Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 510 posts

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#21

Post by ablerman »

Analemma_ wrote: post #15
xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

Google really should start floating some plans for splitting itself up. Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up. Some people thought it would all fail, but the companies have done a good job competing and cooperating at the right times. If Google comes up with the plans, it's better than some antagonist.

> Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up In what way? They all just re-consolidated back into monopolies. I have one choice of telecom provider in my location: if I don’t like Xfinity, I get to eat shit. At least Ma Bell had to get the government’s permission to raise prices; frankly, I’d prefer having that back.

It's worse than that, they reconsolidated but BellLabs was shut down in the process. So, they got the same control they previously had except they weren't spending on research. IMO, they should have been prevented from reconsolidating.

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#22

Post by yoshicoder »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #17

Google isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable. For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argu…

I mean it wouldn't make sense for it to be more profitable for google if there were no search deals, since otherwise they would just cancel the deal themselves. Clearly they see long term value in blocking out competition even at that high of a price

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#23

Post by nativeit »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #17

Google isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable. For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argu…

> Google isn’t a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term.

Aren’t they? It doesn’t sound like those two interpretations are mutually exclusive.

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#25

Post by charcircuit »

seydor wrote: post #20
charcircuit wrote: post #19

The market is being unfairly defined based on how things worked decades ago instead of looking at the modern landscape. Tech evolved rapidly and the way things worked decades ago may not be optimal for the end user as things change.

> how things worked decades ago you mean, before monopolies?

Everything is a monopoly if you limit the market enough.

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#26

Post by bdcravens »

internetter wrote: post #18

Kinda surprised. Google's core business is advertising. Some vertically integrated aux services (like chrome) feel ripe for antitrust, but I wasn't expecting ads themselves. What is Google without ads?

("Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist")

Everything else. Cloud provider, operating systems, browsers, hosting business apps, phone licenser, Internet provider, smart home manufacturer, and various moonshots. Their ad company is a monopoly because of those other services.

Google as an ad company that can't leverage those other lines of business to gain an advantage over other ad companies still has a viable ad business. They can compete on the basis of that lone company's strengths.

("If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it")

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#27

Post by spacebanana7 »

yoshicoder wrote: post #22
spacebanana7 wrote: post #17

Google isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable. For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argu…

I mean it wouldn't make sense for it to be more profitable for google if there were no search deals, since otherwise they would just cancel the deal themselves. Clearly they see long term value in blocking out competition even at that high of a price

Google can't cancel it right now because then otherwise Bing would bid for it. Antitrust rules which prevented anyone from bidding it would protect against this.

A historical parallel is when tobacco advertising was banned, and cigarette companies because more profitable. Advertising greatly affected which cigarettes people smoked but had a smaller (though still real) impact on whether they smoked. So the companies kept most of the revenue with none of the advertising cost.

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#29

Post by elpool2 »

yoshicoder wrote: post #22
spacebanana7 wrote: post #17

Google isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable. For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argu…

I mean it wouldn't make sense for it to be more profitable for google if there were no search deals, since otherwise they would just cancel the deal themselves. Clearly they see long term value in blocking out competition even at that high of a price

It would make sense if Apple decided to still have Google be their default, even without the payment. Not sure how likely that is though.

Re: Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

#30

Post by bryanlarsen »

Analemma_ wrote: post #15
xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

Google really should start floating some plans for splitting itself up. Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up. Some people thought it would all fail, but the companies have done a good job competing and cooperating at the right times. If Google comes up with the plans, it's better than some antagonist.

> Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up In what way? They all just re-consolidated back into monopolies. I have one choice of telecom provider in my location: if I don’t like Xfinity, I get to eat shit. At least Ma Bell had to get the government’s permission to raise prices; frankly, I’d prefer having that back.

> In what way?

It's fairly straightforward to argue that the internet as we know it wouldn't have been possible without the Bell labs split up. There were dozens of large telecommunications companies that were enabled by the split, and those companies built much of the equipment used in the early internet.

Not to mention Unix.

Post reply on HN