“Oyez” means “hear ye” in French. Town criers and court officers traditionally use it to call for silence before a judge enters the courtroom and proceedings officially begin.
In the courtroom of Leonie Brinkema, the judge presiding over DOJ v. Google, the clerk uses this invocation to mark the start of each session.
And a new session starts soon.
The next step
In April, Judge Brinkema found Google guilty of operating illegal monopolies over two online advertising markets: the publisher ad server market and the ad exchange market.
The remedy phase of the trial will begin on Sept. 22 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. AdExchanger Senior Editor James Hercher will be traveling to Alexandria to cover the first week of the trial in person. Stay tuned for his stories.
In the meantime, just last week, the DOJ and Google filed their respective witness lists and the exhibit lists itemizing the evidence that lawyers for each side intend to present in court.
The DOJ is seeking punishments that run the gamut from a forced divestiture of Google’s ad tech assets to putting a ban on Google self-preferencing its own ad tech and services. The judge will evaluate the DOJ’s proposals through witness testimony and presentations of evidence. Google lawyers will, of course, present their counterarguments.
While Google intends to appeal the verdict, it can’t until the remedies portion of the trial is concluded.
Someone at Google loves Agatha Christie
Who’s on the list to testify in September? Read on to meet the full cast of characters.
Before you do, though, take a moment to click on Google’s exhibit list and do a search for “AdExchanger.” We’re famous (depending on your definition of famous).
While you’re at it, also do a search for the word “project,” including on the DOJ’s exhibit list – because there are just so, so many Google projects. For example, have you heard of:
- Project Grumpy: Apparently something to do with “next generation display ads serving.”
- Project Green: Evidently related to the “legacy design” for “Gaia Personalization in O&O Display Ads.” Gaia is the ID management system for all Google products.
- Project AURAS: This has to do with “a unified reservation/auction stack” and “global ad selection.”
- Project 17: The only available information about this one is that it’s to do with Admeld and PubMatic in some way.
- And you’ve no doubt heard of Project Poirot, but guess what? There was also a Project Marple: No other info is available on that one yet.
Well, Miss Marple won’t be in attendance next month, but these folks will be.
The DOJ’s witness list
Former Google employees
Goranka Bjedov (appearing live), senior performance test engineer, Google (2005-2010)
Current Google employees
Heather Adkins (via deposition), VP of security engineering, Google
- Here’s a fantastic excerpt from Adkins’ LinkedIn: “It’ll be fine. I’ve seen it all. Trust me.”
Glenn Berntson (via deposition), director (2012-present); technical lead and manager (2012-2020), Google
Per Bjorke (via deposition), director of product management (2022-present); group product manager, ad traffic quality (2021-present); product management (2013-2021), Google
Tim Craycroft (appearing live), VP & GM, Google Advertising
- Craycroft was on the DOJ’s witness list for the original trial.
In 2021, he replaced long-time Google exec Sissie Hsiao, who now serves as VP and GM of the Gemini app and speech. He previously reported to Jerry Dischler, Google’s former VP and GM of ads. Dischler left Google in May after nearly 20 years with the company.
Sam Greenfield (via deposition), senior staff software engineer (2024-present), Google
- Greenfield has been with Google since 2008 in a variety of software engineering and technical roles.
These days, he’s primarily focused on Looker Studio, which is the rebranded version of Google Data Studio, a free web-based data visualization and reporting tool developed by Google.
Nirmal Jayaram (via deposition), senior director of engineering, Google
- Jayaram, who also testified during the trial last September, has been with Google since 2012 with a focus on ad products across apps, video, display and YouTube.
Nitish Korula (via deposition), senior director, engineering, Home Intelligence, Google
- Korula, who was also listed as a witness during the first phase of the trial, was previously engineering director for Google Assistant and a senior technical advisor to Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, who took over as head of ads and commerce when Sridhar Ramaswamy left Google in 2018.
George Levitte (via deposition), director of product management, Google (with a focus on Google Ad Manager)
Bryan Rubin (via deposition), corporate development, Google
Scott Sheffer (via deposition), VP of partnerships, Google
- Remember the term “spaghetti football”? It became shorthand among Google critics during the trial for the tangled and opaque complexity of Google’s digital supply chain. Well, Sheffer inadvertently coined the term.
While he was on the stand, he was presented with an interactive visual representation of the flow of data and money through Google’s ecosystem. As he described each step, Karen Dunn, Google’s lead attorney, drew a digital line to connect the different pieces. Eventually, the court was left with a chaotic web of intertwined connections that exposed just how deeply Google’s control permeates the ad tech system.
Sheffer described the completed image as a “spaghetti football” that portrayed a “fluid industry.”
