What the FTC can learn from Google's ad tech case as it pursues Amazon

The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on 31 Aug over its ad auction practices, alleging a hidden "soft reserve price" has quietly overcharged advertisers for more than seven years. Two days later, Judge Leonie Brinkema declined to order a Google breakup, opting for behavioral remedies - the specifics stay under seal until 16 Sep. Ad tech leaders told AdExchanger the pattern is familiar. Arnaud Créput, CEO of Equativ, which is among the exchanges suing Google for damages: "We have seen this movie before," pointing to France's 2021 fine and behavioral remedies that five years on left "the market structure fundamentally not changed. Google remains dominant, and independent ad tech companies still compete within an ecosystem where Google controls critical infrastructure on both sides of the transaction."

The crux

The FTC's Amazon case is built on hidden auction pricing rather than a straight monopoly claim, but the Brinkema outcome proves the hard part is not proving the harm - it is fixing the market without breaking the ad tech stack publishers now depend on.

Sell-side read

If the FTC forces Amazon to unwind the "soft reserve price," retail media CPMs could reset lower - a direct hit to the retail media revenue publishers have leaned on; if it loses, the opacity precedent stands and spreads.

Watch

whether the FTC's Amazon case expands beyond e-commerce ads into the wider Amazon ad stack, and how early motions land.