“Open Bidding decimated header bidding,” Jed Dederick, chief income officer of The Commerce Desk, instructed a courtroom in Virginia on Sept. 10 as he testified as a witness in US v. Google, the Division of Justice’s case that accuses Google of working an promoting monopoly.
Dederick’s testimony is an effective assertion for the Division of Justice’s case, as Open Bidding was one in all Google’s promoting merchandise. The DOJ is attempting to show that Google wields a dominating quantity of management over how its advert expertise is utilized by advertisers and publishers.
However Dederick’s testimony is just not precisely correct.
The rise of header bidding
Header bidding is an answer that launched round 2015 and lets a number of publisher-focused adtech firms, known as supply-side platforms, bid on a writer’s stock without delay earlier than reaching a writer’s advert server. The observe of header bidding largely changed an inefficient waterfall system that in observe, critics say gave Google, the dominant advert server, a “first look” at stock earlier than it was obtainable to be bought by different adtech corporations.
The concentrate on Google’s “first look” strategy is a giant a part of the DOJ’s case towards Google. The DOJ and its witnesses are arguing that “first look” made it onerous for non-Google supply-side platforms to compete. And at instances, “first look” undermined publishers’ income potential, a number of witnesses have testified this week in Virginia.
Google’s rivals created header bidding partly to undermine this benefit. Google responded with Open Bidding, first known as Change Bidding, in 2016, its personal model of header bidding that got here with an round 5% charge.
Open Bidding is dropping steam
In distinction to Dederick’s testimony, Open Bidding has been waning in its significance to the business in recent times. Header bidding, in the meantime, continues to be generally utilized by publishers, a lot in order that the downside supply-side platforms face immediately is having an excessive amount of stock to promote fairly than too little.
In 2022, The Commerce Desk, Yahoo, Amobee (now a part of Tremor), and RTB Home turned off Open Bidding. A Criteo government stated the instrument was hardly ever helpful, ADWEEK reported on the time.
Throughout this week’s testimony on the antitrust case between the DOJ and Google, The Commerce Desk’s Dederick echoed his agency’s earlier determination. “The Commerce Desk determined to close off the Open Bidding pipe as a result of we didn’t see worth in Open Bidding,” Dederick instructed the courtroom room.
