Judge Castel sends Google ad-tech damages claims to jury; Gannett and Daily Mail survive summary judgment
Tags Industry · Product
An 88-page opinion by Judge P. Kevin Castel dated Sept. 30, 2026 denied most of Google's summary-judgment motions in the digital-advertising antitrust MDL, letting Gannett's and Daily Mail's damages claims proceed toward a jury. Plaintiffs' expert estimates put damages at $900.77M for Gannett, $599.96M for Daily Mail and $1.72B class-wide through March 31, 2024; the court awarded nothing in this ruling. Castel found a reasonable jury could find Google's Enhanced Dynamic Allocation (EDA) caused antitrust injury, with expert Ali Hortacsu calculating EDA alone cost Gannett $348.9M domestically. The court granted Google summary judgment on the New York General Business Law claims, The Progressive's claims and Inform's federal antitrust claims, while allowing the AdX publisher class and Mikula Web Solutions claims to proceed.
Technical significance
The ruling keeps alive the largest private damages exposure Google faces over its ad-tech stack, moving the case from summary judgment toward a jury trial on the EDA bidding mechanism. For publishers and ad-tech vendors, it signals that the specific auction design — not just market share — is now a litigable antitrust theory, which could shape how ad exchanges document and defend their allocation logic. A jury verdict in the plaintiffs' range could also reset the negotiating baseline for publisher compensation across the open web.