17 ms·

U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

415 points by dlg 4y ago

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
https://archive.ph/vJYU2 https://archive.ph/vJYU2 I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? In fact, perhaps more recently Facebook/Meta has chipped into that market more than how things were 8-10 years ago. I was part of an acquisition that Google made in the ad-tech industry back in 2011 and there was a months long DOJ investigation before approving the purchase. The conclusion was it would not harm competition. Within less than two years our product was eliminated or folded into Google's and the staff scattered to the wind (inside and outside Google), and our customers became Google's customers. They've been doing this forever, back to DoubleClick, etc. Is this timing connected in any way with layoff announcements? Or a general push by the Biden admin generally? Not American, so not as informed about the ins and outs, and genuinely curious.
- MBCook 4y ago
  As an American it may just be attitudes. The last two administrations didn’t do much to Google, Democrat or Republican. But the idea of big tech being a wonder that unequivocally makes life better and doesn’t need oversight seems to be falling apart. Both for good (privacy) and bad (‘kill section 230!’) reasons.
  - xvector 4y ago
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    - notTechbut 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - xvector 4y ago
        It's not entitled at all. How much of the world literally runs on technology developed by tech workers? From being able to call your family from anywhere in the world to the most critical systems, tech workers are the reason that quality of life is so much better today than it was, say, pre-internet. The affordances provided by the smartphone alone are an example of this. How is this not obvious proof that tech workers have fundamentally changed the world and improved QoL?
        okCompewtr 4y ago
        Tech is part of a web of industries that provide to each other. What phones without the rare Earth metals a traditional combustion machine digs up? As far as you or I go specifically, reality does not need either of us to actually exist. Plenty of folks still around without the two of us. For numerous health metrics a slower pre-internet life was healthier. All the technological churn has had long lived impact on environment that will make life worse in the future. Keep cherry picking.
        nickpp 4y ago
        > will make life worse in the future We've been burning hydrocarbons to keep warm and move around long before tech. But the future of energy (and thus of our civilization) will come from tech, not from looking back at burning wood and whale oil. See renewables, fusion and even nuclear.
        okCompewtr 4y ago
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      - throwaway589275 4y ago
        This. And god forbid you suggest on HN that it's OK if Google and other tech megacaps are actually run for the collective benefit of their stockholders, which besides current and former employees, includes practically every American with a retirement account, including those not fortunate enough to win the FAANG lottery. Expect downvotes and flags, presumably from those who seriously believe Google should just keep paying people $300k a year indefinitely, despite perceived underperformance.
    - lovich 4y ago
      When goods and services become commodities humans always take them for granted because they can be. We don’t ooh and ahh over high grade steel or steam engines anymore even though they would have been revolutionary 400 years ago. Big tech got past their novelty phase and now people want more improvements. It’s how our economic system works
- kirbyfan64sos 4y ago
  Afaik it's more of a general push by the new heads of the FTC & DoJ's antitrust division.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Progress has been slow, but dealing with Google is a completely bipartisan issue. We've moved really far: A few years ago, the FTC was chaired by a guy who wrote Google-funded studies claiming Google's monopoly was good, and Google reps visited the White House some 400 times during the Obama administration. The revolving door between Google and the federal government didn't stop turning for several years straight. Now both parties see the threat (albeit for differing reasons), but the federal government needs a lot of time to build a case like this, and Google is extremely adept at stalling for time. During the EU investigation, Google waited every deadline to the final day, then asking for more time multiple times, and then finally on the last possible extension day tor respond would come back with a bull~~~~ one page "we don't think we broke this law" statement. They know the fine won't be nearly as big as the profits so they're running out the clock as long as possible. Every lawyer there knows they're crooks.
- joshenberg 4y ago
  The administration change indeed has a lot to do with this. New chairs at the FCC (Rosenworcel) and FTC (Sohn) have a much more antitrust bent than in the past. The layoff announcements are connected if you take it that M&A in big tech has been out of control for years, but it's tangential.
  - basch 4y ago
    Sohn is FCC. Khan is FTC.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      No, Lina Khan is the new chair of the FTC under Biden, Bedoya is the most-recently appointed Commissioner, but not the Chair.
- basch 4y ago
  In 2017, Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. It said everyone was getting antitrust wrong, and there were other ways giant conglomerates were harming competition. Traditionally, unless the consumer was harmed through short term price fixing, just about anything was allowed to fly. The paper took the legal world by storm, and two years ago, she was nominated, confirmed, and appointed as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. So largely, someone new, with new ideas, took over a regulatory body that has been coasting along on its lorals. The FTC will now behave non-traditionally, disregarding what has been a very consistent school of thought (defined by Yale Law School professor Robert Bork and University of Chicago Law School professors Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook) since the 1977 Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania Supreme Court Case redefined the Judicial Systems perspective on anti-trust, neutering the Sherman Act. In 1978 Robert Bork wrote the book The Antitrust Paradox and Richard Posner wrote Antitrust Law, summarizing the previous decades shift in attitude towards government intervention in the marketplace. Khan believes the those three people influenced the government to become too lenient and hands-off, when it should have been doing more to protect the marketplace from harmful entities that threaten competitiveness. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
  - rockinghigh 4y ago
    Interesting story. By the way, the phrase is "resting on its laurels".
    - basch 4y ago
      Said phrase was coined intentionally. It was a purposeful allusion of sorts to the idiom. Resting to me meant inaction. Conversely, the FTC appears to still analyze things for antitrust, but was doing so through an outdated framework. Lorals means "pertaining to lore." I meant it to mean that Bork and Co had created an unquestionable mythology around what anti-trust was. Blasphemists were ignored and discarded. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/loral#:~:text=%C3%97-,loral%20in%20American%20English,lore%2C%20knowledge%2C%20learning%2C%20etc https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lora... So, new idiom minted. Maybe someday it can make it into the dictionary, and cite this post. Coasting on your lorals = on auto-pilot, not questioning what put you on your trajectory, complacent enough to keep the flight path and speed. Tangently related to: appeal to tradition, argumentum ad antiquitatem, argumentum ad antiquitam, appeal to antiquity, and appeal to common practice.
- ajross 4y ago
  > I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? As the article points out, "preventing monopolies" is not the prima facie goal of antitrust law as traditionally interpreted. Monopolies are bad because of their effects on the market (e.g. they can raise prices higher than a competitive market would allow), not because of their "monopoliness". There is a somewhat confusing quote in the article that implies that the DOJ is filing this suite in an attempt to get higher courts to revisit that standard. But then it finishes the paragraph with "put corporate America on notice", and I genuinely don't know whether that was the intent of the quoted prosecutor or not. This angle would be really big news if so, but... it seems poorly sourced. (Full disclosure: I work at Google, but nowhere near advertising.)
