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The
government, which filed the ad tech lawsuit in January along
with eight states, had argued that Google should be forced to
sell its ad manager suite. Google has denied any wrongdoing.
"In the more than three years that it has been investigating
Google's ad tech business, the United States has received more
than two million documents from Google and taken over thirty
depositions of Google witnesses," the company said in a court
filing late on Monday. "Yet plaintiffs remain unable to find
support for their claimed antitrust harms."
Google argued that the case should be thrown out because the
government had erred in defining the online advertising market
and improperly excluded powerful competitors such as Facebook.
It also said that the government's estimate of Google's ad
exchange as having "more than 50%" of the market fell short of
the 70% needed to allege market power.
The company also said the government was wrong to assert that
Google's acquisitions of DoubleClick and AdMeld, both more than
10 years ago, harmed competition. Antitrust enforcers approved
both transactions at the time.
Google urged a hearing to consider the motion to dismiss.
The case is being heard by U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema in the
Eastern District of Virginia.
The Justice Department's ad tech lawsuit follows a separate
lawsuit filed in 2020, at the end of the Trump administration,
that accused Google of violating antitrust law to maintain its
dominance in search. That case goes to trial in September.
The Biden administration has sought to toughen antitrust
enforcement. Alongside the Google suit, it also has a long list
of merger challenges.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio and Gerry
Doyle)
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