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My guess is there will be multiple lines of attack, but this paper[0] which was also at least implicitly referenced in the recent Congressional hearing seems ve
by themgt 6y ago
My guess is there will be multiple lines of attack, but this paper[0] which was also at least implicitly referenced in the recent Congressional hearing seems very likely to be one of them:
Approximately 86% of online display advertising space in the U.S. is bought and sold in real-time on electronic trading venues, which the industry calls "advertising exchanges." With intermediaries that route buy and sell orders, the structure of the ad market is similar to the structure of electronically traded financial markets. In advertising, a single company, Alphabet (“Google”), simultaneously operates the leading trading venue, as well as the leading intermediaries that buyers and sellers go through to trade. At the same time, Google itself is one of the largest sellers of ad space globally. This Paper explains how Google dominates advertising markets by engaging in conduct that lawmakers prohibit in other electronic trading markets: Google’s exchange shares superior trading information and speed with the Google-owned intermediaries, Google steers buy and sell orders to its exchange and websites (Search & YouTube), and Google abuses its access to inside information. In the market for electronically traded equities, we require exchanges to provide traders with fair access to data and speed, we identify and manage intermediary conflicts of interest, and we require trading disclosures to help police the market. Because ads now trade on electronic trading venues too, should we borrow these three competition principles to protect the integrity of advertising?
[0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3500919 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3500919
- victor106 6y agoThis is an awesome paper. What other resources exist to learn in detailed about how the online ad industry works?
- soared 6y agohttps://www.thetradedesk.com/edgeacademy https://www.thetradedesk.com/edgeacademy This is free for now and what everyone in this part of the industry is posting to their LinkedIn’s right now.
- victor106 6y agoThank You. Will check this out. I searched LinkedIn but could not get many hits. Any examples?
- gen220 6y agoThe deep question: > In the market for electronically traded equities, we require exchanges to provide traders with fair access to data and speed, we identify and manage intermediary conflicts of interest, and we require trading disclosures to help police the market. Because ads now trade on electronic trading venues too, should we borrow these three competition principles to protect the integrity of advertising? It boils down to: should we regulate ad exchanges like we regulate equity exchanges, such that the exchange operator (e.g. Alphabet, NYSE) cannot also be a participant in the traded assets. If you believe the answer is yes, alphabet's ad exchange should not be in the same parent company as youtube and google. Unbundling the ad exchange from alphabet's other services sounds like it would be a herculean technical nightmare! Might be easier to start from scratch (:
- jeffbee 6y agoOf all the crazy stuff that has been proposed on HN under the umbrella of "breaking up Google", excising the ad exchange might be the least technically challenging, and also one of the few that are economically practical.
- treis 6y agoI don't see how it's economically practical. How are Chrome, Gmail, Maps, et al going to be able to support themselves without the ad cash cow?
- easton 6y agoSell AdWords space just like everyone else, right? The tight integration between Search and Ads might be lost though, since they wouldn't be able to talk to each other the same way. I'd imagine that'd take a chunk out of revenue.
- treis 6y agoIs anybody making much money selling AdWords? AFAIK, the real value comes from collecting data and selling your own ads.
- tynpeddler 6y agoDo the electronic exchanges mentioned in this paper include adds sold on Facebook and product recommendations from Amazon? It's hard to believe that Facebook's add space is that much smaller than Alphabet, and if Facebook is not included in the definition of "online display advertising space", then that seems like a pretty large omission.
- benologist 6y agoNobody's saying Facebook and Amazon won't get charges too. They and Apple were all part of the same investigation. The investigators say all four companies are abusing their positions but they haven't given a lot of detail yet. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/house-antitrust-panel-to-propose-fixes-for-big-tech-dominance https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/house-ant...
- soared 6y agoYour examples have online ads but google operates in the “programmatic” space, Facebook doesn’t. Amazon has a competing product in the programmatic space but it’s not the product you’re thinking of. Companies in this space: google, the trade desk, Amazon, Verizon, at&t (Xandr), etc. Keywords to search for are ad exchange, dsp (demand side platform), ssp (supply side platform), dmp (data management platform). Googles products are dv360 and doubleclick bid manager. Facebook is way way smaller than google, amazon’s advertising unit doesn’t even compare. This also doesn’t talk about google search. When you advertise online (paid) the three channels are search, social, and programmatic.
- throwawaymanbot 6y agoFacebook also pushes the Authoritarian Agenda more readily than Sergey and gang.
- actuator 6y agoI am a bit confused, is this not applicable on FB? FB's ad revenue is now probably > 0.5 * Google's.
- bobthepanda 6y agoIt could be. The absence of news of an investigation is not proof of an absence of the investigation itself. People like to harp on equal enforcement, but equal doesn't mean simultaneous, and realistically speaking the DOJ is not some infinitely funded organization with prosecutors growing on trees.
- cblconfederate 6y agoFB is selling ads on their own properties though, no? They are not setting the prices the like for other publishers. OF course there is a case of antitrust for them , for essentially buying out the potential competition.
- soared 6y agoTo put it more simply: google owns the software you brands use to buy ads, the software publishers use to sell ads, and the marketplace in between. And they’re the #1 player for each.