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    The US has, for maybe 30 years or so, looked past the traditional trust busting intention of anti-trust (hey, it's in the name!) laws - preventing monopolies. The more modern interpretation has basically been "monopolies are ok if it lowers consumer prices", which sort of never made sense. Once you finish strangling all your competition, wouldn't you then raise prices? And then what, the government lets them do that until some vague line in the sand is crossed and we then actually enforce the law? There are issues on the other side too - monopsony, where a company is so big they are the only nature buyer. You get this with Walmart being able to disproportionately squeeze their suppliers. You have this problem in labor markets sometimes because who else are you going to work for if your employer is super sized? Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window.
    - ajross 4y ago
      > Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window. Right, that's what the article is trying to imply. But it doesn't have a quote that actually says it, so I'm saying this is pretty thin. There are a lot of people (clearly including you) who would like to see antitrust law revisited in the courts. I just don't see it from this article.
- deleted 4y ago
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- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Yes, there is a general push by the Biden administration to beef up antitrust enforcement, including in tech. That's why you see this lawsuit, which you are right wouldn't have happened under former administrations. "there was a months long DOJ investigation before approving the purchase. The conclusion was it would not harm competition." And they were wrong, right? I am not a pro-Biden sort of person (I consider myself to the left of Biden, by a wide margin), but the antitrust direction is encouraging. And hopefully will get some things done before he is out of office... we'll see. > In a July 2021 executive order, President Joe Biden articulated the administration’s broad antitrust policy. That order instructed the antitrust agencies to increase enforcement to prevent a rise in consumer prices and competitive harm in labor markets, and preserve nascent competition. Additionally, in what the order calls a “whole-of-government competition policy,” it charged more than a dozen other agencies to protect competition using their authority under a range of statutes. — "Biden’s Broad Mandate Has Altered the Antitrust Landscape, Making Merger Clearance Process Less Predictable" https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2022/01/2022-insights/regulation-enforcement-and-investigations/bidens-broad-mandate-has-altered-the-antitrust-landscape https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2022/01/2022-i... That essay happens to be from from a corporate perspective that does not like that the administration has made mergers "less predictable"! I approve of making monopolistic mergers harder, but it's interesting to see it covered from the opposite bias. You can google for more, but another source, a brief American Bar Association update: > Biden administration steps up antitrust enforcement: Antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration is about o change, according to Timothy Wu, who played a key role in the executive order President Joe Biden signed in July aimed at limiting corporate dominance and making American businesses more competitive... > Wu serves as the Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy, National Economic Council. He is a key figure on the White House Competition Council, which was created in Biden’s executive order to bring a whole-of-the government enforcement effort to promote competition in the U.S. economy. https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2021/11/antitrust-enforcement/ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... In addition to the July 2021 memo, it can see in who he has chosen as appointees to key roles -- various people who have been pushing for stronger antitrust enforcement and new legal theories: "Biden’s Antitrust Team Signals a Big Swing at Corporate Titans" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/business/biden-antitrust-amazon-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/business/biden-antitrust-...
- notTechbut 4y ago
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- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Update on my own comment here as a reply: I read the actual legal document, and it specifically calls out the aquisition of my former employer (AdMeld) by Google as one of the key anti-competitive moves Google made in the display ads space. So that's interesting.
tempnow987 4y ago
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bkishan 4y ago
Ah yes, another case that will likely just end in a $xxxM fine.
- deleted 4y ago
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- jquery 4y ago
  Depends on who America elects at the conclusion of the case (see: Microsoft vs Ma Bell)
jeffbee 4y ago
It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.
- sneak 4y ago
  Last mile internet access is a pretty big must-have, as well.
- deleted 4y ago
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- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
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  - jimbob45 4y ago
    I don't think "whataboutism" is valid criticism when resources are limited.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      I think the point was priorities, not to distract from this.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Resources aren't too limited to pursue the listed things simultaneously, which is demobstrated by the fact that government actually is pursuing them. Which, to be fair, makes this not just “whataboutism” (which it still is) but more critically deliberate misrepresentation.
      - deleted 4y ago
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  - jeffbee 4y ago
omgomgomgomg 4y ago
I was neutral on google, they seem to be very low key, so they fly under the radar. Then I started to see their little ads tricks and the story on how they "acquired" google maps aka terra vision and yes , wouldnt put it beyond them to use every trick in the book they can get away with.
- magicalist 4y ago
  > on how they "acquiered" google maps aka terra vision I think you're thinking of Google Earth, and wasn't that story made up for a movie? edit: wiki says[1] there actually was a lawsuit the miniseries was based on, but the accuser lost because they had actually taken someone else's ideas for Terravision and then turned around and patented it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Other_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Other_concerns
  - omgomgomgomg 4y ago
    I would not say it was made up, though. Google engaged im negotiations to buy the patents. And the software was presented in kioto in 1994, way before anyone else.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  That mockumentary is full of shit if you read more on the case law and what actually happened. Don’t worry, I felt made a fool of after watching too. The producers of Billion Dollar Code are weak for doing what they did, even if it makes the story better.
  - omgomgomgomg 4y ago
    Well, the chronology of events does not do Google or any of the film critics any favors. The German group presented the app at Kyoto, before anyone else did. It appears at least to zooming tech was borrowed by google. Google won in court, based on hearsay and date of patents. I have to add, I have not even watched the movie, so my view should not be distorted, but I will give myself the unfiltered "based on a true story" as soon as I can.
oars 4y ago
Is this perhaps why Google has yet to respond to ChatGPT with their own version yet? In order for "competition" to be demonstrated as evidence against monopoly claims. Similar to Google paying Mozilla Firefox $400m+ per year or otherwise Chrome would be the only dominant browser on the market and scrutinized much more.
- whatcd 4y ago
  LaMDA is in the works, yet to be released to compete against ChatGPT
LatteLazy 4y ago
If we get the price of advertising down, we can have twice as much to keep revenue flat. Then we can take the money and use it for dividends instead of services like gmail and because that's how competitive businesses have to operate. This world will be much better than having a benign monopolist /s
