“Open Bidding decimated header bidding,” Jed Dederick, chief income officer of The Commerce Desk, advised 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 operating an promoting monopoly.

Dederick’s testimony is an effective assertion for the Division of Justice’s case, as Open Bidding was one in every of Google’s advertising products. The DOJ is making an attempt to show that Google wields a dominating quantity of management over how its advert know-how is utilized by advertisers and publishers.

However Dederick’s testimony will not be precisely correct.

The rise of header bidding

Header bidding is an answer that launched round 2015 and lets a number of publisher-focused adtech corporations, known as supply-side platforms, bid on a writer’s stock directly earlier than reaching a writer’s advert server. The follow of header bidding largely changed an inefficient waterfall system that in follow, critics say gave Google, the dominant advert server, a “first look” at stock earlier than it was out there to be offered by different adtech companies.

The give attention to Google’s “first look” strategy is an enormous a part of the DOJ’s case in opposition to Google. The DOJ and its witnesses are arguing that “first look” made it laborious 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 Trade Bidding, in 2016, its personal model of header bidding that got here with an round 5% price.


Google

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 problem supply-side platforms face right this moment is having an excessive amount of stock to promote moderately than too little.

In 2022, The Commerce Desk, Yahoo, Amobee (now a part of Tremor), and RTB Home turned off Open Bidding. A Criteo govt mentioned the software was not often 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 choice. “The Commerce Desk determined to close off the Open Bidding pipe as a result of we didn’t see worth in Open Bidding,” Dederick advised the court docket room.