story of the decade.

AdExchanger’s coverage plan was to engage in a full-court press to keep our readers informed but also entertained – and we were incredibly well-positioned to offer context on the trial. AdExchanger has been diligently covering every aspect of the programmatic advertising industry since 2008 when the site was founded. Back then, programmatic was a nascent space and it wasn’t clear who would dominate.

But that quickly changed when Google acquired an ad server company called DoubleClick. In the years that followed, ad exchanges and rival ad servers struggled to compete and publishers became increasingly and unwillingly reliant on Google’s ad tech.

Even before the trial began, in our inimitable style – a mix of analysis and humor – we dove head first into the trove of pretrial documents that were released in the lead-up to opening arguments.

We produced sharp analysis of the evidence – thousands of pages – and also attended the trial in person, taking physical notes for eight hours of testimony a day during the first full week of the three-week trial. There were no recording devices of any kind allowed in the courthouse.

This was old-school, boots-on-the-ground journalism.

But our daily missives from the courtroom did more than just summarize the day’s events. As one of our readers wrote to us during the trial, these pieces were “the next best thing to actually being there.”

We also discovered that government attorneys used AdExchanger’s past coverage as research to educate themselves about the programmatic advertising industry. That is how they learned. Many of our stories were cited in the footnotes of the DOJ’s complaint – and they were discussed during the live trial.

But we didn’t stop after the trial wrapped at the end of September. We continued to keep our readers informed of every development – and then we hopped back on the train to Virginia just days before Thanksgiving to cover closing arguments.

The concepts discussed during this trial were deeply technical: header bidding, auction dynamics and the intricacies of Google’s ad tech stack. But we already had the deep-seated expertise and background thanks to our many years writing about this industry with sharpness, clarity and wit.