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Justice Department alleges Google stymied competition in

online

ad tech

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Google denies allegations, citing competition in apps and

connected TV

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Trial to feature witnesses from Google, competitors and

publishers

(Recasts with opening statements, adds dateline and share move)

By Jody Godoy

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, Sept 9 (Reuters) -

Alphabet's Google sought to dominate all sides of

online advertising technology by controlling competitors and

customers, a Justice Department prosecutor said as trial began

in the tech titan's latest antitrust showdown in Alexandria,

Virginia on Monday.

Prosecutors say Google has largely dominated the

technological infrastructure that funds the flow of news and

information on websites through more than 150,000 online ad

sales every second.

Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating

competitors through acquisitions, locking customers into using

its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the

online ad market, Julia Tarver Wood, an attorney with the

Justice Department's antitrust division, said in an opening

statement.

"Google is not here because they are big, they are here

because they used that size to crush competition," she said.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema is hearing the case

without a jury, and will issue a ruling after the multi-week

trial concludes.

The Justice Department and a coalition of states based

their case on "ancient history" from a time when Google was

still working on making its tools able to connect to

competitors', said Google's lead attorney Karen Dunn.

Google's tools are now interoperable with its rivals,

and the company faces competition from technology companies

including Amazon.com Inc ( AMZN ) and Comcast ( CMCSA ) as

digital ad spending shifts to apps and streaming video, she

said.

The case is "like a time capsule that if you broke it

open you would find a BlackBerry, an iPod and a Blockbuster

Video card," she said.

Dunn compared the allegations to

claims that Google defeated

in the recent search monopoly case.

Dunn left the courtroom after delivering the opening

statement. She is preparing Vice President

Kamala Harris for a televised debate with former President

Donald Trump on Tuesday.

At trial, prosecutors are seeking to show Google used

dominant positions in technology for publishers and advertisers

to keep them from using other tools and undercut bids placed

through competitors' products.

Tim Wolfe, an advertising executive at Gannett ( GCI ),

testified on Monday that the company has used Google's publisher

ad server for around 13 years, and that there are no other

realistic options.

If Brinkema finds that Google broke the law, she would later

consider prosecutors' request to make Google sell off, at

minimum, Google Ad Manager, a platform that includes Google's

publisher ad server and its ad exchange.

Shares in Alphabet were down 1.7% in the afternoon.

According to research by stock analyst Wedbush, Google's ad

tech tools accounted for $20 billion, or 11% of the company's

gross revenue in 2020 and around $1 billion, or 2.6%, of

operating profit that year.

Ad Manager represented 4.1% of revenue and 1.5% of operating

profit in 2020, according to Wedbush research and analysis of

court documents.

More recent figures were redacted from court documents.

The case is one of several challenging alleged Big Tech

monopolies.

The Justice Department won a ruling against Google last

month in another case over its dominance in online search, and

is separately suing Apple ( AAPL ). The U.S. Federal Trade

Commission is pursuing cases against Facebook parent Meta

Platforms ( META ) and Amazon ( AMZN ).