An interview by Ricky Sutton, originally published in Future Media on April 20, 2026.
Editor’s Note:
In April 2026, journalist Ricky Sutton interviewed Ashley Keller, co-founder of Keller Postman LLC and
lead litigation counsel for the advertiser arbitrations against Google. The conversation ran in Sutton’s
Future Media newsletter under the headline “Advertisers launch $218 billion damages claim against
Google.”
We are republishing the transcript in Digital Ads Recovery Center because it offers one of the clearest
plain-language explanations now in circulation of how the Google Ads advertiser claims actually work.
The conversation walks through why arbitration is the primary avenue for advertiser compensation, how
mass arbitration changes the economics of the small print Google has long relied on, the scope of
potential damages following the August 2024 Search ruling and the April 2025 Ad Tech ruling, and the
practical steps an advertiser takes to come forward.
For any advertiser weighing whether to participate, the conversation is worth reading in full. The
substance is unchanged.
The Case Against Google, From the Advertiser Side
Ricky: So today, joining me on the Future Media podcast is Ashley Keller. Ashley, it’s an absolute
pleasure to have you on. Thanks for joining.
Ashley: Thanks for having me, Ricky. Good to meet you.
Ricky: My pleasure. So I’ve been following all manner of actions against Google since the antitrust trials,
whether they are class actions being brought by publishers or whether they are the antitrust actions
themselves. There are cases coming from all angles, but you’ve taken a different angle. You’re here
representing the advertisers. I’d love you to explain your case to me, please.
Ashley: Well, the good news is I don’t have to explain very much because I know your readers are
familiar with the already existing actions that have been brought against Google, both on their
monopolization of search and their monopolization of the ad tech stack. So those were public
enforcement actions brought by the United States and state sovereigns. And again, I’m sure that your
listeners and readers already know they’ve been adjudicated a monopolist. So both very respected
senior district court judges have issued detailed findings saying that Google, in fact, did it. They violated
the Sherman Antitrust Act in both markets. The claims that we’re bringing are, as you said, on behalf of
advertisers on the private side, not the public enforcement side, because Google, like a lot of
companies, has an arbitration clause. They insist that their customers sign an arbitration agreement to
resolve their disputes through the arbitral process. So if people want to actually get compensation for
the money that they’ve spent and overpaid because of the monopoly surcharge that Google has
extracted from its improper retention of market power, arbitration is the only game in town. And so our
firm has pioneered a practice of representing a significant number of clients in what we call mass
arbitrations. And this is just the latest flavor of that. It’s a little different than some of the prior stuff that
we’ve done because a lot of our prior arbitrations are on behalf of flesh and blood people. The little guy,
the little gal who maybe drives for Uber and the gig economy or has been defrauded by a deceptive
trade practice that a company has engaged in. These are all on behalf of companies, right? The typical
customer that Google is catering to are companies large and small. There are mom and pop businesses
who do a couple of thousand dollars a month advertising on Google. And we have some clients who
have done billions of dollars of ad spend over the relevant period of time. So it’s a significant range. But
for almost all of our clients in this mass arbitration, we’re representing businesses.
Ricky: So here’s the interesting thing. I’m a journalist. I never, ever thought that I would be thrilled by
antitrust law or arbitration law. It never occurred to me that that would be something that I’d find
thrilling until you realize just how big this is. So basically, this case is about small print. Right. So when I
was reading into it, you know, in the terms and conditions Google has with all its advertisers, it has small
print. And in the small print, it talks about something called mandatory arbitration. Now, that sounds
really dull. It’s the kind of thing you just brush straight over. But what does mandatory arbitration
actually mean? Because this is at the centerpiece of your cases, I understand.
