Part 29 - Google Outright Blocks the Use of Standard Header Bidding on Accelerated Mobile Pages

IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK

D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance

2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition

f) Google Outright Blocks the Use of Standard Header Bidding on Accelerated Mobile Pages

248. Project Poirot and the imposition of Unified Pricing Rules are both examples of Google wielding its power on both sides of the ad tech stack to stymie competition in the middle for ad exchanges. Google could not directly block publishers from adding header bidding code to their own webpages, so it had to resort to these indirect methods of limiting the growth of header bidding. But when given the opportunity to do just that—outright block adoption of client-side header bidding—in one corner of the internet, Google leaped at the opportunity, consistent with its broader strategy to stop header bidding in its tracks and thereby stifle competition from rival ad exchanges.

249. Beginning in 2017, Google recognized it could use its monopoly power in the general search market—specifically its ability to rank websites that appear in search results—to force at least certain publishers to forgo traditional, client-side header bidding and instead adopt Google’s more limited and self-serving version it named Real Time Config (“RTC”). To do so, Google launched a project known as Accelerated Mobile Pages (“AMP”) in an effort to push parts of the open web into a Google-controlled walled garden, one where Google could dictate more directly how digital advertising space could be sold.

250. A year earlier, in 2016, Google began to prioritize within its Google Search results websites that implemented an alternative webpage format known as AMP, which purported to allow faster loading times and a better mobile web experience. It also conditioned access to the News Carousel—the ribbon at the top of certain Google Search pages that highlights relevant news stories—on the adoption of AMP. Technically, AMP was an opensource project; in reality, Google and its engineers tightly controlled the AMP project through at least late 2020; its engineers still have an outsized influence in the project today.

251. Although AMP’s faster loading and improved user experience goals appeared altruistic, Google also recognized that its control over AMP opened the door to advancing Google’s financial interests, including its desire to quell the rising tide of header bidding. Google’s Vice President of Product for Mobile App Advertising drafted a proposal for “wall[ing] off AMP” with “All-in-one Monetization, fully Google controlled and branded: All ‘monetization’ of content build on these technologies goes through Google.” The proposal explained: “Given AMP is open-source, we propose the walled garden to include pages cached and served by Google” and to “[u]se the power of Google Search to prioritize traffic built on these technologies. ‘Point our biggest most important pipe there.’”

252. For the first 18 months of AMP’s existence, the AMP standard fully supported header bidding, luring in publishers vying to appear at the top of Google’s Search listings or in the News Carousel. Early on, Google’s AMP Ads Steering Committee formally considered and decided not to deprecate the mechanism for traditional header bidding in AMP because doing so would hurt publishers’ ability to sell their advertisements. Instead, the committee agreed in March 2017 that “[i]f a [publisher] implemented such a thing [header bidding], AMP has very little influence from a policy perspective and business perspective - even if we, as Google, don’t like it from a business perspective. AMP will look at it from an engineering standpoint and if it meets the standards, accept it.”

253. However, just a few months later, Google abruptly changed course, overriding the view of the committee and shifting the open AMP framework into a Google-controlled closed environment where Google decided how digital advertising could be sold. Only a Googledictated and Google-driven version of “header bidding” would be allowed: one that provided Google’s ad exchange a preferred position and restricted publishers’ ability to connect with their preferred ad exchange partners. Publishers could not use traditional header bidding (i.e., clientside header bidding) that could provide higher quality advertising matches and additional revenue, and could only call directly a limited number of ad exchanges and data providers. Google formally launched its version of header bidding for AMP pages, RTC, in August 2017.

254. While Google told the world that its removal of traditional header bidding was based on page latency and a desire to improve user experience, its internal documents painted a different picture. Several Google employees shared their views that any concerns about user experience or latency were a smokescreen to mask Google’s real motivation: further propping up its ad tech monopoly and profits. As a key software engineer explained, “If DFP wants to say ‘We refuse to serve an ad onto your AMP page if we’ve been intermediated [by header bidding]’, then we can certainly choose to do so. But that’s a DFP business decision, not an AMP platform one.” He added, “You product folks are welcome to make whatever decision you want about header bidding. But on the justification front, . . . your 500ms-delay-is-bad explanation really doesn’t hold water.” He went on to say: “If publishers can make more money on AMP pages via something that causes ads to load a little later, but that doesn’t harm the [user experience] of the non-ad portion of the page, I think the AMP ecosystem should absolutely support it. I acknowledge that incentives here might not align, and I am indeed saying that AMP should embrace proposals that give more money to publishers even if it results in less money for DRX [DFP and AdX].” Similarly, Google’s Vice President for News wrote, “AMP is under pressure to increase revenue and, specifically, to effectively support dynamic bidding. We need a solution. Also, please be cognizant of criticism that our reluctance on header bidding is driven by business self interest, not principle.”

255. AMP adoption ultimately proved to be relatively limited, especially outside of news websites. As part of Google’s grand strategy to combat the growth of header bidding, however, it served as yet another mechanism to deter publishers from adopting the technology. It was a new tool in Google’s toolbox to use its monopoly power in adjacent markets to prop up and protect its growing ad tech monopolies. It also demonstrated that Google was more than willing to make misleading claims about performance as a pretext for stifling competition.