While Google doesn’t often speak publicly about its take rates, it has sparingly offered discounts, LaSala testified.
The digital ad industry has long been concerned about the amount of ad budgets that get gobbled by adtech fees, instead of going to the publisher. Through LaSala’s emails, the DOJ’s case alleges that LaSala believed Google’s adtech was part of that problem.
“It is questionable that 20% for OA [open auction] is reasonable long term,” LaSala wrote in a 2019 email thread in response to a New York Times article on an ad industry transparency initiative. “[Publishers] accept it because it brings demand (Google Ads). If Google Ads bought everywhere else, I think we’d see pubs move to other SSPs for OA and we’d lose the 20%.”
During cross-examination, LaSala clarified that part of his point of view was not that AdX could not justify its price, but that AdX did not always articulate all of its value. He said this value included services like analytics, fraud protection and running clean and fair auctions.
Brian O’Kelley, who formerly ran AdX competitor AppNexus (which was later acquired by Microsoft), testified later that day in a video deposition that other competing SSPs charged around 10%-15% take rates, compared to Google’s 20%.
Unified Price Rules Spin
LaSala’s testimony and evidence followed the Sept. 12 testimony of Srinivasan, which also undermines Google’s public narrative. Srinivasan was instrumental in implementing Unified Pricing Rules, a controversial 2019 policy that required publishers to set the same price floor for all exchanges within Google’s ad server product.
Previously, publishers would often set the highest floor for Google’s exchange because Google had certain advantages in the auction, so publishers wanted AdX to have to work harder to win their inventory, according to the testimony of former News Corp exec Stephanie Layser and Google executives’ own emails presented during trial.
Executives knew Unified Pricing Rules would be unpopular with publishers, partly because the change would result in even more ad spend flowing through Google’s pipes, according to emails revealed in Srinivisan’s testimony.