Ashley: Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. So there’s a long line of Supreme Court precedent and a
statute at the federal level called the Federal Arbitration Act. And arbitration is essentially an alternative
to the judicial system. It’s an alternative to courts. So companies back in the day would enter into
agreements with other companies, sophisticated players, and say, let’s not go through the court
process. That takes too long. Judges are backed up. Juries are unpredictable. Let’s go to an alternative
dispute resolution process where we’re going to have some expert adjudicators, particularly in an area
like antitrust, where you need specialized skills. And we will more quickly and efficiently resolve our
disagreements. So arbitration is basically a contract to not have your fight resolved in court with a judge
and jury, but instead to have it resolved by a professional organization that you designate. Oftentimes,
these organizations have a bunch of retired judges or retired lawyers who worked in the practice area of
relevance who are your ultimate decision maker. But none of that is required. It’s whatever the parties
decide to agree to for arbitration, so long as it has sufficient fairness associated with it and basic due
process protected. You can contract for whatever you want. And the more sophisticated of a player you
are, i.e., if you’re a big company that can take care of yourselves, the more the courts are willing to let you contract for the dispute resolution process that you bargained for. So Google, as you say, has the
small print, the mandatory arbitration provision, and the advertisers agreed to it. And so we’re perfectly
content to follow Google’s contract and honor that small print and represent these companies in the
alternative venue that Google chose.
Ricky: In fairness, though, I don’t think the advertisers really thought they had a choice, right? It was
take this contract or leave it. It wasn’t that Google said, hey, give us yours if you fancy it.
Ashley: Yeah, there was not a lot of redlining back and forth in these agreements. As you would expect,
most people who deal with a big multi-trillion dollar monopolist like Google, they just have to accept the
terms or not do business with Google at all. So you’re right. It’s what we call in the law a contract of
adhesion. You don’t get to negotiate your own version of the contract. But I will say, in fairness, this is
not being imposed on only little guys and little gals. There are some very big companies that chose to
transact with Google. And so they had the ability to hire lawyers and make sure that they read the fine
print and they freely chose to enter into these agreements. So we’re not challenging the validity of the
arbitration agreement. We’re completely content to proceed on our client’s behalf in the arbitral forum.
Ricky: So the logic here is that Google has been to trial in the antitrust courts. It was a very
comprehensive trial. I’m sure you followed every minute of it. every word of it, just like I did. And then
you get to the end and a federal judge says, you are a monopolist. You’ve acted like a monopolist to
maintain your monopoly. Right. That’s a big no, no. OK, bang. That’s not great. That was on search. And
then we have a follow up case with Judge Leonie Brinkema, which then found the same thing in ad tech.
And what these things did, a lot of publishers have reacted and advertisers as well have reacted to this
news by going, Well, look, you know. All right. So we’ve won the case, but nothing’s going to happen. It’s
going to be a slap on the wrist. Nothing’s going to change. And there’s a lot of defeatism because the
Google looks so massive. It has its own gravitational pull almost. And people really don’t believe
anything’s going to change. But what those cases have actually done is they’ve set a benchmark for
responsibility for what’s happened. It has said you have lost. And I’ve been following, you know, class
actions across three different continents. They represent about 19 billion dollars. All of them are based
on the evidence that came out in those antitrust trials because it’s been found to be correct. And then
there are private actions being brought by the Daily Mail and by Gannett and other publisher groups.
Again, based on that, and a judge in New York recently said, I’m not going to allow Google to re-litigate
their argument because it’s been decided by a federal judge. So what we’ve got is a baseline. This was
wrong. And now it’s about the damages. And I can see where the publishers are going, big and small, to
you. As you said, the mum and pops are going into the small class actions and the really big global
publishers are going into their major actions. But the advertisers, I haven’t thought so much about them.
They also have been wronged. You mentioned earlier on monopoly charges in the trial. It came out that
Google was charging 36 cents on each ad that it delivered. And it was hiking the price here and there.
When Wall Street was giving it a bit of pressure, it just pushed the prices up here and push the prices up
there. Now we’ve got a situation where billions, hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars of advertising has been spent on Google and all of it now lands hard on that baseline decision. But it wasn’t as simple
as just going and asking for compensation because of the mandatory arbitration rule. So you flipped it
and I thought this was really clever. So can you explain what you did with mandatory arbitration and
what it means when you do what you do, which is mass arbitration? Can you explain that for everyone?
Ashley: Yeah, I can. So everything that you said up to this point, I think, is completely correct. There are
a lot of people who have that defeatism. There are some people who are disappointed with the
remedies that were ordered in search. We don’t have the remedies decision yet from Judge Brinkema.
So we’ll see on the ad tech stack. It was due three weeks ago. Well, you know, sometimes you have to
put the finishing touches on these opinions. And I sympathize with federal judges dealing with highly
complex technology cases like this. It can’t be easy.
