Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally • Hacker News Board

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#11

Post by benchaney » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #6

Tell me if I've got this right: Say you have some businesses in industry X that all rely on advertising. Say one of those businesses also happens to own the dominant advertising platform that businesses in industry X need to use, in order to effectively find customers. (Special note for those subset of HN readers who tend not to read: Yes there may be other platforms, but before you present that as an objection, note…

You are assuming that running and advertising business is profitable. If this is the case then yes, running an advertising business plus X always gives you an advantage over just doing X. This is true no matter what X is, even if X is unrelated to advertising, or even just doing nothing. I’m not sure in what sense this means that the game is rigged (unless of course the bidding process is unfair).

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#12

Post by clusmore » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #2

Paywalled, so obvious question. Does Google's deep pockets just bid high?

Try outline.com: https://outline.com/a88hX9

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#13

Post by rocqua » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #6

Tell me if I've got this right: Say you have some businesses in industry X that all rely on advertising. Say one of those businesses also happens to own the dominant advertising platform that businesses in industry X need to use, in order to effectively find customers. (Special note for those subset of HN readers who tend not to read: Yes there may be other platforms, but before you present that as an objection, note…

It raises the question, why is Google in the comparison shopping business.

Thinking about it, it makes sense for google though. Web scraping and data analysis is their forte. And it fits within google's approach of "answering any question someone has". If someone wants to know the cheapest place to get X, they just want someone to type X into google and get the best answer. For them it's not about making money on commission. Instead it's about getting buy-in into their ecosystem. Apparently they think they can provide a better experience than the commercial sites can.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#14

Post by admax88q » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

benchaney wrote: post #11

natch wrote: post #6

Tell me if I've got this right: Say you have some businesses in industry X that all rely on advertising. Say one of those businesses also happens to own the dominant advertising platform that businesses in industry X need to use, in order to effectively find customers. (Special note for those subset of HN readers who tend not to read: Yes there may be other platforms, but before you present that as an objection, note…

You are assuming that running and advertising business is profitable. If this is the case then yes, running an advertising business plus X always gives you an advantage over just doing X. This is true no matter what X is, even if X is unrelated to advertising, or even just doing nothing. I’m not sure in what sense this means that the game is rigged (unless of course the bidding process is unfair).

I think you missed the point, it's not that doing two profitable things is better than one, which you're right is always the case.

It's the more specific case of running businesses X and Y where X is dependent upon buying services that Y provides.

If you have a monopoly on Y (advertising), then it's easier to complete in X, because everyone else in X has to buy their Y services from you.

So you end up paying your competitor in order to compete with them.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#15

Post by dsl » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

Google is exceedingly good at extracting value from every ad impression. Even if the marketplace wasn't ran by Google, I have no doubt that they would still be bidding high enough to get the vast majority of impressions simply because they have a higher threshold at which bidding is profitable.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#16

Post by test6554 » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

Google: We compete against our competitors to see who can pay us the most money. And our competitors are complaining that they can't pay us as much money as we pay ourselves.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#17

Post by fwdpropaganda » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

dugmartin wrote: post #8

kyrra wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you access it via twitter or facebook, WSJ still lets you in. Try the link from https://twitter.com/nat_droz/status/958396191531728896

I have this bookmarklet I use when I hit paywalls and I don't care if Facebook knows I'm interested in it: javascript:location.href='http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

How about this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/read-ft-wsj/

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#18

Post by ggggtez » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

I'm not convinced that percent of ad spots is the right measure of market share. But it's paywalled, so who knows.

Edit: ok so it's 98% of 2500 arbitrary keywords. Come on now, that's obviously a bs metric.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#19

Post by ucaetano » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

> Kelkoo CEO Richard Stables says the firm’s revenue from general search traffic dropped by 62% last year, to €2.3 million. In 2018, he projects a two-thirds drop to €800,000.

I decided to go to http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ to check it out. This website is so clearly a scam created for this antitrust case.

I went ahead to compare two cameras: the Canon EOS 1D X Mark II (a $4k camera) to a Canon Ixus 275 HS ($200 camera), here are the descriptions of each:

Canon EOS 1D X Mark II

The Canon EOS 1D X Mark II offers a good sensor resolution, allowing you to take an astonishing quality of picture. The Canon EOS 1D X Mark II has a very reasonable weight for this type of camera, with its LCD display providing a decent screen size compared to other similar digital cameras. The Canon EOS 1D X Mark II comes with internal memory, which is extendable with an external memory card to match the size of your photo and video collection. The lens aperture (the 'eye of the camera'), which makes your lens contract or dilate to allow more or less light in, is good for a digital camera in this price bracket. You can compare prices for the Canon EOS 1D X Mark II, read the full product details and check out expert reviews at our web site.

Canon Ixus 275 HS

The Canon Ixus 275 HS offers a good sensor resolution, allowing you to take an astonishing quality of picture. The Canon Ixus 275 HS has a very reasonable weight for this type of camera, with its LCD display providing a decent screen size compared to other similar digital cameras. The Canon Ixus 275 HS comes with internal memory, which is extendable with an external memory card to match the size of your photo and video collection. The lens aperture (the 'eye of the camera'), which makes your lens contract or dilate to allow more or less light in, is good for a digital camera in this price bracket. You can compare prices for the Canon Ixus 275 HS, read the full product details and check out expert reviews at our web site.

This is pure bullshit, and bullshit journalism.

Re: Google winning 98% ad spots it auctions off, after order to treat others equally

#20

Post by benchaney » Tue, Jan 30, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #14

benchaney wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that running and advertising business is profitable. If this is the case then yes, running an advertising business plus X always gives you an advantage over just doing X. This is true no matter what X is, even if X is unrelated to advertising, or even just doing nothing. I’m not sure in what sense this means that the game is rigged (unless of course the bidding process is unfair).

I think you missed the point, it's not that doing two profitable things is better than one, which you're right is always the case. It's the more specific case of running businesses X and Y where X is dependent upon buying services that Y provides. If you have a monopoly on Y (advertising), then it's easier to complete in X, because everyone else in X has to buy their Y services from you. So you end up paying your com…

I'm not sure that I did. If you are trying to compete in business X, you have a side income Z, and everyone competing in X has to buy service Y, what tangible benefit do you get from Y and Z being the same thing? Unless you can rig the bidding process I don't see any advantage.