Google Employees Testified Regarding Tactics For Increased Online Advertising Prices

Google drains too much ad revenue (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - A lawyer from the US Department of Justice questioned a Google executive on Wednesday, October 4 about the techniques the search and advertising giant is using, to unfairly increase the price of online advertising.

In testimony in an antitrust court in Washington where the United States Attorney's Office accused Google of abusing its dominance in a specific search and advertising, Google executive Adam Juda said the company used a formula, which includes advertising quality, to determine who won the auction used to place ads on websites.

The Justice Department accuses Google of manipulating online auctions - a billion-dollar industry controlled by Google - with this formula to side with its own company's profits.

Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist asked Juda if he agreed with the documents Google had prepared for the European Union, which said the company could "directly influence pricing through tuning our auction mechanism." Juda said he disagreed.

Pressured whether "tuning" could affect pricing, Juda said, "They can." Juda's testimony began on Tuesday, October 3 and continued until Wednesday.

Juda says one thing that can be "tuned" is a rough formula that provides ads for long-term value, or LTV, based on the offer given, a potential click rate or how many people are likely to click on it, and the quality of the ads and websites associated with it.

Dahlquist asked Juda if they had introduced changes in advertising sales in a way that increased the cost per click by consumers paid by advertisers. "I think it's natural," Juda said.

But Wendy Waszmer, Google's lawyer, asked Juda on Wednesday afternoon if there was any way for her ad quality team to unilaterally increase prices. "No," said Juda.

Google's advertising business has been criticized by advertisers and website publishers for lack of transparency, both accusing Google of draining too much revenue.

The testimony of advertising is a change from previous testimony focused on the billions of dollars Google spent on keeping its search engine built-in on smartphones and other devices.