Former Google exec exposes ad empire's secret schemes in new book
Ari Paparo's "Yield" reveals internal Google programs like Bernanke and Poirot used to manipulate advertising markets.
A former Google executive's new book exposes the tech giant's systematic manipulation of digital advertising markets through secret internal programs designed to squeeze publishers and advertisers. Ari Paparo's "Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance," scheduled for release on August 5, 2025, documents how Google leveraged questionable tactics to cement its monopolistic position in the $700 billion digital advertising ecosystem.
According to an interview with AdMonsters published on June 12, 2025, Paparo draws from his experience attending three weeks of testimony in the US Department of Justice's landmark antitrust case against Google. The author brings unique insider perspective, having spent over two decades in the advertising technology industry including senior roles at DoubleClick as VP of Rich Media from 2004 to 2008, followed by Product Director positions at Google from 2008 to 2010 after the DoubleClick acquisition.
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Summary
Who: Ari Paparo, CEO of Marketecture Media and industry veteran with over 20 years in advertising technology, authored the book. His experience includes senior roles at DoubleClick (VP Rich Media, 2004-2008), Google (Product Director for Advertiser Products, 2008-2010), and founding Beeswax, a programmatic advertising platform acquired by Comcast for over $40 million. Paparo holds patents in advertising measurement technology and created the VAST standard for video advertising. He currently operates industry publications and podcasts through Marketecture Media while serving on boards including Vibe.co and Octane11.
What: "Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance" exposes secret internal programs like Bernanke and Poirot that Google used to manipulate advertising markets and squeeze competitors.
When: The publication is scheduled for August 5, 2025, coinciding with ongoing federal antitrust litigation against Google.
Where: The book draws from testimony in the US Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Paparo observed three weeks of proceedings.
Why: The book matters because it provides insider documentation of how Google achieved monopolistic control over digital advertising markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars, affecting publishers, advertisers, and ultimately consumers across the internet.
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Paparo's industry credentials extend beyond his Google experience. He co-founded Beeswax in 2014, building the first SaaS platform for transparent programmatic advertising that grew to over 100 employees and $40+ million in revenue before its acquisition by Comcast's FreeWheel in 2021. His technical contributions include creating the VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) standard for online video advertising, which became one of the most successful technical specifications in digital advertising through the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Currently serving as CEO of Marketecture Media, Paparo operates popular industry podcasts including Marketecture and The Brand Forum, along with websites and newsletters that cover the digital media business. His patent work includes methods for determining impressions using distributed demographic information, demonstrating his deep technical understanding of advertising measurement systems.
"They gaslit me," "They lied to me," "I felt powerless"—those sorts of conversations emerged from witness testimony, according to Paparo. The book transforms technical discussions about header bidding and auction mechanics into a human story filled with manipulation and missed opportunities that shaped the modern internet's advertising infrastructure.
Internal schemes revealed through court documents
The book details several controversial internal Google programs that operated during what Paparo calls the "hand in the cookie jar" era, approximately between 2013 and the mid-2010s. These included Project Bernanke, a scheme that allegedly manipulated ad auction prices without advertiser knowledge, and Project Poirot, which involved secretive market manipulation tactics.
According to court documents referenced in the book, Google's gTrade team modeled these programs after the company's successful Ads Quality team used to increase search advertising revenue. However, while Google owned both the buy and sell sides in search advertising, the company occupied a fundamentally different position in display advertising as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers.
"The problem is, with Search, Google owns both the buy side and the sell side, so tweaking things to increase revenue wasn't ethically complicated," Paparo explained. "But when you're sitting between an advertiser and a publisher, both of whom are supposed to be your clients, and you start changing the auction mechanics, putting your finger on the scale, that's different."
The timing of these programs coincided with Google's acquisition-driven expansion into display advertising. The company acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2008, followed by the $400 million Admeld acquisition in 2011. By 2013, Google found itself controlling the buyer, seller, and measurement functions for a significant portion of internet advertising transactions.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Market dominance through strategic acquisitions
Internal Google documents from 2015, revealed during the antitrust proceedings, show the company's dominant position in its own Ad Exchange platform. Google's Display Network won approximately 80% of mobile inventory and 60% of desktop inventory on the AdX platform, according to data shared by Google executives including Scott Spencer and David Goodman.
These internal statistics were considered sensitive enough that executives expressed reluctance to share them externally. Spencer stated that Google didn't "like to promote the percent of AdX won by GDN externally as it creates a perceived over-reliance on GDN," suggesting early awareness of potential antitrust concerns.
The book chronicles how Google's competitors struggled to match its network strategy. While companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL possessed significant owned-and-operated properties, they failed to develop comprehensive network approaches that could compete with Google's broader web monetization strategy.
"Google had a funny advantage. They didn't have any significant owned-and-operated display properties when they acquired DoubleClick," Paparo observed. YouTube remained small and advertisement-free, while Google's major products like Search and Gmail were primarily text-based. This forced Google to focus entirely on network-based advertising across the entire web.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Failed resistance from industry coalition
The book documents attempts by major technology and media companies to counter Google's growing dominance. A coalition including Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, News Corp, The Daily Mail, and Gannett coordinated efforts to resist Google's market consolidation, according to Paparo's research.
Despite this coordinated opposition from established industry players, their efforts proved insufficient to meaningfully constrain Google's advertising market expansion. Internal Facebook documents revealed during the trial showed that the social media giant considered the web advertising market unattractive specifically because "no matter what we do, we have to go through Google to get to web inventory."
