Google is asking a federal judge to temporarily halt the DOJ’s antitrust remedies, warning that forced search and ad sales would expose its proprietary technology and harm advertisers.
The dispute comes from a new affidavit from Jesse Adkins, Google’s director of product management for search and ad sales, filed Jan. 16 to support the company’s motion to stay the final decision of Judge Amit Mehta while it appeals.
Big picture. Adkins’ affidavit focused on irreparable harm. It warns of forced disclosure of proprietary ad technology, harm to advertisers, and loss of control over query and pricing data.
- Mehta’s final decision would require Google to license its search results, features, and search text ads to any “qualified competitor” for five years, under terms no worse than its current deals.
- Google argues that enforcing these remedies before the complaint is resolved would cause immediate and irreparable harm.
Risk to Google’s ad technology. At the heart of Google’s warning is the risk of exposure to the search ad auction, which has been developed over decades of research and development by thousands of developers.
- Marketing at scale would allow competitors or third parties to override Google’s ad engineering, affiliate signals, and auction mechanics, Adkins argued.
- The data could be used to train competitors’ ad programs, undermining their competitive advantage, Google said.
Sub-syndication increases risk. The ruling allows competitors to re-distribute Google ads to third parties, creating multiple layers where scraping and abuse is difficult to detect.
- Even compliant partners would have little incentive to police downstream players, turning its ad system into an open system with limited protections, Google said.
Advertisers can face fraud. Advertisers are caught in the crossfire, according to Adkins. The affidavit describes “trick-to-click” tactics and question manipulation designed to drive accidental clicks or increase costs.
- One example describes a syndicator that aggregates high-income country terms into queries while funneling low-cost external traffic to ads, generating tens of millions of dollars in click fraud in just two months.
- Users may see less relevant ads, advertisers still pay, and conversion rates may drop.
Price uncertainty. The final decision also requires Google to offer sales terms that are “not worse than the existing deals”. Those arrangements are highly tailored, tailored to each partner’s traffic quality and technical setup, Adkins noted.
- Applying these terms broadly may force below-market prices and create financial uncertainty associated with an unexpected number of inquiries.
Irreversibility is key. Throughout the affidavit, Adkins insists that the potential harm is irreversible. Once proprietary ad signals are exposed, they cannot be recovered.
- Once advertisers lose trust, it cannot be regained.
- When competitors build products on Google’s systems, the market impact is permanent.
- Google says that even a successful appeal will come too late to repair the damage.
Why do we care. Court-ordered ad sales can weaken Google’s control over ad placement and targeting, leading to less relevant ads and lower conversion rates. In short, the affidavit warns of high costs, low ROI, and unpredictable campaign performance.
What’s next. The court will decide whether to temporarily suspend the use of sales solutions during Google’s appeal. Without staying, Google will have to start licensing search ads and results to qualified competitors under the new rules, reshaping the search advertising ecosystem in ways the company says will reach beyond its operations.
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