Ricky: Do you have a secret copy of it in your drawer that you could?
Ashley: I wish. I wish. Yeah. No, no one leaks judicial opinions to me. So you’re going to you’re going to
need a different source for the opinion before it comes out. But to me, the way that you hold
corporations responsible is ultimately with money. That’s the easiest language that they understand. It
obviously impacts the bottom line. And when you’re a monopolist, by definition, that means you are
charging and capable of charging a super competitive price. You’re charging more than what would have
happened in the free market. You’re exactly right. The advertisers have a massive claim in aggregate.
We’re talking about something approaching a quarter of a trillion dollars when you factor in—
Ricky: Umm, a quarter. Yeah, a quarter of a trillion. Is that what you said?
Ashley: I did say a quarter of a trillion. If you look at the amount that advertisers have spent, you take
into account that under the antitrust laws in the United States, there is automatic trebling of damages. If
you are adjudicated a monopolist, there is no discretion. The court, or in this case, the arbitrator has no
choice but to automatically treble your award. So yeah, Google is facing a very hefty amount if the
advertisers actually go forward with these arbitrations. And to your question about how we sort of
flipped the model, I think a lot of companies, Google is not alone in this, they put these arbitration
clauses in the fine print of their contracts because they assumed that if you couldn’t proceed as a class
action, and if your listeners don’t know this, I’ll give you a quick update on what a class action is. A class
action is where someone else brings the lawsuit on your behalf, and you don’t have to do anything. You
can just sort of sit back and watch, and they move forward. And if they win, ultimately, hopefully you get
a check in the mail, but it doesn’t require a lot of work on your part. To actively litigate requires more
work. And so these companies put in the arbitration clauses because they knew it would kill a class
action. If they say you’ve got to go individually arbitrate this dispute over here in front of a different
forum that isn’t the court system, and there can’t be class actions, their hope was that you would just go
away and never assert your rights. And so even though in theory it was available to you to get
compensation, you would essentially sit on your rights and they would avoid liability altogether. We have pioneered a practice that essentially makes it as easy as possible for companies to go forward and
litigate their claims in arbitration. We understand the arbitral system. We know how it works. We can
maximize the efficiencies that are supposed to come from those alternative dispute resolution venues.
We can’t tell you that you don’t have to do anything. You actually do have to raise your hand and
produce data and show your spend and demonstrate that you have a claim. But because Google’s
monopoly misbehavior is uniform, it’s the same misbehavior for everybody. They charge the same
monopoly overcharge during the windows of time that are relevant for these advertisers. As you noted,
we can provide common proof. We can rely on doctrines like collateral estoppel to say Google should
not be allowed to relitigate whether it is actually a monopolist when two federal judges have already
said that they are. We can make the process streamlined and rely on common expert analysis to prove
up the damages and get people who actually come forward their piece of that recovery. And ultimately,
that is a reason to not be gloomy about these decisions, because number one, it puts money back in the
company’s pockets, and they deserve that compensation. And number two, when you hit these
monopolists with big damages awards, that’s the way you’re going to change behavior going forward. So
it should have positive effects in both directions.
Ricky: So the takeaway here, the shorthand, is that Google became a monopoly. Everybody had to sign
the contract. Everybody signed the contract. They then advertised on Google, but Google was charging
more than it would, nor than was a fair market rate, which has been found by a judge. That was about
36%. No one knew what that number was because it was all hidden in Google’s data. And now people
are entitled to claim back that money. So how much will be paid back is how many people claim. Now,
the arbitration piece, I need to hark back on this because. I’d never even thought about that. And that
mandatory arbitration piece sits in lots of contracts. It’s in my mobile phone contract. I’ve been having a
look at some of my contracts.
Ashley: It sure is. And what it exists, therefore, is it because it basically says, well, Ricky, you are right.
Something bad did happen to you, but you have to go into an individual arbitration against this multi
trillion dollar company. OK, and that means you’re going to need to get yourself a lawyer. You’re going
to have to represent yourself. It’s going to cost you a fortune, which is, of course, nothing to the massive
corporation. But it’s crippling and effectively strangling for your opportunity for the individual. Right.