This deterred Facebook's investment in web advertising, potentially preventing the emergence of a serious competitor to Google's dominance. The missed opportunity represents what Paparo describes as one of the significant "what if" scenarios that could have created more competitive markets.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Impact on journalism and content creators
The book addresses how Google's dominance affected revenue streams for online publishers, particularly news organizations and content creators dependent on digital advertising funding. By extracting approximately 20% of advertising dollars flowing through its exchange while impeding competition, Google reduced revenue available to fund digital journalism and online content creation.
However, Paparo notes that Google's ad-stack monopoly represents only part of the challenges facing journalism today. Consumer behavior shifts toward social media, mobile applications, and connected television represent more significant threats to traditional advertising-supported media models.
"The real problems for journalism today are more about consumer behavior—people moving to social, to apps, to CTV," according to the book. "That's what's eroding the traditional model. The ad-stack monopoly doesn't help, and you can make the case that journalism would be slightly better off if the ad-stack monopoly hadn't existed, but it's a secondary thing."
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Legal vindication through court proceedings
The book's release timing coincides with significant legal developments validating many of Paparo's documented concerns. On April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Google illegally monopolized digital advertising markets, violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
The court found Google maintained a 91% market share in the publisher ad server market through anticompetitive practices, charging "supracompetitive fees" while restricting competition. Judge Brinkema's 115-page ruling detailed how Google implemented features called "First Look," "Last Look," and "Unified Pricing Rules" that disadvantaged competitors and restricted publishers' revenue diversification abilities.
Private plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the court's findings through collateral estoppel motions, seeking to prevent Google from relitigating established facts about its monopolistic conduct in subsequent private lawsuits. This legal strategy could accelerate additional litigation and increase total consequences for Google's anticompetitive behavior.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Technical complexity meets human impact
Paparo wrote the book for a mainstream business audience interested in understanding how Big Tech companies achieve and maintain structural power. The narrative avoids dense technical explanations of advertising technology in favor of human stories that emerged from court testimony. His unique perspective combines insider knowledge from his roles at DoubleClick during the Google acquisition, subsequent Google employment managing buy-side platform products including DFA and DoubleClick Rich Media, and later experience building competing advertising technology through Beeswax.
The author's technical background includes roles spanning the advertising technology ecosystem. At DoubleClick, he led the rich media and video businesses from startup to over $100 million in revenue. During his Google tenure from 2008 to 2010, he headed product management for buy-side platforms and managed acquisitions including Teracent and Invite Media. His subsequent roles at Nielsen, AppNexus, and Bazaarvoice provided additional perspectives on advertising measurement, supply-side platforms, and e-commerce advertising.
"I think the story of the financialization of advertising is a bit of a cautionary tale," Paparo explained. "It's obviously a better way to buy and sell advertising than the old, traditional way, but it opened up Pandora's box. It brought the relationships between advertisers and publishers and technology to a totally different place than anyone expected."
The book presents a nuanced perspective on Google's behavior, avoiding simplistic characterizations of corporate malice. Instead, Paparo describes how technological innovation and data advantages created opportunities that may have proven too tempting to resist.
"I don't want people to walk away thinking, 'Google is a bad company' or 'Google is an evil company,' because I don't think that's what I'm saying," according to the author. "I don't think they acted entirely out of malice. They may have been a bit arrogant and made some mistakes, but it's a more nuanced conversation."
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Implications for digital advertising's future
The book's documentation of Google's practices provides context for understanding ongoing regulatory scrutiny of major technology platforms. Current remedies proceedings could result in court-ordered divestiture of key advertising technology assets, potentially reshaping the digital advertising landscape.
For marketing professionals managing campaigns across multiple platforms, Paparo's analysis offers insight into pricing variations, inventory availability patterns, and performance disparities between advertising channels. This understanding becomes particularly valuable when justifying platform choices to stakeholders or explaining campaign performance variations.
The convergence of the book's release with ongoing federal litigation creates a particularly relevant moment for understanding Google's advertising practices. Legal proceedings have validated many market concentration concerns that the book documents through insider accounts and technical analysis.
The 368-page book includes dozens of first-hand accounts, analysis of thousands of pages of court documents, and insights from Paparo's experience as an employee of many companies involved in the advertising technology ecosystem. Early reviews from industry figures including Antonio García Martínez and John Battelle praise the book's detailed examination of the intersection between data and money that continues to fund the internet.
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.
Timeline
- 2008: Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, obtaining dominant publisher ad server and ad exchange
- 2011: Google acquires Admeld, yield management tool helping publishers optimize ad network decisions
- 2013-2016: Implementation of secret projects "Bernanke," "Poirot," and "Bell" for market manipulation
- October 2020: Department of Justice files first monopolization case against Google focused on search
- January 24, 2023: US Justice Department files civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies
- September 2024: DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Google over advertising technology practices concludes after three weeks of testimony
- April 17, 2025: Eastern District of Virginia rules Google illegally monopolized digital advertising markets
- May 5, 2025: Both sides submit remedy proposals, with DOJ seeking breakup of Google's ad tech business
- June 7, 2025: Paparo announces book achieved #1 position in Amazon advertising new releases
- June 12, 2025: AdMonsters publishes interview with Paparo about "Yield" book
- June 20, 2025: First private collateral estoppel motion filed against Google based on Virginia antitrust ruling
- August 5, 2025: Scheduled publication date for "Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance"
Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance
A deeply researched insider’s account of Google’s epic two-decade campaign to dominate online advertising by any means necessary.