- deleted 4y ago
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imchillyb 4y ago
Did the judiciary just wake up from a coma?
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
  The judiciary doesn't bring allegations... that's they adjudicate them. The DoJ or similar has to bring them.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  No, Biden just put an actual progressive in charge. Khan is one of his best appointments.
SnowHill9902 4y ago
Don’t fall or people will stomp on you.
- echelon 4y ago
  This was coming one way or another. AI's threat to Google search is merely icing on the cake. Google has deserved this for a long time coming. AMP, Chrome, removal of ad blocking, defaulting to Google on Chrome and Android, strong arming of web standards...
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Oh no, there's a default web browser on Android? Jeez, that's seriously abusive. I am sure that consumers hate that.
    - pfarrell 4y ago
      Microsoft's anti-trust case was around just this kind of behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        That is too reductive. U.S. v. Microsoft was all about how Microsoft had strong-armed O.E.M.s into not shipping anyone else's browser. That's not the same as having a default browser.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. The major case was more about MS forcing OEMs to buy licenses for Windows whether the computers shipped with Windows or not.
        danaris 4y ago
        > And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. But that has much less to do with the merits of the case, and much more to do with the fact that just before any action could be taken, George W Bush was elected president and began our current trajectory toward unbridled corporate governance of America.
mike10921 4y ago
Will likely result in some sum of x millions in fines. This will make zero difference in Google's control over search and anything related. We all seen this movie multiple times and end is always the same..
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Not for an antitrust lawsuit. The remedy for antitrust is divestiture; if found guilty and the judge assigns that penalty, Google can't just pay their way out of it; they'd have to shut down / slice off into an independent company (probably) DoubleClick and some other acquisitions. Think less "EU fair practices violations" and more "Ma Bell breakup." The difference is that the EU lacks criminal authority (or jurisdiction or, like, an army to extrajudicially invade the United States) to jail Sundar Pichai, but the US absolutely could if the company is found to be an illegal trust and he fails to take steps to remedy the situation.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    What does a divestiture of Google’s ad business when their entire business is selling ads?
    - ivalm 4y ago
      They sell in several vertices, they can start by separating them (eg youtube ads, gmails ads, search result ads, ads on 3rd party websites)
    - neon_electro 4y ago
      Maybe Google can keep the ads and divest the products? It's a great hypothetical question you ask that I'd love to see more discussion of.
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        Google's ad space is far more valuable than its cut in ads, I'm pretty sure. But in any case if it's anything like the breakup of Ma Bell, stockholders would wind up with separate shares of both 1) the products and 2) the ads. Which one calls itself "Google" is just branding. (Although obviously the search engine would keep the brand.)
jonas21 4y ago
Ah, great! Maybe this will finally break up Google's monopoly and make ads cheaper and affordable to everyone who wants to run them.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Agreed. This would be an excellent opportunity to see even more ads online.
- nvrmnd 4y ago
  Joking aside, what this could mean is a larger percentage of ad revenue shared with smaller publishers (website and mobile apps). The current situation is not entirely unlike the app-store cut these companies take.
- whitemary 4y ago
  Unlikely. Such "accusations" are so commonly in the news for the purpose of distracting from the lack of consequences. These reports give a passing appearance of responsible enforcement that almost never actually comes.
thehappypm 4y ago
Google 2021 revenue: $258B Meta 2021 revenue: $118B Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league?
- okamiueru 4y ago
  In every article about abusive "monopolies", just read it as "abusing market position".
  - basch 4y ago
    To be fair, and I don't agree with this, the word monopoly appears in the complaint 66 times. The NYT is reporting the story, but the FTC is the one "misusing" the word. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1.0_2.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
    - okamiueru 4y ago
      I'm just trying to help out here. I don't disagree with you, but it gets tiring that every single time some market position is abused, and the word "monopoly" gets used, there is at least one pedantic getting hung up on the "mono" part. Android/iOS market share? Duopoly really. Call it a monopoly? "How is it a monopoly when..." What they mean. What is always meant, is, you have a market position so significant, that you can use to get an unfair advantage on competition. That's what this is about, that is what all of these usually are about. But, it gets sidetracked by misuse of words that should be understood from context. Antitrust, isn't exclusively about monopolies abusing their market position. It doesn't care that much about whether it is one actor abusing it's position, or if it's two... Or three.
      - basch 4y ago
        But this new paradigm of antitrust isn’t about if there’s one two or three of something. It’s a more complex form of antitrust. The Amazon antitrust paradox is about how they aren’t a market leader in tons of their product categories but that they can cross leverage advantages between product categories and verticals to create anticompetitiveness. It’s an analysis of the internal structure of the business, not if they have competition in a narrow subset of outcomes. Monopoly is being used as a substitute for the words bad actor or predatory not duopoly etc. IMHO it’s sloppiness and jargon to invoke emotion, and I’d prefer they used more precise words.
xxpor 4y ago
One of the conservative's legal project over the past 50 years main goals has been to maintain a Borkian consumer harm standard for anti-trust. With the current SCOTUS, I don't see much of a realistic path for this.
- debacle 4y ago
  This isn't a liberal/conservative issue. This is a corporatism issue.
  - xxpor 4y ago
    Agreed on the general point, but it's undeniable that corporatism has used conservative politics as the means to the end they desire. See also: every culture war, the fact that the only thing Republicans can agree on are court appointees and tax cuts.
    - debacle 4y ago
      I don't think you understand the US political system in a nuanced or realistic fashion.
      - decremental 4y ago
        This could be an accurate auto-response to just about any comment on these types of threads.
      - xxpor 4y ago
        This is impossible to respond to without a point to argue against. IM-not-so-HO, I have fantastic understanding of the political system.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    Right, and the current court is unusually pro-corporate: https://www.axios.com/2022/08/04/supreme-court-john-roberts-business https://www.axios.com/2022/08/04/supreme-court-john-roberts-.... And although it's not necessarily a liberal vs. conservative issue, it would be deceptive not to point out that this is entirely because of the Republican justices.
dekhn 4y ago
I'm less concerned about Google Ad market share and more concerned with their placement of Google properties above competitors on the search results page (IE, Google Reviews over Yelp, or airline prices, etc).
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads. All these searches are subsidized by someone googling "flights to new york" and booking a flight right there. Google provides an immense public good with free (and mostly ad-free) results to all kinds of questions, which other flight search engines do not. Imagine: A flight search engine as a marketing gimick starts a web search engine, and shows flight results if someone searches for "flights to ...". Seems like a good thing, no? It seems like no other flight search engine would have a right to complain about unfair competition here.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    > For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads Do you have a citation for this? All I could find was that about 5% of searches end up with an ad click, but surely that means they need to show ads on way more than 5% of searches. I stopped using Google search quite a long time ago. I'm pretty sure it was heavy on ads for most search queries.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    Dunno about you, but if I search "SFO to NYC", the entire first page (after the Google Flights "onebox") is relevant results and they're not ads- but they effectively are- they're search results that include prices. scrolling down further I see 'sponsored results' (IIUC those are ads inline with the search results).
