Ex-Google exec says goal was to ‘crush’ competition, shows trial evidence

A Google executive told colleagues the goal for the company’s then-nascent online advertising business in 2009 was to “crush” rival advertising networks, according to evidence prosecutors presented at the tech titan’s antitrust trial on Wednesday.

The statements underscored the US Department of Justice’s claim that Google has sought to monopolize markets for publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks, and tried to dominate the market for ad exchanges which sit in the middle.