And so in that scenario, the big company always wins.
Ricky: And I read back on the history of this goes all the way back to the Gilded Age like so much does.
Antitrust law goes back to there. This mandatory arbitration piece goes back to there as well. And it’s
got more and more and more beneficial to the big companies and less and less beneficial to the
consumer. Right. Until you do what you did and you turn it into mass arbitration. So can you explain how
that flips the financial pain from the consumer to the corporate?
Ashley: I definitely can. I will say it’s not necessarily the model for this case against Google, because,
again, there are a lot of corporations that we represent. But exactly as you said, you have these companies like your cell phone company or whatever, and they make you sign an arbitration contract
and then they do something wrong. And let’s say your damages are fifty dollars. So not a lot of money.
aggregated across the 25 million people or the 50 million people who use that cell phone and were
harmed in the same way. It is a lot of money. But for you, for Ricky, that amount of money, you’d have
to be crazy if you were standing by yourself to hire a lawyer to try and recover $50 and to go through
the process of filing the paperwork. You might even look at the paperwork to file an arbitration and say,
this is going to take me longer than it’s worth recovering $50 for. So forget it. I’ll just I’ll just let the
company get away with it. We said, well, if we can find 10,000 Rickys or 20,000 Rickys or 100,000 Rickys
and we’ll do all the work for them. And because the paperwork is the same for everybody, we’ll fill it out
in advance and we’ll make the same allegations because the same misconduct has been done to the
large number of people. And we will enforce these companies’ contracts to the letter against them,
oftentimes requiring them to pay the arbitration fees to initiate the arbitration and to pay the
arbitrators and to go through the process themselves of responding to 10, 20, 50, 100,000 complaints.
all of a sudden it becomes economically disadvantageous for the companies to not pay you the $50 that
you’re entitled to. So we get good results for individual consumers that they wouldn’t have been able to
achieve if they were standing by themselves because it just wouldn’t have been economically sensible.
So that’s the script that we’ve flipped on these companies starting about four or five years ago. They
obviously don’t like it and they make all sorts of noises about how we’re representing people with
frivolous claims, But they ultimately pay the consumers what they’re entitled to when they misbehave.
And I think that that is obviously appropriate. That’s what the tort system exists to achieve.
Ricky: I’m not entirely sure that an advertiser that’s 50 million dollars out of pocket would consider it a
frivolous claim. And I think the interesting thing when you’re coming up against a company the size of
Google is that people lie down and think they’re going to lose before they even start. Yeah, I’ve spoken
to countless publishers and advertisers worldwide who will say, I can’t even find a telephone number to
talk to these people. I’ve spoken to regulators around the world that don’t even have an email for these
companies because the emails they use get shut down. You know, the level of kind of a lack of
accountability is breathtaking, frankly. But now they’ve suddenly got a losing wicket. Now, suddenly
there’s a vulnerability. Now, suddenly they have to react to this stuff because of these federal court
rulings. So let’s get into a little bit of detail. I’m an advertiser today, actually. I’m an advertiser. I have
spent 50 million dollars on Google and I’ve been advertising with them for a decade. OK, and I am. So
I’ve put huge amounts of my business into this because basically digital advertising has been the only
place to advertise. And it’s basically Meta or Google. And Google’s lost the case. And so now I would like
to get some of my money back, please. Ricky Sutton PTY Limited is looking to get back some of the
money because it’s read everything in the antitrust trial. What do I do and what happens next?
Ashley: Yeah, great question. So my email address is not hidden and I won’t shut it down. So anybody
who’s in your situation can contact me. It’s A.C.K. at Keller Postman dot com. And that’s available on our
website as well. And I’d be happy to have a conversation with you. Obviously, part of the process will be sending us your advertising spend, showing the receipts. We want to make sure that the spend was on
the markets where Google has actually been an adjudicated monopolist. How much was searched?
Which periods of time? How much are we relying on the second case and Judge Brinkema’s ad tech
stack and ad exchange monopoly findings? So we would break down your spend to the relevant
windows of time over which we can recover. We would be looking closely at the judicial opinions to see
where we think we can come up with our damages model. And then we would be filing a claim for
arbitration if you wanted to proceed on your behalf.