    - amadeuspagel 4y ago
      This google flights "onebox" is what I'm talking about here, and what I assume the parent comment refered to.
emodendroket 4y ago
I'm kind of sour on antitrust as much of a solution for today's issues. If we had five smaller Googles doing the same thing what would that make better?
- booleandilemma 4y ago
  They wouldn't be smaller Googles, they'd be different companies altogether, with their own practices and work cultures. They'd have less bureaucracy, which might help them to innovate and move faster, and in different directions from each other.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    In absolute terms more bureaucracy is required now because they must all duplicate administration that they can currently share.
    - dannyr 4y ago
      Would you rather have McDonalds and Burger King operating all restaurants instead of having millions of small restaurants?
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        Interesting example since I’d bet a majority of independent restaurants are sourcing the ingredients from Sysco. Anyway, restaurants, maybe not, but I usually prefer dealing with large companies because they are more reliable.
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Might be easier to get someone on the phone for support, one corp also wouldn't have all that profit sloshing around to go and unfairly dominate other markets.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  Forcing, say, the Google OS (Android/Chromebook) and Browser business to justify its existence independent of the ad-selling business, and YouTube to justify its video-hosting existence independent of the other two would certainly dramatically modify the landscape for all three.
fiat_fandango 4y ago
When you're building campuses that resemble theme parks more than offices I think it's time to let the FTC take a peak. Meta is in a similar position IMO.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > campuses that resemble theme parks Good choice of words. I worked there, and in the summer, there were so many visiting groups of people that "theme park" was the very phrase I thought of.
- kart23 4y ago
  epic hq is literally a theme park
olliej 4y ago
Almost like allowing them to buy their only actual competitor had exactly the outcome anyone with half a brain cell could have predicted.
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.ph/vJYU2 https://archive.ph/vJYU2
pxc 4y ago
'Abusing', huh? As though we can expect to see benign monopolies as a norm. Bizarre turn of phrase.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Well, getting a monopoly for competitive reasons and not abusing it in any way is perfectly legal, whatever odds are there if it happening. The government only gets involved when there is some abuse.
  - pxc 4y ago
    Just because the courts pretend not to understand that power corrupts doesn't mean journalists have to.
impulser_ 4y ago
I'm guessing the worst case is they are forced to sell off the exchange side of the Ads business, which isn't that much revenue compared to the revenue they make selling ad space. This is probably going to have a lot less effect than what people are assuming it will have. Google and Facebook have never had more competition in the Ad space. Apple and Amazon are building big Ad businesses fast. That's not the problem. The problem is they play both sides of the market and they dominate both sides of the market. Therefore they have a lot of pricing power. This isn't the reason they are making 100s of billions a year. The reason they are making that amount is because they are the best at what they do and you can't find the service they provide any where else except Facebook and Google.
- strongpigeon 4y ago
  I agree with your take. Most likely they’ll be forced to divest from the Ads Exchange business which won’t affect them materially. It would open up some possibilities for actors in that space to shift the balance of (pricing) power a bit, but I’m unsure the impact will be huge. All the big new advertising platforms tend to own their whole stack like you mentioned (Amazon, Apple) and for good reasons.
  - frozenlettuce 4y ago
    I believe that not controlling the exchange will affect them materially. Not because of the exchange's profits, but because of the data that it provides that lets Google optimize their campaigns (giving it an unfair advantage, as the competition has no access to this data).
- ricardo81 4y ago
  >This isn't the reason they are making 100s of billions a year. I do believe that the 're-targeting' Google can afford by having their assets on the majority of sites helps them maximise CPM, which would certainly be a problem for any alternate search engine who isn't interested in tracking people around the web/net. I can't remember specific figures but noted in the UK CMA report that Google generally makes twice as much as Bing on search ads (and worth bearing in mind that much of the rest of the entrants are essentially Bing meta search engines in the West) But I agree they're certainly considered the best at search in many ways, though the increased CPM they make allows them to be made the default search engine of choice on most devices. Becomes a bit of a chicken and egg problem when the most prominent search engine can reinforce its position as one.
strongpigeon 4y ago
I think it’s worth saying for people not too familiar with the space that this is specifically about Display and Video ads on third party websites. The lawsuit is about how Google managed to get in the entire stack (publisher, exchange and (less importantly for the lawsuit) buy side) and (according to the plaintiffs) abused their positions. I’d really encourage people read the lawsuit. It’s long, but most of the reporting on it seems to be way too superficial and leads to people saying things like “they should split YouTube and Google search”, which really has nothing to do with the complaint…
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  To be fair, while that has nothing to do with the complaint: mannnn they really should. Insert MS comparison and a comment on how the US seems to not have the power to do anything more than wag their finger at anti-trust here.
- cldellow 4y ago
  Link to complaint: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1563746/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1563746/downl...
- ricardo81 4y ago
  I CTRL+F'ed for Doubleclick, where possibly much of it started.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
  Text-only, no PDF needed: curl https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-states-v-google-llc/ \ |sed '1,/div id=\"opinion-content\">/d;/<pre>/s//<meta charset=utf-8 \/>&/;/<\/pre>/,$d' > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-states-v-google-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-state...
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    You can cut out the middleman and pipe directly to less(1) (or your preferred pager). Or feed the courtlistener.com URL directly to w3m or another text-mode browser.
chatterhead 4y ago
Sounds like a strategic way for Google to exit a business they aren't making much money on without spooking investors with fresh revenue concerns as AI ramps up as a potential replacement. Not that it will. I'll die before I let AI be used for advertising.
skybrian 4y ago
As a consumer, I'm wondering if it would be better for me if ads were more or less expensive. Maybe more expensive would be better? Would it be good if they were taxed, or there were minimum prices that websites could charge advertisers? Also, is Google's ad tech or third-party ad tech better from a privacy point of view? A lot of people distrust Google, but why would they trust no-name third-party ad tech any more? Are there any online advertising companies that have a better track record on privacy? It seems the anti-trust framework doesn't map very well to consumer concerns about advertising.
pr337h4m 4y ago
Google never coerced anyone into buying their ads ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

