In her opinion issued on Monday, Judge Brinkema highlighted that Yelp and NMA had not presented “patently clear” evidence indicating that Paul Weiss attorneys had provided legal advice on Google’s ad tech business or received confidential information related to that specific area.
Furthermore, Yelp and NMA themselves admitted that their past advocacy with the DOJ focused on internet search rather than advertising technology. Judge Brinkema underscored, “This admission undermines the argument that the underlying issues involved in Paul Weiss’ representation of Yelp and NMA are substantially related to the issues in the ad tech litigation.”
The Justice Department initiated the lawsuit in January, accusing Google of monopolizing the market for the technology used to sell and place third-party website advertisements, known as display ads.
At Friday’s hearing, Brandon Kressin of Kressin Meador LLC, representing Yelp and NMA, pointed out the significant revenue generated by publishers through online ads and mentioned that Yelp, serving as both a customer of Google’s ad services and a “horizontal competitor” with its own ad server and tech products, finds itself in a similar situation. While several NMA members have sued Google, neither the trade group nor Yelp has directly taken legal action against the tech giant.
