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Google Faces Grilling over Alleged Unfair Ad Practices in Antitrust Trial

28 points by AlbertCory 3y ago

AlbertCory 3y ago
The guy who was "grilled," Adam Juda, was actually the business manager for the Advertiser Experiments project I talked about here: https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/advertiser-experiments https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/advertiser-expe... I actually never dealt with auctions. That code was in the "high intellectual property" section of the code, that was restricted even for engineers. In particular, they couldn't see it in China.
- mathteddybear 3y ago
  That's an interesting remark, for your profile links to Google Cinema Club, among other things, so I take it you're not based in China yourself. Regarding the article and the auctions, I recall the internship at Google in the noughties. There was an overview talk on search and ads. One thing that was clear back then, the ads are not ranked by the bids alone. They are ranked by bid multiplied by ad score. As the ad gets displayed more and more, the score tends to be based on the click-through rate of the ad. That way, a bad ad that does not get clicked on effectively cannot be forced to display by bidding high. On the other hands, in most reporting on these antitrust cases, folks read "auction" and the picture they have in mind is like an art auction, the highest bidder wins. Then they report on obvious things as if this was some revelation of manipulation.
janmo 3y ago
I recently got a problem with my Adsense account. - There is 0 absolutely 0 support. All you can do is go on their community forum where no one replies to you - There is no alternative, there are other ad networks, but they require you to have a working Adsense account as a prerequisite. I was in one once, what they did was just put Google ads on my site and take an additional 10% cut - Google takes an excessive cut. Officially they collect a 30% intermediary fee, but according to the DOJ lawsuit there are 15% that are somehow unaccounted for. So it seems the number is more around 45% Google is a complete blackbox that pays no taxes thanks to a web of subsidiaries and loopholes and so there is only limited knowledge about their financials (although it is a public company), there is mounting evidence that they manipulate search queries/results in a way to increase their revenue and are siphoning more money than they should from their Adexchange. They also use anti-competitive practices to maintain their monopoly on web ads and the list of malpractices is too long to put it in writing here. This company is an absolute nightmare and I am forced to use it for ads because they control the market.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > a complete blackbox that pays no taxes Maybe you can look at a 10-K statement or an annual report before making obviously false statements like that. This is the point where you back off and say, "oh, but they still don't pay enough."
  - janmo 3y ago
    "Information Asymmetries. Because Google’s ad tech products face little or no meaningful competition, Google has been able to operate its products within a black box, affording publishers and advertisers limited visibility into how, why, and even at what price, website advertising inventory is sold. One industry report suggests that approximately 15% of all digital advertising spend is simply unaccounted for, with publishers and advertisers unable to determine which intermediary may have siphoned this spend off for its own gain. Reduced transparency diminishes the ability of publishers and advertisers to make informed choices in selecting their ad tech products and hampers their ability (and rivals’ as well) to serve as a competitive constraint." You can read the full lawsuit here: https://www.justice.gov/d9/case-documents/attachments/2023/01/24/410873.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/case-documents/attachments/2023/0...
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      He said "no taxes." So that was wrong, wasn't it?
    - mathteddybear 3y ago
      Too bad the DOJ attorney does not "grill" over that. Instead, quote the Reuters article > Dahlquist asked Juda if they had introduced changes to ad sales in a way that raised the cost-per-click by a consumer that advertisers pay. "I believe that's fair," said Juda. > But Wendy Waszmer, a lawyer for Google, asked Juda on Wednesday afternoon on if there were ways that his ads quality team could raise prices unilaterally. "No," Juda responded.
  - handwarmers 3y ago
    Man stay out of topics you don't understand, or at least don't make ignorant snarky comments. "no taxes" here was obviously used in the sense of "not enough taxes". Also, reading a 10-K cannot answer whether a company has paid "enough" taxes. The question of how much is enough is difficult, given how complicated international tax law is, and how legal != ethical/good for society. E.g. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-used-double-irish-to-shift-75-4bn-in-profits-out-of-ireland-1.4540519#:~:text=Google%20shifted%20more%20than%20%2475.4,which%20it%20used%20the%20loophole https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-used-d....
seydor 3y ago
I always thought gdpr was another trick to destroy the alternatives to google. Google has been left to monopolize ads for far too long , at this point it is even hard to stop them