Noam Wolf (via deposition), senior director of engineering, Google
- Wolf was also a lead engineer at DoubleClick before the acquisition in 2008 and a staff software engineer at Google in charge of AdX’s frontend after that.
Publishers
Stephanie Layser (appearing live), global head, publisher ad tech solutions, AWS
- Layser was VP of data, identity, ad tech products and platforms at News Corp for more than five years before joining Amazon. She took the stand on Day Two of the original trial – and it was a doozy.
Her testimony in a nutshell: “It’s impossible to negotiate with Google.”
Jason Taylor (via deposition), CRO, Gannett Media
- Gannett, which includes the USA Today Network, is the largest media company in the US based on print circulation and digital audience.
In 2023, Gannett filed a federal lawsuit against Google – separate from the DOJ case – in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing the company of monopolizing the ad tech market and engaging in deceptive business practices.
Matthew Wheatland (appearing live), chief digital officer, DailyMail.com
- Wheatland also testified last September and was the DOJ’s only rebuttal witness, called specifically to challenge the testimony of Mark Israel, Google’s expert economist witness.
He made a lot of sharp points, but one of the most interesting is that the Daily Mail ran an assessment in 2019 to see whether it would be possible to switch away from Google and use a different ad server. But it was a nonstarter. According to the Daily Mail’s estimates, moving away from GAM would have resulted in a monthly revenue loss of approximately $350,000.
Grant Whitmore (appearing live), VP, ad tech and programmatic revenue, Advance Local
- Whitmore is a publisher monetization expert who’s logged a lot of time in the programmatic trenches. Before joining local news site operator Advance Local, he spent time at Hearst Magazines, New York Daily News and Tribune Publishing Company, to name a few.
SSPs, exchanges & pub tech
James Avery (appearing live), founder & CEO, Kevel
- Kevel (previously Adzerk) is an API-based platform for building ad tech infrastructure. When Avery testified on day one of the trial, he recounted how Kevel had tried and failed to compete with Google in the ad server market.
According to Avery, he lost numerous clients to DFP, because Kevel was unable to access AdX demand.
Andrew Casale (appearing live), president & CEO, Index Exchange
- Casale was a key witness during the initial trial. He had a lot to say, including that Index fields around 250 billion daily auction requests for open web display – but only wins the opportunity roughly 0.5% of the time, underscoring Google’s dominance in the ad server market.
He also shared that Index runs regular experiments to try and lower its take rate. At one point, it reduced its fees to zero, expecting a big uptick in its win rate, but the increase was barely noticeable. In other words, Google’s control over the ad tech ecosystem is due to factors beyond pricing.
Arnaud Créput (via deposition), CEO, Equativ (formerly Smart AdServer)
- In Créput’s deposition, which was also part of the first phase of the trial, he notes that his company lost as much as 95% of its customers to DFP. Equativ had to segue from the ad server business to the SSP business for the sake of the company’s survival. If it hadn’t, “we wouldn’t have a business.”
Rajeev Goel (pending), CEO & co-founder, PubMatic
- It’s not clear whether Goel will appear in person this time, but when he testified the first time around, he related how, in 2009, PubMatic’s API access to Google’s DFP was denied because granting API access to a rival exchange would directly undermine the value proposition of dynamic allocation in AdX.
On top of that, PubMatic submits approximately 1 trillion bid requests to Google each month but wins fewer than 1% of those auctions.
Michael Racic (via deposition), president, Prebid.org
- Prebid came up a bunch of times during the trial last September.
In one instance, Google’s lawyers tried to trap Tom Kershaw, Magnite’s former CTO, by suggesting that Prebid, which is an open-source header bidding framework, could be used to bypass the need for an ad server. Kershaw quashed that argument handily. He called running Prebid without an ad server technically possible but practically impossible at scale.
Prebid also made an appearance during Layser’s testimony, when she proposed that Google should create a Prebid adapter for GAM so that AdX becomes a “community asset” in the name of standardization and industry collaboration. Her point was misconstrued by Google’s lawyers, who claimed Layser was unreasonably asking Google to hand its proprietary AdX code over to Prebid.
Finally, it was revealed during the live reading of Brian O’Kelley’s deposition in court that Google had blocked the IAB Tech Lab from acquiring Prebid. This backfired, though, because it forced Prebid to become an independent open-source group, which led directly to the proliferation of header bidding.
Agency buyers & advertisers
Jay Friedman (via deposition), strategic advisor & former CEO, Goodway Group
- Friedman testified last September that Goodway Group couldn’t negotiate lower fees with AdX because of Google’s market power. He also stressed that advertisers see open web display ads as distinct from social media ads, which was a key point of contention. Google’s lawyers had wanted to prove that there was no meaningful distinction between those two channels.