Ricky: Well, this how far does it go back? 2016, 2017, something like that?
Ashley: Yeah, there will be arguments for longer lookbacks. But yes, that’s that’s around the window of
time.
Ricky: Right. So we’re talking about 10 years, basically, of time and ad spend, as you said. Is it limited to
just America or can global advertisers that advertises with Google in America make a claim?
Ashley: Yeah, that’s a great question as well. The antitrust laws only have a domestic reach, but
foreigners can take advantage of the domestic antitrust laws. So spending that was done in the United
States can count for sure. So the fact that you’re, you know, a Canadian corporation or that you’re
sitting in Australia, that is not a bar to you getting a recovery.
Ricky: Right. So just to understand that. And I kind of love the way that justice eventually captures even
the most sophisticated monopolist. So. Google is a American domiciled company with its tax affairs in
Ireland, with a single contract for the entire world. And if you want to come after Google in Australia,
you don’t sue Google Australia. That can’t happen. You have to sue Google in the US, Google the
business. And that’s always, again, made it very difficult for anybody to negotiate or to push back or to
limit it. But in this case, that actually works against them rather than for them, from what I’ve just heard,
because it’s Google, the global entity that in America. Is that right? Have I understood that right?
Ashley: I think you’ve understood it correctly. Yeah. So we’re going after Google, Google. So, you know,
that’s where the money is. And the fact that you’re sitting in Australia right now and you spent money
from Australia, provided that you’re trying to reach U.S. consumers and a U.S. market, they’re an
adjudicated monopolist there. You can absolutely recover your portion of those damages.
Ricky: Interesting. So. I’m sure you’re not going to give me names if you’d like to. I would love you to.
But tell me.
Ashley: I cannot. I cannot. I knew that if you sign up with me after this podcast, I won’t tell anybody that
you did either.
Ricky: It’s like it’s like it’s like your secret Brinkema decision in your bottom drawer that you’re not
sharing. So tell me the. You said a significant number of people have joined. Can you give me any kind of indication as to, you know, how what momentum this has? Because the audience of this newsletter,
there are thousands, tens of thousands of people who have been caught in this. So how big is this
momentum at the moment? Where do you think it’s going to go?
Ashley: So we have tens of thousands of clients to give you a sense of order of magnitude. I expect we
are going to get more. As I told you, it runs the gamut from small mom and pop businesses who are just
advertising locally. You have thousand dollars, a couple thousand dollars a month, maybe even a couple
thousand a year. And some companies that have spent over a billion dollars advertising on Google
during the relevant time period. So huge companies, tiny companies and everything in between.
Ricky: Actually, that’s very significant. That sounds like this is something of a howitzer of a court case
coming.
Ashley: It should be. Google has bilked a lot of advertisers, so they deserve to step forward and get
compensation for Google’s adjudicated monopolistic misbehavior.
Ricky: What’s the time frame and how has Google responded so far?
Ashley: Great question as well. I won’t go into details of Google specific responses, but I will say
arbitration is supposed to be more efficient than the judicial process. It’s supposed to go more
streamlined and more quickly. So I am optimistic that arbitrations can occur in dramatically less time
than it would take to go through the judicial process, especially since there’s already been two decisions
from federal judges that paved the way to establishing Google’s liability. Google is obviously appealing
both decisions. They’ve appealed or they’re going to be appealing in search imminently. and they are
certainly going to appeal Judge Brinkema’s decision after she issues it and finalizes the judgment,
whatever remedies she issues. And again, I promise I don’t have the decision in my drawer, but they’re
going to be going up to the Fourth and to the D.C. Circuit to try and get it reversed. I think both liability
findings are extremely well grounded and careful opinions where the appellate courts are going to be
very respectful of the fact findings made by these two excellent judges. But Google will take its appeal
rights. I think the arbitrations are potentially going to resolve even before those appeals. But you’re
talking about something in the neighborhood of 18 months, 24 months, something in that range is
pretty reasonable for arbitrations to run their course. As you know, these judicial cases can last five
years and up.
Ricky: So you have a website running where people that are interested in joining your action can put
their details in and you guys can get in touch. I’ll share that in the newsletter so people have got access
to it. I think that’s very important. What happens if Google wins its appeals?
