Google And The DOJ Filed Their Proposed Final Judgments, And They Are Still Fighting Over The Teeth

On Friday night at 10:15 p.m., Google and the U.S. Department of Justice filed the 41-page document that sets out each side's proposed final remedies in the ad tech antitrust case, with the two camps' preferred language sitting side by side in brackets because they could not negotiate a clean order. There are no disputes on the core remedies: Google must wire AdX into Prebid so publishers can solicit AdX bids through Prebid's header-bidding wrapper, must accept bid requests from rival publisher ad servers on the same terms it gives its own DFP, is barred from first look, last look and unified pricing rules in open-web display, and must let publishers export DFP configuration and historical bid data. The fight is over whether any of it lands in time to matter. The DOJ wants the AdX-Prebid connection live within six months and remedies to apply globally from day one; Google wants twelve months and up to 24 extra months before international compliance. The two sides also disagree on the compliance monitor (the DOJ wants to nominate candidates, Google wants the reverse), on how hard Google must cooperate ("cooperate fully" versus "no action to interfere"), and on whether the filing even defines "malfeasance" that triggers contempt. Google's version simply reads "[Google omits this subsection]", which is the whole tell: the argument is not about the remedy, it is about the enforcement.

The crux

A remedy without an enforceable trigger is a press release, and Google is negotiating for the timeline and the wording that let it comply slowly and argue about it for six years.

Sell-side read

The DFP data-export right is the one clause worth tracking now: it is the thing that makes a switch to a rival ad server possible, and the DOJ's version (data available while a publisher is "considering or evaluating" a move) is materially more useful than Google's (data only after the decision is made).

Watch

whether Judge Leonie Brinkema splits the difference or adopts one side's language wholesale, and the 60-day clock that starts only once she signs.