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

wsj.com

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

#41

Post by benchaney »

admax88q wrote: post #23
benchaney wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It means that any expense you spend on Y isn't really an expense, since the money goes right back into your pocket. So not only do you get the extra income from other people buying Y, buy you can operate at higher margins than everyone else in X because Y is available to you at cost. EDIT: On further thought it seems no different than being vertically integrated.

> It means that any expense you spend on Y isn't really an expense, since the money goes right back into your pocket.

If you do the accounting in this way, then you make that much less profit on your service, so it winds up being the same as if you are making a greater profit, but count the cost of Y at market value.

> So not only do you get the extra income from other people buying Y, buy you can operate at higher margins than everyone else in X because Y is available to you at cost.

This isn't any different than if Y and Z are different, but you use the excess profits from Z to subsidize your business in X.

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

#42

Post by thetwentyone »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #28
thetwentyone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page says that it's GNU licensed but where I can I find the source?

The .xpi file is essentially a .zip in disguise (all Firefox add-ons work like this). Unzip it as normal and read the source. Aside from the manifest, it's 5 lines.

Got it, thanks for explaining that. I didn't want to download it before reviewing.

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

#43

Post by ucaetano »

phpnode wrote: post #29
ucaetano wrote: post #19

> 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),…

> This website is so clearly a scam created for this antitrust case. I can't speak for the quality of their product but this is absolutely not true, Kelkoo has been around since 1999[0], almost as long as Google itself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelkoo

From your "source":

> In November 2008, Kelkoo was sold by Yahoo! Inc to the private equity firm Jamplant Ltd.

The current CEO has been there since 2009, shortly after the acquisition.

Jamplant was incorporated in October of 2008, one month before the acquisition. The director was Andrew Simon Davis, who is frequently listed as a director of shell companies and trusts. In the same month he was appointed director to dozens of other companies.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/LQ_FXmuiSA4f8cOG...

The Kelkoo Group is based out of the same office as Jamplant, along with dozens of other companies, what indicates a virtual office or company registration service.

https://www.google.com/search?q=6th+Floor+Portland+House+Bre...

It has 5 employees, and seems to have consistently lost money over the past years, and its largest shareholder (and only institutional shareholder) is Kelkoo Group itself.

Kelkoo itself was already dead on the water by the time of the acquisition: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=kelkoo

That was shortly after the initial complaints against Google:

https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/legal-news-articles/ca...

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

#44

Post by ameister14 »

ucaetano wrote: post #43
phpnode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This website is so clearly a scam created for this antitrust case. I can't speak for the quality of their product but this is absolutely not true, Kelkoo has been around since 1999[0], almost as long as Google itself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelkoo

From your "source": > In November 2008, Kelkoo was sold by Yahoo! Inc to the private equity firm Jamplant Ltd. The current CEO has been there since 2009, shortly after the acquisition. Jamplant was incorporated in October of 2008, one month before the acquisition. The director was Andrew Simon Davis, who is frequently listed as a director of shell companies and trusts. In the same month he was appointed director to d…

>The Kelkoo Group is based out of the same office as Jamplant, along with dozens of other companies, what indicates a virtual office or company registration service.

That office is 300k sqft of 'flexible office space.'

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

#45

Post by untog »

ojbyrne wrote: post #38
115100 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took less than 30 seconds to find out that they're not. https://www.ft.com/content/4044d354-b825-11dd-ac6d-0000779fd...

Do you have a citation that's not behind a paywall? Crunchbase says they were acquired by Yahoo. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kelkoo

"was sold by Yahoo to Jamplant, a British private equity, in 2008"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelkoo

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

#46

Post by dsacco »

prepend wrote: post #30
rocqua wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 com…

They are in the business of making companies pay for placement in the comparison shopping business. It seems obvious to me that this is just an artificial product to make more revenue. Froogle was actually better for results a decade ago when they just sorted the normal web scraping for shopping items. Adding the forced ads to show up resulted in worse deals for consumers. This was part because advertisers had t pay…

> It seems obvious to me that this is just an artificial product to make more revenue.

If a product is actually generating more revenue, what makes it "artificial"? Do you disagree with the use of products to complement an ecosystem, or do you disagree with the use of products that are not intended to turn a profit on their own, like loss leaders?

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

#47

Post by cpeterso »

ojbyrne wrote: post #38
115100 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took less than 30 seconds to find out that they're not. https://www.ft.com/content/4044d354-b825-11dd-ac6d-0000779fd...

Do you have a citation that's not behind a paywall? Crunchbase says they were acquired by Yahoo. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kelkoo

FT link via Google: https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source...

Yahoo bought Kelkoo in 2004 and then sold it in 2008.

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

#48

Post by dsacco »

sqdbps wrote: post #22
ucaetano wrote: post #19

> 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),…

>This is pure bullshit, and bullshit journalism. It's the "Wall Street Journal", a Murdoch business publication that approves of every business as long as it isn't Google.

> It's the "Wall Street Journal", a Murdoch business publication that approves of every business as long as it isn't Google.

Please don't bring politics into this. If you have a substantive criticism about the WSJ's article, make that criticism. The one you've made is ideological and unpersuasive.

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

#49

Post by jayd16 »

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 just comes down to Google gets to pay cost for ads and everyone else has to pay market price. The important factor here is any profit that could have been made between cost and market price for those ads is lost to Google as well.

At best, Google is just cheating revenue out of its ad division. I'm not sure this would actually be a huge advantage in the long run unless integration led to Google ads being cheaper to implemented than ads for others.

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

#50

Post by prepend »

dsacco wrote: post #46
prepend wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in the business of making companies pay for placement in the comparison shopping business. It seems obvious to me that this is just an artificial product to make more revenue. Froogle was actually better for results a decade ago when they just sorted the normal web scraping for shopping items. Adding the forced ads to show up resulted in worse deals for consumers. This was part because advertisers had t pay…

> It seems obvious to me that this is just an artificial product to make more revenue. If a product is actually generating more revenue, what makes it "artificial"? Do you disagree with the use of products to complement an ecosystem, or do you disagree with the use of products that are not intended to turn a profit on their own, like loss leaders?

Good point. Not artificial for Google as it makes money. I meant artificial for users as there is no need and it replaced a better product that made less revenue.

For example, have a free water fountain and then replacing it with a coin operated water fountain that dispenses warm water is using artificial with my original intent.

My main disagreement is in the use of verticialy integrated products that reduce consumer value but yield higher marginal value to the producer. I’m a huge fan of complementary products within an ecosystem that increase consumer value. I’m also fine with loss leaders, but again I prefer ones that lead to increased consumer value.

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