Ashley: It depends how they win. It depends how they win. If they win by persuading the appellate
courts to narrow the remedies, I don’t think that would have much of an impact. If they win by
persuading the appellate courts that the district courts didn’t consider certain information and they should get a do-over, that doesn’t necessarily impact things very much. If they win by persuading the
appellate courts that they didn’t do it and they haven’t done anything wrong and they’re just pure as
the driven snow, that would obviously be a more challenging situation. We still could argue to the
arbitrators that, you know, with all due respect to the appellate courts, you should still find Google was
a monopolist and the arbitrators would have that authority. They don’t have to listen to what the judges
say. But as you would expect, arbitrators are going to be highly deferential to the decisions of the
appellate courts if they’re well-reasoned. So a clean win for Google would not be good for this
campaign. I am quite optimistic that the district court judges’ decisions are not going to be overruled in
that fashion. Like I said, everybody can read them for themselves. But I think that they’re well-reasoned.
They’re thorough. They carefully went through a very significant volume of evidence. And so it’s very
tough to get those kinds of findings overturned on appeal. There’s what’s called deference to the district
court fact-finding process. You don’t disturb factual findings made by the actual trial judge unless it’s
really obviously wrong. And I don’t think either decision is anywhere close to really obviously wrong. I
think they’re obviously correct.
Ricky: Yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah. Yeah. Look, as I asked that question, I suddenly thought, you
know, we should make the case that the evidence brought by or the findings brought by the judges were
incredibly detailed. They were out to tens of thousands of words. I’ve read all of it. And I don’t think that
in Australia we have this thing. It’s called the kind of the pub test. If you walked in a pub and said to
somebody, is this right? I think people would generally say, yeah, OK, I think that’s right. Yeah. OK.
Interesting. So if I’m an advertiser, what’s my next step and what do I do?
Ashley: Explore your options. Make sure that you want to actually raise your hand and come forward
and seek compensation. And then you should probably talk to an attorney. I’d love it to be us. I think we
would do a great job for you, but explore your options. You don’t have to just pick me, do your
homework, see who else does this and see who the best fit for you would be. But we’d be honored to
consider your case and see if we can represent you.
Ricky: Can I ask this last question? Lots of people are afraid of tackling a big behemoth like Google
because they fear there may be repercussions. They might be very reliant on Google for, you know,
maybe less so in advertising now as there’s more competition in the space. But they may also rely on
Google for Gmail and for Google Docs and all kinds of other stuff that sits within their business. There’s a
high probability that they have some corporate relationship with Google.
Ashley: No doubt. Yeah.
Ricky: And in this, you know, that’s another part of the monopoly, isn’t it? It’s just like a smothering
approach. It kind of like that every single bit of your world is Google, and therefore it’s very difficult to
act when you’ve been wronged against. What protections are there for people if they’re in that situation and they bring a suit? Is there a kind of whistleblower protection? That’s not the right question, but is
there a protection for them if they decide to bring a suit?
Ashley: Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s not formally like a whistleblower law or the equivalent
to that. The things that I would say are, number one, there’s safety in numbers. You are not alone if you
decide to seek this compensation. Like I said, we already represent a very significant number of clients
with a huge amount of advertising spend. So you’re not going to be tens of thousands. So you’re not
going to be sitting there by yourself with a big target on your back. Lots of other advertisers are taking
advantage of these judicial decisions as they should. The second point I would make is it would be, I
think, very foolish of Google and not consistent with how other big companies have reacted when they
are sued by their customers to say, we are going to retaliate against you and make your life more
difficult because you raised your hand to try and get compensation. That would quite arguably be
further abuse of the monopoly power that I think the district court judges would want to hear about and
the arbitrators would not take kindly to. So I obviously can’t tell any individual client that they shouldn’t
evaluate their risk and think about it carefully. But if past practice is prologue, it is not likely that Google
is going to want to alienate its customers the lifeblood of its business going forward by saying, well,
because you tried to hold us accountable for being an adjudicated monopolist, we’re going to punish
you and hurt your business. I don’t think Google is going to do that. But I’m happy to have a
conversation with anybody if they want to explore that line of reasoning further.