Luke Lambert (appearing live), partner & head of reputation marketing & insights, Omnicom Media Group
- Lambert moved to the Omnicom mothership in January. But, before that, he was the chief innovation officer at OMD USA, a title he had when he testified last September.
The primary purpose of his testimony was to help establish market definition, which is crucial in an antitrust case so as to frame the competitive boundaries. In DOJ v. Google, the government had to prove that Google had market power within the open web display advertising market.
DSPs & buy-side tech
Jed Dederick (appearing live), CRO, The Trade Desk
- According to Dederick during his first stint on the stand, one of the main reasons The Trade Desk got into CTV was because Google had all but foreclosed opportunities in display advertising.
Academics, researchers and analysts
Paul A. Crisci (appearing live), investment banking expert
- Crisci now runs his own M&A advisory, but before that he spent 10 years at UBS Securities and more than 20 years at Jeffries.
Jason Kint (appearing live), CEO, Digital Content Next
- If it’s a vocal critic of Google you seek, look no further than Jason Kint, avid tweeter and leader of a trade group representing digital publishers.
Kint is advocating for strong, structural remedies in the case. He supports breaking up key parts of Google’s ad tech business, including potentially divesting GAM and AdX. He’s also in favor of limiting Google’s control over data and ad tech overall, particularly to prevent the company from using its dominance to unfairly influence emerging technologies like AI.
Robin S. Lee (appearing live), professor of economics, Harvard University
- Lee’s testimony was key to the DOJ’s case last year. He provided expert analysis supporting the government’s market definitions and demonstrating Google’s monopoly over ad tech.
For example, Lee showed how Google’s monopoly allowed it to block rival ad platforms from accessing critical data, reinforcing its control over digital ad auctions and harming competition.
Jon Weissman (appearing live), professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Minnesota
Google’s witness list
Heather Adkins (appearing live), VP of security engineering, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
James Avery (via deposition), CEO & founder, Kevel (also on the DOJ’s list)
Glenn Berntson (appearing live), director, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Andrew Casale (via deposition), president & CEO, Index Exchange (also on the DOJ’s list)
Jed Dederick (via deposition), CRO, The Trade Desk (also on the DOJ’s list)
Shane Goodwin (appearing live), associate dean of graduate programs, SMU Cox School of Business
Sam Greenfield (appearing live), senior staff software engineer, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Nirmal Jayaram (appearing live), senior director of engineering, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Luke Lambert (via deposition), partner & head of reputation marketing & insights, Omnicom Media Group (also on the DOJ’s list)
Andres Lerner (appearing live), founding partner & head of North American antitrust & competition practice, Econic Partners
George Levitte (appearing live), director of product management, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
David Maymudes (appearing live), former Google software engineer (2010-2025)
- According to his LinkedIn, Maymudes led the team for DV360 that helped scale RTB ad serving from hundreds of thousands of queries per second in 2011 to tens of millions of QPS.
Jason Nieh (appearing live), professor of computer science, Columbia University
Michael Racic (via deposition), president, Prebid.org (also on the DOJ’s list)
Bryan Rubin (appearing live), corporate development, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Scott Sheffer (appearing live), VP of partnerships, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
And Google says it may also call these folks, but only “if the need arises.” Guess they’re on standby if they’re listed as a live witness!
Per Bjorke (potentially appearing live), director of product management, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Tim Craycroft (potentially appearing live), VP & GM, Google Advertising (also on the DOJ’s list)
Arnaud Créput (via deposition), CEO, Equativ (also on the DOJ’s list)
Jay Friedman (via deposition), strategic advisor & former CEO, Goodway Group (also on the DOJ’s list)
Rajeev Goel (live or deposition designation pending), CEO & co-founder, PubMatic (also on the DOJ’s list)
Jason Kint (via deposition), CEO, Digital Content Next (also on the DOJ’s list)
Nitish Korula (potentially appearing live), senior director, engineering, Home Intelligence, Google (also on the DOJ’s list)
Stephanie Layser (via deposition), global head, publisher ad tech solutions, AWS (also on the DOJ’s list)
Jason Taylor (via deposition), CRO, Gannett Media (also on the DOJ’s list)
Matthew Wheatland (via deposition), chief digital officer, DailyMail.com (also on the DOJ’s list)
Grant Whitmore (via deposition), VP, ad tech and programmatic revenue, Advance Local (also on the DOJ’s list)
👀 Click here for a comprehensive rundown of the DOJ’s witness list for the first phase of the trial in September 2024.
