OpenX files antitrust lawsuit against Google following court’s monopoly ruling

New Delhi: OpenX Technologies has filed a comprehensive antitrust complaint against Google, seeking substantial damages following a landmark ruling by the Eastern District of Virginia that found the tech giant illegally monopolised digital advertising markets.

According to the report, the complaint marks one of the first major private legal actions following the Department of Justice’s successful prosecution of Google’s ad tech practices.

The 87-page complaint alleges that Google’s “systematic anticompetitive conduct” destroyed OpenX’s ad server business and severely disrupted its ad exchange operations. OpenX claims that tying arrangements, auction manipulation, and targeted suppression tactics under “Project Poirot” violated federal antitrust laws and resulted in damages running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

According to the report, OpenX was a pioneer in digital advertising innovation, credited with introducing real-time bidding in 2009 and header bidding in 2013, both technologies aimed at improving efficiency for publishers and advertisers. The company also held several patents in these areas, which it says were rendered ineffective due to Google's exclusionary conduct.

The complaint describes a “three pillar” strategy Google allegedly implemented after acquiring DoubleClick in 2008. This included conditioning access to premium publisher inventory on the use of Google’s ad server (DFP), funnelling inventory through its own ad exchange (AdX), and requiring advertisers using Google’s network to buy inventory solely through AdX.

According to the report, internal Google documents referenced in the complaint acknowledged this setup as a conflict of interest, with one employee comparing it to “if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE [New York Stock Exchange]”.

In April 2025, the Virginia court found Google had “willfully acquired and maintained monopoly power” in the markets for publisher ad servers and open-web ad exchanges. The court further ruled that practices such as tying AdX real-time bids to the use of DFP, along with mechanisms like Dynamic Allocation and Unified Pricing Rules, were unlawful and anticompetitive.

The report outlines that Google's actions had a profound impact on OpenX’s business. The company shut down its ad server operations in 2019 after undergoing two rounds of layoffs between October 2018 and March 2019, which affected nearly half its workforce, 210 employees in total.

According to the report, OpenX attributes this decline in part to the introduction of Project Poirot, which reduced DV360 spend on its exchange by 30% in 2017 and by 40% year-over-year following the launch of Poirot 2.0 in 2018.

The lawsuit also draws parallels to the successful legal claims advanced by Gannett and other publishers in multidistrict litigation. Both cases challenge core elements of Google’s conduct, including the tying of AdX bids to DFP use and the alleged preferential treatment of AdX through Dynamic Allocation and auction mechanics.

The March 2024 ruling in that litigation allowed publishers to proceed with claims involving Minimum Bid to Win (MBW), concluding that Google’s use of monopoly power in ad servers to influence auction outcomes “plausibly alleged a violation of section 2” of the Sherman Act.

OpenX similarly argues in its complaint that Google's conduct “serves no legitimate or pro-competitive purpose that could justify its anticompetitive effects”.

The case follows a separate motion filed by advertisers seeking to prevent Google from re-arguing the established monopoly findings from the Virginia ruling. According to the report, the digital advertising industry generates more than $200 billion annually in the United States, with Google maintaining a 91–93.5% share of publisher ad servers and a 63–71% share of ad exchanges globally between 2018 and 2022.

PPC Land, which has tracked developments in ad tech and covered the challenges faced by independent players like OpenX, has noted how innovations such as header bidding emerged in response to Google’s dominance.

OpenX is seeking treble damages under federal antitrust law, along with injunctive relief to stop ongoing anticompetitive conduct and restore competition in the ad tech market. The complaint requests compensation for “compensatory, consequential and punitive damages” in addition to “costs of suit, including attorneys’ fees”.

According to the report, the case unfolds alongside the remedies phase of the government’s antitrust action, where structural changes, including the potential breakup of Google’s ad tech business, are under consideration. Industry observers suggest such outcomes could create opportunities for independent firms like OpenX to re-enter and compete in a less restricted market.