Ricky: Actually, we’re going to end, but I’ve been following Google and its monopoly practices going
back to the early 2000s. I was an executive in a media company. I mentioned antitrust in a meeting
there. No one even knew what it was. You know, I talked about how, you know, just them taking control
of search and then taking control of advertising and then taking control of the data that ran the
advertising. and then marking its own homework and setting its own prices and asking for details and
never being allowed to get it and then not having a phone number to ring. This was kind of a systematic
kind of 15 to 20 year increasing, very clear monopoly. And the funny thing is, and I’m interested in your
view on this, the funny thing is when I talk to investors about this, they say, well, we always want
monopolies. Monopolies are fantastic. Like that’s exactly what you want. It to last forever, but you keep
them for as long as you can with court cases and defences and everything. But once you’ve got a
monopoly, it’s wonderful for the shareholders. And for many customers, they go, it’s so efficient. I only
have one person to deal with. Everything’s terrific. I’m very happy. But then over time, the monopoly
always seems to overstep. It always, the monopoly effectively becomes like a black hole. It builds its
own gravity until it starts to collapse under its own weight. And it feels to me like after 25 years, that’s
kind of where Google got to. And it has been an amazing company, an amazing innovator, but eventually
it just couldn’t resist. And all of those thousands of people that work there, what do they call it, shaking
the cushions, putting the prices up, or manipulating this just a tiny one hundredth of a fraction of a
percent once, but across a hundred thousand people in over 10 years, becomes a terrible monopoly that people get caught And now we’re in the end game of that monopoly. Do you think that’s a fair
description of where we are?
Ashley: I think everything up until your last sentence is a fair description of where we are. I absolutely
think that Google was engaged in monopolistic misbehavior for long before they got caught. I absolutely
agree with you that the way they built this monopoly was by doing small things to a very significant
number of people. They handle trillions of auctions a day on their ad exchange and things like that. So it
only takes a fraction of a penny on each one of those things to be a monopoly overcharge to add up to a
huge amount. They did not become a $4 trillion company just because they have a superior product, just
because they’re innovators. And they are all of those things. There’s no doubt that Google was a
disruptive and positive force technology change when it first came on the scene. So I don’t have nothing
but criticism for them. I appreciate some of the innovations that they gave. And I don’t have problems
with shareholders making money and founders getting rich and all of that. The part that I don’t
necessarily agree with is that we’re in the endgame. They definitely got caught with their hands in the
cookie jar here and they should have to pay for it. But I am not sure that this monopoly is yet ready to
collapse under its own weight. I don’t necessarily see any remedies coming from the court system that’s
going to force a breakup or anything that dramatic. So that goes back to your point about a little bit of
the pessimism that people are feeling. But I do think that they are going to have to pay a real amount of
money for what they did to the people that they harmed. And they should. So I encourage people to
think about their options in that regard. But I think we’re going to be dealing with a big tech monopoly
in Google and in the others that would pass the pub test that you referenced for a little while to come. I
don’t think we have galvanized as a society, as a country, the international community to really crack
down in the way that we did when the Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted to bust up the trusts. And
until society gets to that point and says we’ve had enough, we don’t like that there’s so much
concentrated power in these handful of corporations, their monopoly power is going to stay.
Ricky: All right. Feels like we should probably stay in touch then, Ashley. Thank you ever so much for
coming on. Thank you for bringing the action.
Source:
The original interview was published by Ricky Sutton in his Future Media newsletter on April 20, 2026.
Read it here: “Advertisers launch $218 billion damages claim against Google.”
For Advertisers Considering a Claim:
Digital Ads Recovery Center exists to help advertisers evaluate and pursue claims arising from Google’s
adjudicated monopolization of search and ad tech. If you spent on Google Ads during the relevant
period and want to understand whether you have a recoverable claim, you can begin the process here https://digitaladsrecoverycenter.com/check-your-refund/ or speak directly with counsel about your
circumstances.
Disclaimer: This guide provides an educational analysis of issues relating to potential arbitration claims by advertisers against Google following the April 2025 federal court decision. It does not constitute legal advice. Companies should consult with qualified counsel to evaluate their specific circumstances and potential claims. Any estimated recovery amount or percentage is an estimate and not a guarantee. A case can settle for a much lower percentage or result in no recovery.