415 points by dlg 4y ago

https://archive.ph/vJYU2 https://archive.ph/vJYU2 I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? In fact, perhaps more recently Facebook/Meta has chipped into that market more than how things were 8-10 years ago. I was part of an acquisition that Google made in the ad-tech industry back in 2011 and there was a months long DOJ investigation before approving the purchase. The conclusion was it would not harm competition. Within less than two years our product was eliminated or folded into Google's and the staff scattered to the wind (inside and outside Google), and our customers became Google's customers. They've been doing this forever, back to DoubleClick, etc. Is this timing connected in any way with layoff announcements? Or a general push by the Biden admin generally? Not American, so not as informed about the ins and outs, and genuinely curious.

MBCook 4y ago
As an American it may just be attitudes. The last two administrations didn’t do much to Google, Democrat or Republican. But the idea of big tech being a wonder that unequivocally makes life better and doesn’t need oversight seems to be falling apart. Both for good (privacy) and bad (‘kill section 230!’) reasons.
- xvector 4y ago
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  - notTechbut 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - xvector 4y ago
      It's not entitled at all. How much of the world literally runs on technology developed by tech workers? From being able to call your family from anywhere in the world to the most critical systems, tech workers are the reason that quality of life is so much better today than it was, say, pre-internet. The affordances provided by the smartphone alone are an example of this. How is this not obvious proof that tech workers have fundamentally changed the world and improved QoL?
      - okCompewtr 4y ago
        Tech is part of a web of industries that provide to each other. What phones without the rare Earth metals a traditional combustion machine digs up? As far as you or I go specifically, reality does not need either of us to actually exist. Plenty of folks still around without the two of us. For numerous health metrics a slower pre-internet life was healthier. All the technological churn has had long lived impact on environment that will make life worse in the future. Keep cherry picking.
        nickpp 4y ago
        > will make life worse in the future We've been burning hydrocarbons to keep warm and move around long before tech. But the future of energy (and thus of our civilization) will come from tech, not from looking back at burning wood and whale oil. See renewables, fusion and even nuclear.
        okCompewtr 4y ago
        [flagged]
    - throwaway589275 4y ago
      This. And god forbid you suggest on HN that it's OK if Google and other tech megacaps are actually run for the collective benefit of their stockholders, which besides current and former employees, includes practically every American with a retirement account, including those not fortunate enough to win the FAANG lottery. Expect downvotes and flags, presumably from those who seriously believe Google should just keep paying people $300k a year indefinitely, despite perceived underperformance.
  - lovich 4y ago
    When goods and services become commodities humans always take them for granted because they can be. We don’t ooh and ahh over high grade steel or steam engines anymore even though they would have been revolutionary 400 years ago. Big tech got past their novelty phase and now people want more improvements. It’s how our economic system works
kirbyfan64sos 4y ago
Afaik it's more of a general push by the new heads of the FTC & DoJ's antitrust division.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Progress has been slow, but dealing with Google is a completely bipartisan issue. We've moved really far: A few years ago, the FTC was chaired by a guy who wrote Google-funded studies claiming Google's monopoly was good, and Google reps visited the White House some 400 times during the Obama administration. The revolving door between Google and the federal government didn't stop turning for several years straight. Now both parties see the threat (albeit for differing reasons), but the federal government needs a lot of time to build a case like this, and Google is extremely adept at stalling for time. During the EU investigation, Google waited every deadline to the final day, then asking for more time multiple times, and then finally on the last possible extension day tor respond would come back with a bull~~~~ one page "we don't think we broke this law" statement. They know the fine won't be nearly as big as the profits so they're running out the clock as long as possible. Every lawyer there knows they're crooks.
joshenberg 4y ago
The administration change indeed has a lot to do with this. New chairs at the FCC (Rosenworcel) and FTC (Sohn) have a much more antitrust bent than in the past. The layoff announcements are connected if you take it that M&A in big tech has been out of control for years, but it's tangential.
- basch 4y ago
  Sohn is FCC. Khan is FTC.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    No, Lina Khan is the new chair of the FTC under Biden, Bedoya is the most-recently appointed Commissioner, but not the Chair.
basch 4y ago
In 2017, Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. It said everyone was getting antitrust wrong, and there were other ways giant conglomerates were harming competition. Traditionally, unless the consumer was harmed through short term price fixing, just about anything was allowed to fly. The paper took the legal world by storm, and two years ago, she was nominated, confirmed, and appointed as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. So largely, someone new, with new ideas, took over a regulatory body that has been coasting along on its lorals. The FTC will now behave non-traditionally, disregarding what has been a very consistent school of thought (defined by Yale Law School professor Robert Bork and University of Chicago Law School professors Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook) since the 1977 Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania Supreme Court Case redefined the Judicial Systems perspective on anti-trust, neutering the Sherman Act. In 1978 Robert Bork wrote the book The Antitrust Paradox and Richard Posner wrote Antitrust Law, summarizing the previous decades shift in attitude towards government intervention in the marketplace. Khan believes the those three people influenced the government to become too lenient and hands-off, when it should have been doing more to protect the marketplace from harmful entities that threaten competitiveness. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
- rockinghigh 4y ago
  Interesting story. By the way, the phrase is "resting on its laurels".
  - basch 4y ago
    Said phrase was coined intentionally. It was a purposeful allusion of sorts to the idiom. Resting to me meant inaction. Conversely, the FTC appears to still analyze things for antitrust, but was doing so through an outdated framework. Lorals means "pertaining to lore." I meant it to mean that Bork and Co had created an unquestionable mythology around what anti-trust was. Blasphemists were ignored and discarded. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/loral#:~:text=%C3%97-,loral%20in%20American%20English,lore%2C%20knowledge%2C%20learning%2C%20etc https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lora... So, new idiom minted. Maybe someday it can make it into the dictionary, and cite this post. Coasting on your lorals = on auto-pilot, not questioning what put you on your trajectory, complacent enough to keep the flight path and speed. Tangently related to: appeal to tradition, argumentum ad antiquitatem, argumentum ad antiquitam, appeal to antiquity, and appeal to common practice.
ajross 4y ago
> I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? As the article points out, "preventing monopolies" is not the prima facie goal of antitrust law as traditionally interpreted. Monopolies are bad because of their effects on the market (e.g. they can raise prices higher than a competitive market would allow), not because of their "monopoliness". There is a somewhat confusing quote in the article that implies that the DOJ is filing this suite in an attempt to get higher courts to revisit that standard. But then it finishes the paragraph with "put corporate America on notice", and I genuinely don't know whether that was the intent of the quoted prosecutor or not. This angle would be really big news if so, but... it seems poorly sourced. (Full disclosure: I work at Google, but nowhere near advertising.)
- steveBK123 4y ago
  The US has, for maybe 30 years or so, looked past the traditional trust busting intention of anti-trust (hey, it's in the name!) laws - preventing monopolies. The more modern interpretation has basically been "monopolies are ok if it lowers consumer prices", which sort of never made sense. Once you finish strangling all your competition, wouldn't you then raise prices? And then what, the government lets them do that until some vague line in the sand is crossed and we then actually enforce the law? There are issues on the other side too - monopsony, where a company is so big they are the only nature buyer. You get this with Walmart being able to disproportionately squeeze their suppliers. You have this problem in labor markets sometimes because who else are you going to work for if your employer is super sized? Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window.
  - ajross 4y ago
    > Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window. Right, that's what the article is trying to imply. But it doesn't have a quote that actually says it, so I'm saying this is pretty thin. There are a lot of people (clearly including you) who would like to see antitrust law revisited in the courts. I just don't see it from this article.
deleted 4y ago
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jrochkind1 4y ago
Yes, there is a general push by the Biden administration to beef up antitrust enforcement, including in tech. That's why you see this lawsuit, which you are right wouldn't have happened under former administrations. "there was a months long DOJ investigation before approving the purchase. The conclusion was it would not harm competition." And they were wrong, right? I am not a pro-Biden sort of person (I consider myself to the left of Biden, by a wide margin), but the antitrust direction is encouraging. And hopefully will get some things done before he is out of office... we'll see. > In a July 2021 executive order, President Joe Biden articulated the administration’s broad antitrust policy. That order instructed the antitrust agencies to increase enforcement to prevent a rise in consumer prices and competitive harm in labor markets, and preserve nascent competition. Additionally, in what the order calls a “whole-of-government competition policy,” it charged more than a dozen other agencies to protect competition using their authority under a range of statutes. — "Biden’s Broad Mandate Has Altered the Antitrust Landscape, Making Merger Clearance Process Less Predictable" https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2022/01/2022-insights/regulation-enforcement-and-investigations/bidens-broad-mandate-has-altered-the-antitrust-landscape https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2022/01/2022-i... That essay happens to be from from a corporate perspective that does not like that the administration has made mergers "less predictable"! I approve of making monopolistic mergers harder, but it's interesting to see it covered from the opposite bias. You can google for more, but another source, a brief American Bar Association update: > Biden administration steps up antitrust enforcement: Antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration is about o change, according to Timothy Wu, who played a key role in the executive order President Joe Biden signed in July aimed at limiting corporate dominance and making American businesses more competitive... > Wu serves as the Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy, National Economic Council. He is a key figure on the White House Competition Council, which was created in Biden’s executive order to bring a whole-of-the government enforcement effort to promote competition in the U.S. economy. https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2021/11/antitrust-enforcement/ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... In addition to the July 2021 memo, it can see in who he has chosen as appointees to key roles -- various people who have been pushing for stronger antitrust enforcement and new legal theories: "Biden’s Antitrust Team Signals a Big Swing at Corporate Titans" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/business/biden-antitrust-amazon-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/business/biden-antitrust-...
notTechbut 4y ago
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cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Update on my own comment here as a reply: I read the actual legal document, and it specifically calls out the aquisition of my former employer (AdMeld) by Google as one of the key anti-competitive moves Google made in the display ads space. So that's interesting.

