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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

#101

Post by pas »

peoplewindow wrote: post #98
dsacco wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rupert Murdoch can have well documented dislike for Google without his dislike intrinsically kneecapping the Wall Street Journal’s journalistic integrity. The comment I replied to criticizes the article we’re discussing categorically by origin, instead of specifically on merits. Murdoch’s agenda can be a thesis statement for why the WSJ has poor journalistic integrity with respect to Google, but it doesn't demonstrat…

Appreciate the demand for precision, but you won't get more than anecdotes in this case. I used to work for Google and I remember the 180 degree turn in WSJ's output after Murdoch gave a speech in which he announced Google News was killing journalism and the future of newspapers was the iPad (this was just after the iPad was new). Suddenly bullshit articles about us started appearing constantly. The first one I remem…

> this caused regulators to go and whack us and so on.

proof? links? source?

Google is big, does and did a lot of things that could be a problem in the eyes of regulators.

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

#102

Post by pas »

logicallee wrote: post #82
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. What makes you think so? It starts with "We at Kelkoo have been helping our customers find the best products at the most affordable prices for the past 18 years." I clicked on the merchant sign up page, seemed fine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16269595

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

#103

Post by taneq »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #95
taneq wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can 'print' as many ad spaces as they want, and buy back the ones that don't reach their minimum price.

.. and your objection to that is? I’m not following the logic of how Google’s camera comparison shopping business is unfairly more profitable just because it’s bolted onto an immensely profitable ad company.

The issue is that they're using their position as an advertising near-monopoly to choke out competitors' ability to advertise their products. The particular mechanism[1] is not the issue; using it to deprive competitors of the ability to advertise at reasonable prices is the issue.

Imagine you're a car salesyard in a small town. You don't want your competitors to be able to advertise, so you buy the company that publishes the only newspaper in town. You don't want to be accused of being out-and-out anticompetitive, so you still let your rivals advertise, but you charge them $500 per car advertised. Is this OK?

[1] Although this particular mechanism seems pretty dubious and may even qualify as "shill bidding", which is forbidden at other auction venues such as eBay: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-Shill-bidding.htm...

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

#104

Post by peoplewindow »

pas wrote: post #101
peoplewindow wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the demand for precision, but you won't get more than anecdotes in this case. I used to work for Google and I remember the 180 degree turn in WSJ's output after Murdoch gave a speech in which he announced Google News was killing journalism and the future of newspapers was the iPad (this was just after the iPad was new). Suddenly bullshit articles about us started appearing constantly. The first one I remem…

> this caused regulators to go and whack us and so on. proof? links? source? Google is big, does and did a lot of things that could be a problem in the eyes of regulators.

It was specifically about the Safari cookies issue.

On the original story:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17076670

On the resulting fine:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19200279

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

#105

Post by deecewan »

natch wrote: post #21
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).

Does it need to be profitable? It seems to me that if it siphons money off from competitors, that's already enough to hurt the competitors relative to itself. In fact not only does the advertising not need to be profitable, even the sales of X do not need to be profitable, for the competitors to be harmed... dumping would be the extreme example of that. You are talking about a different aspect of the scenario, where…

Its not really siphoning money off, tho. It is an exchange of money for services rendered.

From what I saw in comments and the (paywalled) article, the problem is that Google isn't siphoning money. They're keeping the ad-space for themselves.

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

#106

Post by deecewan »

I just don't really get why Google shouldn't be allowed to advertise on their own platform however they want. Say what you want, but there are other options for people to use to advertise if they aren't happy with Google.

Google is powerful because they provided a product so good that everyone used it. And now they're making other services that are also good, otherwise people would try the second link on the page. And, like all their competitors, they're advertising their new product.

If I owned a building next to a highway, I wouldn't have to auction off the side of that building for advertising - I can put my own ad on there (as far as I'm aware). I also think that dining Google billions of dollars is a tad ridiculous. Is there truly that much lost opportunity from whatever they're accused of doing?

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

#107

Post by andy_ppp »

ucaetano wrote: post #99
andy_ppp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, having worked at Kelkoo when it was owned by Yahoo! so I have to disagree here. The management at Kelkoo really believe Google is shafting them but they used to do crazy things like change the location of the website every time they deploy. They were bad at SEO and blamed Google.

> having worked at Kelkoo when it was owned by Yahoo! so I have to disagree here The issue isn't when it was part of Yahoo, but after. It was bought by a virtual shell company registered at the same office as Kelkoo, with generic directors and almost no employees. It now has bogus product descriptions, which are the same for every single product (read the rest of the post). They were clearly bought for the sole purpo…

I think you sound very sure of yourself, maybe you are correct but I think the simplest reason is the one I suggested. It’s worth noting the Kelkoo brand was very well known in France and they were very proud of their company. Them neglecting the quality of reviews on their English product or even just breaking things and not fixing them properly is more likely for me.
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