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Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

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Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#241

Post by a1369209993 »

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 happens. Just make sure to remember this the next time you're tempted to assume a corporation is acting in good faith.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#242

Post by heavyset_go »

Jensson wrote: post #240
heavyset_go wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that if they're allowed to operate in China, then they have to bend to the will of, and collaborate with, the CCP if they want to remain there.

But the argument is evilness. That is a problem, but I don't see how that makes Google more evil than Apple or Microsoft that has already bent to the will of CCP with seemingly no complaints. My argument is basically: Over the past 10 years Google has made great strides towards becoming as evil as a typical big corporation. They are about there today, not sure if they are there or just soon to be, but they are certai…

> Apple or Microsoft that has already bent to the will of CCP with seemingly no complaints.

Apple certainly gets complaints for their cooperation with the CCP and for their CCP-sponsored censorship in China, HK, and abroad. You can search my HN comments on Algolia and see that I've complained about it plenty of times before.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#243

Post by clusterfish »

mahogany wrote: post #140
throwaway4good wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is about making sure that the free market is actually working not so much about freedom as in freedom of expression - any course about economics will have section about monopolies and its societal cost - showing charts like this: https://college.cengage.com/economics/0538797274_mceachern/s... The cost is real but so is the national security advantage.

So in order to keep the free market working, we have to make it... less free? I thought the definition of a free market is one that is free of government/outside regulation and interference. But it's also a market that is free of monopolies, apparently, and the only way to get rid of a monopoly is via government/outside regulation and interference. Isn't that a contradiction? Perhaps we should use another name for a…

Yes, sometimes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#244

Post by ddingus »

pphysch wrote: post #225
ddingus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a robust, enduring free market itself needs to be questioned. Complete economic freedom leads to monopolies, who then act to preserve and benefit from their position. They do this because they know everyone else both wants that position and would do the same thing to maintain it. All this happens because growth is seen as necessary. Always necessary. Markets with rules can check those behaviors, but come…

> In the end, why do we even allow markets? Because it's the best we got, historically. Decentralized price mechanism outperforms wetware planning at allocating resources efficiently. Now software has changed that and central planning is much more capable. Truly pure free market economies are virtually impossible, because as soon as the first firm is formed, it becomes a mixed economy. That is, economic transactions…

And does it not follow the idea of free markets is questionable?

I have long thought it is.

Historically, we got all of this out of the need to benefit from our collective labor and resources, developed tech...

The only reason there are markets at all is for our mutual benefit.

And it follows from there to evaluate market rules to insure that actually happens.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#245

Post by imapeopleperson »

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…

That’s criminal

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#246

Post by Xelbair »

singron wrote: post #157
jfoster wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that address the issue of Google rigging the bidding by owning the bidding mechanism, marketplace, and managing publisher inventory? There would still be a real time auction taking place for each impression.

A huge part of this document is about how Google has exclusive access to user ids. If nobody can use user ids, then they don't have those advantages anymore.

exactly.

and it also puts the lid on profitability of walled gardens - as you cannot sell those cohorts to advertisers.

It would be a net gain for society as a whole

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#247

Post by RNCTX »

Jensson wrote: post #239
RNCTX wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and what are the implications? Remember when Google was working on the DoD’s autonomous murder drone project? Isn’t WA the predominant means of text communication for people who travel abroad regularly?

> Remember when Google was working on the DoD’s autonomous murder drone project? They did just a demo, Amazon and Microsoft are the biggest contractors in that space. News media loves to shit on Google in these scenarios but most of it is just Google trying to take a pie of markets others are already in. So all these articles just amounts to Google becoming as evil as the other tech giants. For example, we know Micro…

Did you miss the early 2000s when we were all on Slashdot which headed every Microsoft story with Bill Gates in a Borg costume? Of course people accuse Microsoft, we've been accusing Microsoft since before Google existed.

If you did miss that time because it's outside of your time in the tech world, the difference here is that Microsoft never claimed to be anything but a B2B software dealer with a passing fascination with extending its monopoly to the consumer markets. It tried cable TV boxes, phones, and all sorts of other hare brained ideas but the Xbox was the only one that really stuck.

Google PR image'd itself as the anti-Microsoft. No feature creep, just a plain white page that showed you what you wanted to find. Features in the core search product were subtle and generally high on usefulness and low on intrusiveness. Even the Google ad business was marketed as the acceptable compromise between the brain-melting strobe light ads of the late 90s and the word-based ads that people would not object to.

tl;dr: Google had to work at burning all of its bridges.

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#248

Post by magicalist »

windexh8er wrote: post #226
magicalist wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me this is yet another validation That's just what I mean. There's a tiny amount of validation and a lot of rhetoric. It would be preferable to be able to see the actual sources they're quoting from.

Just because the floodgates haven't opened with all of the insight you may want doesn't mean it's not valid - re: "bullshit meter". Google has an army of the best in legal and part of their play is limiting this information from ever being seen. I'm curious, what would be enough validation to pass your sniff test? And are you saying you think this is being overblown?

> I'm curious, what would be enough validation to pass your sniff test?

From my first post:

> but this would be a lot more convincing with the source emails entered into the record

:)

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#249

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the first one is a bombshell. It was always clear google was using personal data to target ads.

The first one helps to discredit the litigation. The paragraph’s first sentence is supposed to insinuate that Google is lying about not selling people’s data, and the rest of the paragraph says that Google is not selling data. And then the last sentence makes a completely false claim using popular buzzwords. What was the point of the paragraph, other than to invoke unnecessary emotions for no reason?

[deleted]

Re: Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

#250

Post by teflodollar »

jvolkman wrote: post #175
matheusmoreira wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Google analyzing uploads to Google Drive to serve you targeted ads? Is there any reason to believe they're not doing that? It's already a known fact that they scan files for malware and other illegal files such as CSAM. WhatsApp backup contents are a gold mine of personal information.

Well, they explicitly say so in their privacy policy. > We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.

Yes, but that wording carefully evades explicitly saying they don’t scan content in the service of ads. For example they still could use your drive content to enrich how they target to other people who have similar profiles.
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