News Corp would lose $9 million by cutting Google ads, former exec testifies | WSAU News/Talk 550 AM 99.9 FM

By Jody Godoy

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) – News Corp considered moving away from Google’s advertising tools in 2017 but estimated the Wall Street Journal publisher would lose at least $9 million in ad revenue as a result, a former executive testified on Tuesday at a Google antitrust hearing in Virginia.

Google disappointed publishers by introducing features that were more beneficial to it than to them, according to Stephanie Layser, who worked in ad tech at News Corp from 2017 to 2022. Despite those concerns, almost no one in the publishing industry used anything else because Google’s ad server for publishers is tied to Google’s ad exchange, she added.

“I felt like they were holding us hostage,” Layser said at the podium.

She testified on the second day of a trial that is expected to last several weeks in which the U.S. Justice Department will try to prove that Google has monopolized the markets for publisher ad servers, advertiser ad networks and ad exchanges that connect the two.

NewsCorp documents presented at the hearing estimated that in 2016, the publisher made $83.3 million from ads sold instantly through ad technology tools. More than half of those sales went through Google’s ad exchange, with $18.4 million coming from Google Ads advertisers.

The publisher estimated that about half of that amount, or $9 million, accrued solely to Google and would be lost if it switched to another product.

At the time of her departure, about 70% to 80% of News Corp.’s advertising transactions were going through the Google ad exchange, Layser said.

Google said the case was based on an outdated view of the industry and that large publishers use an average of six different platforms to sell ads, with the number of such services exceeding 80.

At trial, prosecutors aim to show that Google used its dominant position in the technology market to prevent publishers and advertisers from using other tools and to lower rates for competing products.

If U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema finds that Google broke the law, she will consider prosecutors’ request to order Google to at least sell Google Ad Manager, a platform that includes a publisher’s ad server and ad exchange.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in Alexandria, Virginia; Editing by Richard Chang)