tempnow987 4y ago

[flagged]

bkishan 4y ago

Ah yes, another case that will likely just end in a $xxxM fine.

deleted 4y ago
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jquery 4y ago
Depends on who America elects at the conclusion of the case (see: Microsoft vs Ma Bell)

jeffbee 4y ago

It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.

sneak 4y ago
Last mile internet access is a pretty big must-have, as well.
deleted 4y ago
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ocdtrekkie 4y ago
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- jimbob45 4y ago
  I don't think "whataboutism" is valid criticism when resources are limited.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    I think the point was priorities, not to distract from this.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    Resources aren't too limited to pursue the listed things simultaneously, which is demobstrated by the fact that government actually is pursuing them. Which, to be fair, makes this not just “whataboutism” (which it still is) but more critically deliberate misrepresentation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- jeffbee 4y ago

omgomgomgomg 4y ago

I was neutral on google, they seem to be very low key, so they fly under the radar. Then I started to see their little ads tricks and the story on how they "acquired" google maps aka terra vision and yes , wouldnt put it beyond them to use every trick in the book they can get away with.

magicalist 4y ago
> on how they "acquiered" google maps aka terra vision I think you're thinking of Google Earth, and wasn't that story made up for a movie? edit: wiki says[1] there actually was a lawsuit the miniseries was based on, but the accuser lost because they had actually taken someone else's ideas for Terravision and then turned around and patented it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Other_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Other_concerns
- omgomgomgomg 4y ago
  I would not say it was made up, though. Google engaged im negotiations to buy the patents. And the software was presented in kioto in 1994, way before anyone else.
birdyrooster 4y ago
That mockumentary is full of shit if you read more on the case law and what actually happened. Don’t worry, I felt made a fool of after watching too. The producers of Billion Dollar Code are weak for doing what they did, even if it makes the story better.
- omgomgomgomg 4y ago
  Well, the chronology of events does not do Google or any of the film critics any favors. The German group presented the app at Kyoto, before anyone else did. It appears at least to zooming tech was borrowed by google. Google won in court, based on hearsay and date of patents. I have to add, I have not even watched the movie, so my view should not be distorted, but I will give myself the unfiltered "based on a true story" as soon as I can.

oars 4y ago

Is this perhaps why Google has yet to respond to ChatGPT with their own version yet? In order for "competition" to be demonstrated as evidence against monopoly claims. Similar to Google paying Mozilla Firefox $400m+ per year or otherwise Chrome would be the only dominant browser on the market and scrutinized much more.

whatcd 4y ago
LaMDA is in the works, yet to be released to compete against ChatGPT

LatteLazy 4y ago

If we get the price of advertising down, we can have twice as much to keep revenue flat. Then we can take the money and use it for dividends instead of services like gmail and because that's how competitive businesses have to operate. This world will be much better than having a benign monopolist /s

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

imchillyb 4y ago

Did the judiciary just wake up from a coma?

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
The judiciary doesn't bring allegations... that's they adjudicate them. The DoJ or similar has to bring them.
howinteresting 4y ago
No, Biden just put an actual progressive in charge. Khan is one of his best appointments.

