Q: How long can Google drag out its appeals over break-up?

Here’s another hot take on a question that I’m getting a lot. How long will Google delay and obfuscate its break-up with legal appeals?

It’s a great question, and I have the answer. But the real answer we all want is how long with it be before the billions from Google’s break-up flow to publishers.

That’s what I’m answering today.

Now, this is kinda part two as I did a deep dive into this question yesterday if you want to read in to the numbers, the evidence, and the DoJ demands.

When will publishers see the billion-dollar benefits of Google's break-up

But the TL;DR is one word: Escrow.

The DoJ has asked the judge to force Google to put half its revenue from GAM and AdX into a locked bank account. That’s ~$11 billion.

That means every day Google delays, it loses half the revenue its earning from its ad tech stack.

That’ll hurt, upset shareholders, damage its profitability, and it has to spend $91 billion in OPEX to keep the company going.

In a world where it does not know it’s future, it needs every dollar it can get, so this escrow plan act as a stick to encourage it to get a wiggle on with its appeal.

So how long does it look like it will take?

Well, if the judge takes the DoJ’s advice and establishes a technical committee for the handover, it has been given a three-year remit.

Google might want it to go on for 10 years, but the escrow, and the technical committee mean it’s likely to be two to three years from now.

Hope that helps. Get the skinny in the video above.

And I’ll be back with more quick answers whenever your questions drop in. :)

Put them in the comments 👇 call me 🤙 or IM me in LinkedIn 💬

Let’s do this…