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Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

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Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#21

Post by zebracanevra »

dessant wrote: post #14
robin_reala wrote: post #7

249. The speed benefits Google marketed were also at least partly a result of Google’s throttling. Google throttles the load time of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one-second delays in order to give Google AMP a “nice comparative boost.” Throttling non-AMP ads slows down header bidding, which Google then uses to denigrate header bidding for being too slow. “Header Bidding can often increase latency of web page…

They're also pushing for the adoption of Signed HTTP Exchanges, with several Google employees defending the spec here on HN, comparing it to be merely like HTTPS in terms of publishers giving up control over their content. It's clear that Chrome must be separated from Google and Alphabet, nothing else will stop them from trying to colonize the web.

equating it to be merely like HTTPS in terms of publishers giving up control over their content.

Where did you read that? I was under the impression that SXG is more similar to things like IPFS, where you can have content signed by its origin (or in IPFS, content addressed by its hash). Once that is achieved, any other site (e.g. a CDN like Google or Cloudflare) can cache and serve it securely and with authentication.

You can sign whatever content you want with SXG, it isn't limited to AMP.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#22

Post by pja »

robin_reala wrote: post #7

249. The speed benefits Google marketed were also at least partly a result of Google’s throttling. Google throttles the load time of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one-second delays in order to give Google AMP a “nice comparative boost.” Throttling non-AMP ads slows down header bidding, which Google then uses to denigrate header bidding for being too slow. “Header Bidding can often increase latency of web page…

Good grief. AMP always looked fishy, but to be as blatantly abusive as this? It's indefensible.

Google has to be broken up.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#23

Post by gonzo41 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #9
mathnmusic wrote: post #2

Google should be broken up into 5 parts: Search/Adwords/Mail/Drive, Android, Chrome, Maps & GCP.

That would mean 5 monopolies. I would split them in 5 parts, each owning 20% of all current businesses.

You'd need to control the flow of people between those companies for this to work well. It'd be a challenge with us Labor law

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#24

Post by IlPeach »

mrtksn wrote: post #12
robin_reala wrote: post #7

249. The speed benefits Google marketed were also at least partly a result of Google’s throttling. Google throttles the load time of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one-second delays in order to give Google AMP a “nice comparative boost.” Throttling non-AMP ads slows down header bidding, which Google then uses to denigrate header bidding for being too slow. “Header Bidding can often increase latency of web page…

Wow, I feel naive now for defending AMP providing better user experience. As it turns out, Google is evil and I simply did not want to believe it.

It's crazy to me that the team dedicated to AMP had no control and awareness of any schemes were pulled behind their back. This is such a huge org problem.

Unless, of course, the team leadership was on it and this was an insider job.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#25

Post by triska »

What a read. Almost every single paragraph in the document leaves me speechless. For example, quoting from the document:

"Google likes to claim that it will “never sell your personal information to anyone,” with Google CEO Sundar Pichai deceptively claiming that such a policy is “unequivocal.” But Google leverages intimate user data and personal information to broker billions of daily online ad impressions between publishers and advertisers that target individual users based almost entirely on their personal information. Internal documents confirm that Google knows its users are deceived by its misrepresentations, even as it reaps billions from ads that use personal data to target those users. In Orwellian terms, it’s a beautiful thing for Google, the destruction of words like “sell” and “personal.”"

Or:

"Google presents a public image of caring about privacy, but behind the scenes Google coordinates closely with the Big Tech companies to lobby the government to delay or destroy measures that would actually protect users’ privacy. Of course, effective competition is concerned with both price and quality, and the fact that Google coordinates with its competitors on the quality metric of privacy—one might call it privacy fixing—underscores Google’s selective promotion of privacy concerns only when doing so facilitates its efforts to exclude competition."

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#26

Post by djrockstar1 »

159-169, about Google being able to decrypt end-to-end encrypted WA (WhatsApp) communications is terrifying. The fact that Google has known this for over 5 years and made no effort to notify the public is what really got me. What's fucked up is that Google Drive backups are the only ones WA offers, and naturally everyone wants their messages backed up so they turn it on, not knowing the implications.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#27

Post by paulluuk »

throwaway4good wrote: post #18

Given that Google is critical for US intelligence supremacy and technological dominance, I am curious what the US chooses to do with it. Surely from a free market perspective and for long term growth, it needs to be broken into pieces in such a manner that would destroy its monopoly power.

But would it still be a "free market" if governments just go around splitting up companies once they get (too) big?

Not defending the idea of a free market here, I'm leaning pretty far past socialist myself, but I know that the US in general cares deeply about free market philosophy.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#28

Post by arlcode »

triska wrote: post #25

What a read. Almost every single paragraph in the document leaves me speechless. For example, quoting from the document: "Google likes to claim that it will “never sell your personal information to anyone,” with Google CEO Sundar Pichai deceptively claiming that such a policy is “unequivocal.” But Google leverages intimate user data and personal information to broker billions of daily online ad impressions between pu…

I always tell people that it would be against Googles interest to sell your data. Their deception is working exceptionally well and it's not even a lie.

After all there is much more money made in selling your attention repeatedly then there is in selling you data once.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#29

Post by selsta »

mrtksn wrote: post #20
cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were people defending AMP? Everything I've heard about it was backlash

AMP does have better experience from the users perspective. The backlash is from the techies only. I assumed that the non-amp websites were slower due to the JS bloat, I still despise what the Web pages has become, however it turns out Google wasn't a honest broker here and instead of providing a tool that helps them and the users, they provided a tool that helps them and harms the users and bullies the website owner…

FWIW Amplosion (paid iOS extension to automatically redirect AMP pages) is quite highly ranked on the app store.

It clearly isn't only techies that dislike it so much that they actually pay to get rid of AMP.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#30

Post by arlcode »

IlPeach wrote: post #24
mrtksn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I feel naive now for defending AMP providing better user experience. As it turns out, Google is evil and I simply did not want to believe it.

It's crazy to me that the team dedicated to AMP had no control and awareness of any schemes were pulled behind their back. This is such a huge org problem. Unless, of course, the team leadership was on it and this was an insider job.

If the allegations are true, they knew exactly what was happening and even took steps to make it seem like Google was not in full control of AMP.

Whether front line engineers knew isn't that important. AMP Leadership definitely did.

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