In today’s Digest, we cover PubMatic suing Google over its advertising monopoly, Magnite acquiring streamr.ai, and YouTube breaking its live-stream record with an NFL game. 

PubMatic sues Google over monopoly 

PubMatic has taken legal action against Google, accusing the tech giant of illegally monopolising the ad tech market and seeking billions of dollars in damages, according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit comes on the heels of an April court ruling that found Google had violated antitrust laws by monopolising ad exchanges and ad servers.

PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel said the move is about restoring fairness in the online ad market, not just compensation. He told Bloomberg that “It felt like for many years no matter how well we innovated there was a barrier holding us back. That barrier wasn’t the limits of our technology. It was Google’s illegal monopoly. Every time we adapted or innovated, Google found new ways to stack the deck.”

Magnite acquires streamr.ai 

Sell-side ad tech company Magnite has acquired streamr.ai, a platform specialising in AI tools that simplify Connected TV (CTV) advertising for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The deal  aims to unlock a growing revenue stream for CTV publishers by reducing complexity and cost barriers for SMB advertisers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Jonathan Moffie, CEO and co-founder of streamr.ai said “ Magnite shares our vision for helping small businesses grow revenue through CTV advertising, and their relationships and resources will enable us to accelerate that process.”

YouTube breaks live-stream record with NFL game

YouTube has set a new live-stream record with its exclusive broadcast of the NFL Opening Night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers which took place in São Paulo, Brazil. The platform reported a global audience of over 17.3 million average-minute-audience (AMA), including 16.2 million AMA in the US (per Nielsen) and 1.1 million AMA internationally, marking the most concurrent viewers ever for a live stream on YouTube.

YouTube reported that viewers from over 230 countries watched the NFL Opening Night live stream, highlighting the global appeal of the NFL and reinforcing YouTube’s position as a major broadcasting platform.