It's not GDPR. If anything, GDPR will help undo some of this as test cases in the EU are litigated. I think the change happened shortly after Ruth Porat was b

It's not GDPR. If anything, GDPR will help undo some of this as test cases in the EU are litigated. I think the change happened shortly after Ruth Porat was brought on and the Alphabet reorganization was announced (Larry Page wanted to retire without having that be the headline). There was clearly a change in mandate to start monetizing more aggressively and you started seeing the ad load increase across all their properties. That all happened during a lull in Google's stock price. It started trending upwards after Porat signaled to investors that all the money pits would be cut back.