DXD29 at 108 (blue boxes depict ads).
These “product page” ads likely generate substantial revenue for Amazon, whose ad business is growing rapidly. See DX231 at .003 (Google record from January 2021 estimating that Amazon’s “US ads business is nearly the size of Google’s US retail ads business today, and is growing at over twice Google’s rate.”). Dr. Israel testified that these product-page ads make up one third of Amazon’s ads overall. Tr. at 8459:16-17 (Israel). Dr. Whinston put Amazon’s search ads revenue at $7.6 billion in 2020, excluding product-page ads revenue. See Fig. 78, Whinston Expert Report, ECF No. 418-1, at 185. Although the record does not reveal precisely how much revenue Amazon generates from product-page ads, U.S. Plaintiffs’ search ads market likely excludes a substantial dollar amount from its market share denominator. This under-inclusivity is not fatal to defining a relevant market for search ads, but it will impact Google’s market share, as described infra Section III.A.2.b.
- 2. Google Does Not Have Monopoly Power in the Search Ads Market.
Although the court concludes that there is a relevant market for search ads, the court finds that U.S. Plaintiffs have not proven that Google possesses sufficient power in that market to make out a Section 2 violation. Recall, there are two types of evidence of monopoly power: (1) direct evidence indicating that a firm can substantially raise prices above the competitive level, and (2) indirect (or structural) evidence permitting the court to infer monopoly power “from a firm’s possession of a dominant share of a relevant market that is protected by entry barriers.” Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 51 (citation omitted). U.S. Plaintiffs have not met their burden with either.
- a. Direct Evidence
As direct evidence, U.S. Plaintiffs have offered proof that Google has profitably raised prices on its general search text ads, a subset of its search ads offerings that is distinct from PLAs.
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