On August 4, 2025, we filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Google to compensate OpenX for harm caused to our business. We understand that there may be questions about what this means for us going forward, and our goal is to ensure the most important information is easy to find and understand.

For our company, it’s business as usual. Our top priority remains the same: to build the most intelligent advertising technology and set the highest standards for media quality, ad performance, and customer service — all while operating with the integrity our partners and the industry expect and deserve.

Frequently Asked Questions 

What is this lawsuit about?

We are bringing this lawsuit as a follow-on to the Government’s case against Google, where the Court found that Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct. This lawsuit seeks not only to recover the damages caused to our company, but also to ensure fair competition moving forward.

What is OpenX’s relationship with Google? And what will this mean for OpenX’s relationship with Google going forward? 

OpenX continues to work with Google today and partners with them across several areas of our business, including Cloud, DV360, and GAM. We value these relationships where they support our operations and serve our customers.

How specifically has OpenX’s business been harmed?

Here are three examples: 

• Google prevented publishers from setting price floors that would drive more transactions into non-Google ad exchanges, even when the publishers wanted to, impacting the OpenX Ad Exchange.
  
• Google stacked the deck in its favor and required publishers to use its ad server, DFP, to generate revenue from AdX, its ad exchange, and only allowed publishers to access AdWords demand via AdX, making it difficult for other ad exchanges and ad servers, like OpenX’s, to compete on their merits.
  
• Google manipulated digital advertising auctions so that other ad exchanges, like the OpenX Ad Exchange, won fewer transactions through programs that allowed Google’s ad exchange to see competing exchanges’ bids before bidding, and then adjusted its net bids in response.
  

What recourse/damages is OpenX seeking? 

We want to recover the monetary damages caused to our business from Google’s anticompetitive conduct. We also want a judgment that would prevent the conduct from continuing moving forward.

OpenX has had several recent high-profile product launches and are expanding your commercial teams by approximately 20% before the end of the year. How are you doing so well if Google has caused so much damage to your business?

It’s no secret in our industry that OpenX had a rough stretch — and the central reason for that was Google’s anticompetitive behavior. But through strategic leadership, a relentless focus on product, and the determination of our team over the past three years, we’ve exceeded expectations — delivering outstanding media quality, market-leading data targeting and ad performance, and standout service for our advertiser and publisher clients. The truth is, we never should’ve had to dig ourselves out of that hole. Without Google’s anticompetitive conduct, our business would be in a very different place today.

Were you the first to file suit, and have other companies since brought lawsuits?

To the best of our knowledge, we were the first follow-on SSP case to the DOJ’s ad tech suit. Since then, other SSPs have filed lawsuits as well.

A link to our complaint can be found here.