28 points by AlbertCory 3y ago

The guy who was "grilled," Adam Juda, was actually the business manager for the Advertiser Experiments project I talked about here: https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/advertiser-experiments https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/advertiser-expe... I actually never dealt with auctions. That code was in the "high intellectual property" section of the code, that was restricted even for engineers. In particular, they couldn't see it in China.

mathteddybear 3y ago
That's an interesting remark, for your profile links to Google Cinema Club, among other things, so I take it you're not based in China yourself. Regarding the article and the auctions, I recall the internship at Google in the noughties. There was an overview talk on search and ads. One thing that was clear back then, the ads are not ranked by the bids alone. They are ranked by bid multiplied by ad score. As the ad gets displayed more and more, the score tends to be based on the click-through rate of the ad. That way, a bad ad that does not get clicked on effectively cannot be forced to display by bidding high. On the other hands, in most reporting on these antitrust cases, folks read "auction" and the picture they have in mind is like an art auction, the highest bidder wins. Then they report on obvious things as if this was some revelation of manipulation.

janmo 3y ago

I recently got a problem with my Adsense account. - There is 0 absolutely 0 support. All you can do is go on their community forum where no one replies to you - There is no alternative, there are other ad networks, but they require you to have a working Adsense account as a prerequisite. I was in one once, what they did was just put Google ads on my site and take an additional 10% cut - Google takes an excessive cut. Officially they collect a 30% intermediary fee, but according to the DOJ lawsuit there are 15% that are somehow unaccounted for. So it seems the number is more around 45% Google is a complete blackbox that pays no taxes thanks to a web of subsidiaries and loopholes and so there is only limited knowledge about their financials (although it is a public company), there is mounting evidence that they manipulate search queries/results in a way to increase their revenue and are siphoning more money than they should from their Adexchange. They also use anti-competitive practices to maintain their monopoly on web ads and the list of malpractices is too long to put it in writing here. This company is an absolute nightmare and I am forced to use it for ads because they control the market.

AlbertCory 3y ago
> a complete blackbox that pays no taxes Maybe you can look at a 10-K statement or an annual report before making obviously false statements like that. This is the point where you back off and say, "oh, but they still don't pay enough."
- janmo 3y ago
  "Information Asymmetries. Because Google’s ad tech products face little or no meaningful competition, Google has been able to operate its products within a black box, affording publishers and advertisers limited visibility into how, why, and even at what price, website advertising inventory is sold. One industry report suggests that approximately 15% of all digital advertising spend is simply unaccounted for, with publishers and advertisers unable to determine which intermediary may have siphoned this spend off for its own gain. Reduced transparency diminishes the ability of publishers and advertisers to make informed choices in selecting their ad tech products and hampers their ability (and rivals’ as well) to serve as a competitive constraint." You can read the full lawsuit here: https://www.justice.gov/d9/case-documents/attachments/2023/01/24/410873.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/case-documents/attachments/2023/0...
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    He said "no taxes." So that was wrong, wasn't it?
  - mathteddybear 3y ago
    Too bad the DOJ attorney does not "grill" over that. Instead, quote the Reuters article > Dahlquist asked Juda if they had introduced changes to ad sales in a way that raised the cost-per-click by a consumer that advertisers pay. "I believe that's fair," said Juda. > But Wendy Waszmer, a lawyer for Google, asked Juda on Wednesday afternoon on if there were ways that his ads quality team could raise prices unilaterally. "No," Juda responded.
- handwarmers 3y ago
  Man stay out of topics you don't understand, or at least don't make ignorant snarky comments. "no taxes" here was obviously used in the sense of "not enough taxes". Also, reading a 10-K cannot answer whether a company has paid "enough" taxes. The question of how much is enough is difficult, given how complicated international tax law is, and how legal != ethical/good for society. E.g. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-used-double-irish-to-shift-75-4bn-in-profits-out-of-ireland-1.4540519#:~:text=Google%20shifted%20more%20than%20%2475.4,which%20it%20used%20the%20loophole https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-used-d....

seydor 3y ago

I always thought gdpr was another trick to destroy the alternatives to google. Google has been left to monopolize ads for far too long , at this point it is even hard to stop them