SnowHill9902 4y ago

Don’t fall or people will stomp on you.

echelon 4y ago
This was coming one way or another. AI's threat to Google search is merely icing on the cake. Google has deserved this for a long time coming. AMP, Chrome, removal of ad blocking, defaulting to Google on Chrome and Android, strong arming of web standards...
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Oh no, there's a default web browser on Android? Jeez, that's seriously abusive. I am sure that consumers hate that.
  - pfarrell 4y ago
    Microsoft's anti-trust case was around just this kind of behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      That is too reductive. U.S. v. Microsoft was all about how Microsoft had strong-armed O.E.M.s into not shipping anyone else's browser. That's not the same as having a default browser.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. The major case was more about MS forcing OEMs to buy licenses for Windows whether the computers shipped with Windows or not.
      - danaris 4y ago
        > And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. But that has much less to do with the merits of the case, and much more to do with the fact that just before any action could be taken, George W Bush was elected president and began our current trajectory toward unbridled corporate governance of America.

mike10921 4y ago

Will likely result in some sum of x millions in fines. This will make zero difference in Google's control over search and anything related. We all seen this movie multiple times and end is always the same..

shadowgovt 4y ago
Not for an antitrust lawsuit. The remedy for antitrust is divestiture; if found guilty and the judge assigns that penalty, Google can't just pay their way out of it; they'd have to shut down / slice off into an independent company (probably) DoubleClick and some other acquisitions. Think less "EU fair practices violations" and more "Ma Bell breakup." The difference is that the EU lacks criminal authority (or jurisdiction or, like, an army to extrajudicially invade the United States) to jail Sundar Pichai, but the US absolutely could if the company is found to be an illegal trust and he fails to take steps to remedy the situation.
- scarface74 4y ago
  What does a divestiture of Google’s ad business when their entire business is selling ads?
  - ivalm 4y ago
    They sell in several vertices, they can start by separating them (eg youtube ads, gmails ads, search result ads, ads on 3rd party websites)
  - neon_electro 4y ago
    Maybe Google can keep the ads and divest the products? It's a great hypothetical question you ask that I'd love to see more discussion of.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      Google's ad space is far more valuable than its cut in ads, I'm pretty sure. But in any case if it's anything like the breakup of Ma Bell, stockholders would wind up with separate shares of both 1) the products and 2) the ads. Which one calls itself "Google" is just branding. (Although obviously the search engine would keep the brand.)

jonas21 4y ago

Ah, great! Maybe this will finally break up Google's monopoly and make ads cheaper and affordable to everyone who wants to run them.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Agreed. This would be an excellent opportunity to see even more ads online.
nvrmnd 4y ago
Joking aside, what this could mean is a larger percentage of ad revenue shared with smaller publishers (website and mobile apps). The current situation is not entirely unlike the app-store cut these companies take.
whitemary 4y ago
Unlikely. Such "accusations" are so commonly in the news for the purpose of distracting from the lack of consequences. These reports give a passing appearance of responsible enforcement that almost never actually comes.

thehappypm 4y ago

Google 2021 revenue: $258B Meta 2021 revenue: $118B Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league?

okamiueru 4y ago
In every article about abusive "monopolies", just read it as "abusing market position".
- basch 4y ago
  To be fair, and I don't agree with this, the word monopoly appears in the complaint 66 times. The NYT is reporting the story, but the FTC is the one "misusing" the word. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1.0_2.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
  - okamiueru 4y ago
    I'm just trying to help out here. I don't disagree with you, but it gets tiring that every single time some market position is abused, and the word "monopoly" gets used, there is at least one pedantic getting hung up on the "mono" part. Android/iOS market share? Duopoly really. Call it a monopoly? "How is it a monopoly when..." What they mean. What is always meant, is, you have a market position so significant, that you can use to get an unfair advantage on competition. That's what this is about, that is what all of these usually are about. But, it gets sidetracked by misuse of words that should be understood from context. Antitrust, isn't exclusively about monopolies abusing their market position. It doesn't care that much about whether it is one actor abusing it's position, or if it's two... Or three.
    - basch 4y ago
      But this new paradigm of antitrust isn’t about if there’s one two or three of something. It’s a more complex form of antitrust. The Amazon antitrust paradox is about how they aren’t a market leader in tons of their product categories but that they can cross leverage advantages between product categories and verticals to create anticompetitiveness. It’s an analysis of the internal structure of the business, not if they have competition in a narrow subset of outcomes. Monopoly is being used as a substitute for the words bad actor or predatory not duopoly etc. IMHO it’s sloppiness and jargon to invoke emotion, and I’d prefer they used more precise words.

xxpor 4y ago

One of the conservative's legal project over the past 50 years main goals has been to maintain a Borkian consumer harm standard for anti-trust. With the current SCOTUS, I don't see much of a realistic path for this.

debacle 4y ago
This isn't a liberal/conservative issue. This is a corporatism issue.
- xxpor 4y ago
  Agreed on the general point, but it's undeniable that corporatism has used conservative politics as the means to the end they desire. See also: every culture war, the fact that the only thing Republicans can agree on are court appointees and tax cuts.
  - debacle 4y ago
    I don't think you understand the US political system in a nuanced or realistic fashion.
    - decremental 4y ago
      This could be an accurate auto-response to just about any comment on these types of threads.
    - xxpor 4y ago
      This is impossible to respond to without a point to argue against. IM-not-so-HO, I have fantastic understanding of the political system.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  Right, and the current court is unusually pro-corporate: https://www.axios.com/2022/08/04/supreme-court-john-roberts-business https://www.axios.com/2022/08/04/supreme-court-john-roberts-.... And although it's not necessarily a liberal vs. conservative issue, it would be deceptive not to point out that this is entirely because of the Republican justices.

dekhn 4y ago

I'm less concerned about Google Ad market share and more concerned with their placement of Google properties above competitors on the search results page (IE, Google Reviews over Yelp, or airline prices, etc).

amadeuspagel 4y ago
For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads. All these searches are subsidized by someone googling "flights to new york" and booking a flight right there. Google provides an immense public good with free (and mostly ad-free) results to all kinds of questions, which other flight search engines do not. Imagine: A flight search engine as a marketing gimick starts a web search engine, and shows flight results if someone searches for "flights to ...". Seems like a good thing, no? It seems like no other flight search engine would have a right to complain about unfair competition here.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  > For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads Do you have a citation for this? All I could find was that about 5% of searches end up with an ad click, but surely that means they need to show ads on way more than 5% of searches. I stopped using Google search quite a long time ago. I'm pretty sure it was heavy on ads for most search queries.
- dekhn 4y ago
  Dunno about you, but if I search "SFO to NYC", the entire first page (after the Google Flights "onebox") is relevant results and they're not ads- but they effectively are- they're search results that include prices. scrolling down further I see 'sponsored results' (IIUC those are ads inline with the search results).
  - amadeuspagel 4y ago
    This google flights "onebox" is what I'm talking about here, and what I assume the parent comment refered to.

emodendroket 4y ago

I'm kind of sour on antitrust as much of a solution for today's issues. If we had five smaller Googles doing the same thing what would that make better?

booleandilemma 4y ago
They wouldn't be smaller Googles, they'd be different companies altogether, with their own practices and work cultures. They'd have less bureaucracy, which might help them to innovate and move faster, and in different directions from each other.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  In absolute terms more bureaucracy is required now because they must all duplicate administration that they can currently share.
  - dannyr 4y ago
    Would you rather have McDonalds and Burger King operating all restaurants instead of having millions of small restaurants?
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Interesting example since I’d bet a majority of independent restaurants are sourcing the ingredients from Sysco. Anyway, restaurants, maybe not, but I usually prefer dealing with large companies because they are more reliable.
NegativeLatency 4y ago
Might be easier to get someone on the phone for support, one corp also wouldn't have all that profit sloshing around to go and unfairly dominate other markets.
rodgerd 4y ago
Forcing, say, the Google OS (Android/Chromebook) and Browser business to justify its existence independent of the ad-selling business, and YouTube to justify its video-hosting existence independent of the other two would certainly dramatically modify the landscape for all three.

fiat_fandango 4y ago

When you're building campuses that resemble theme parks more than offices I think it's time to let the FTC take a peak. Meta is in a similar position IMO.

AlbertCory 4y ago
> campuses that resemble theme parks Good choice of words. I worked there, and in the summer, there were so many visiting groups of people that "theme park" was the very phrase I thought of.
kart23 4y ago
epic hq is literally a theme park

olliej 4y ago

Almost like allowing them to buy their only actual competitor had exactly the outcome anyone with half a brain cell could have predicted.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/vJYU2 https://archive.ph/vJYU2

pxc 4y ago

'Abusing', huh? As though we can expect to see benign monopolies as a norm. Bizarre turn of phrase.

marcosdumay 4y ago
Well, getting a monopoly for competitive reasons and not abusing it in any way is perfectly legal, whatever odds are there if it happening. The government only gets involved when there is some abuse.
- pxc 4y ago
  Just because the courts pretend not to understand that power corrupts doesn't mean journalists have to.

impulser_ 4y ago

I'm guessing the worst case is they are forced to sell off the exchange side of the Ads business, which isn't that much revenue compared to the revenue they make selling ad space. This is probably going to have a lot less effect than what people are assuming it will have. Google and Facebook have never had more competition in the Ad space. Apple and Amazon are building big Ad businesses fast. That's not the problem. The problem is they play both sides of the market and they dominate both sides of the market. Therefore they have a lot of pricing power. This isn't the reason they are making 100s of billions a year. The reason they are making that amount is because they are the best at what they do and you can't find the service they provide any where else except Facebook and Google.

strongpigeon 4y ago
I agree with your take. Most likely they’ll be forced to divest from the Ads Exchange business which won’t affect them materially. It would open up some possibilities for actors in that space to shift the balance of (pricing) power a bit, but I’m unsure the impact will be huge. All the big new advertising platforms tend to own their whole stack like you mentioned (Amazon, Apple) and for good reasons.
- frozenlettuce 4y ago
  I believe that not controlling the exchange will affect them materially. Not because of the exchange's profits, but because of the data that it provides that lets Google optimize their campaigns (giving it an unfair advantage, as the competition has no access to this data).
ricardo81 4y ago
>This isn't the reason they are making 100s of billions a year. I do believe that the 're-targeting' Google can afford by having their assets on the majority of sites helps them maximise CPM, which would certainly be a problem for any alternate search engine who isn't interested in tracking people around the web/net. I can't remember specific figures but noted in the UK CMA report that Google generally makes twice as much as Bing on search ads (and worth bearing in mind that much of the rest of the entrants are essentially Bing meta search engines in the West) But I agree they're certainly considered the best at search in many ways, though the increased CPM they make allows them to be made the default search engine of choice on most devices. Becomes a bit of a chicken and egg problem when the most prominent search engine can reinforce its position as one.

strongpigeon 4y ago

I think it’s worth saying for people not too familiar with the space that this is specifically about Display and Video ads on third party websites. The lawsuit is about how Google managed to get in the entire stack (publisher, exchange and (less importantly for the lawsuit) buy side) and (according to the plaintiffs) abused their positions. I’d really encourage people read the lawsuit. It’s long, but most of the reporting on it seems to be way too superficial and leads to people saying things like “they should split YouTube and Google search”, which really has nothing to do with the complaint…

TheRealPomax 4y ago
To be fair, while that has nothing to do with the complaint: mannnn they really should. Insert MS comparison and a comment on how the US seems to not have the power to do anything more than wag their finger at anti-trust here.
cldellow 4y ago
Link to complaint: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1563746/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1563746/downl...
ricardo81 4y ago
I CTRL+F'ed for Doubleclick, where possibly much of it started.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Text-only, no PDF needed: curl https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-states-v-google-llc/ \ |sed '1,/div id=\"opinion-content\">/d;/<pre>/s//<meta charset=utf-8 \/>&/;/<\/pre>/,$d' > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-states-v-google-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66753787/1/united-state...
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  You can cut out the middleman and pipe directly to less(1) (or your preferred pager). Or feed the courtlistener.com URL directly to w3m or another text-mode browser.

chatterhead 4y ago

Sounds like a strategic way for Google to exit a business they aren't making much money on without spooking investors with fresh revenue concerns as AI ramps up as a potential replacement. Not that it will. I'll die before I let AI be used for advertising.

skybrian 4y ago

As a consumer, I'm wondering if it would be better for me if ads were more or less expensive. Maybe more expensive would be better? Would it be good if they were taxed, or there were minimum prices that websites could charge advertisers? Also, is Google's ad tech or third-party ad tech better from a privacy point of view? A lot of people distrust Google, but why would they trust no-name third-party ad tech any more? Are there any online advertising companies that have a better track record on privacy? It seems the anti-trust framework doesn't map very well to consumer concerns about advertising.

pr337h4m 4y ago

Google never coerced anyone into buying their ads ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

deleted 4y ago

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