Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by turtletontine » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:50 PM UTC

nashashmi wrote: post #196

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?

Google is playing all sides of the dice. They used adsense to enlist publishers. They used adwords to get marketers. They used an ad buying and selling platform to corner the entire ad line. Google bought Doubleclick for $3 Billion. Today it is worth $22 Billion. When Google got into ad-tech, they drifted away from their core market: users. And started to endorse the other side that turned users into products.

You’ve nailed the first two stages of enshittification in your story there. Stage 1: bring in users with a genuinely good product they like! Stage 2: once users are locked in, prioritize your business customers (in this case, advertisers) and make things continually worse for your users.

But stage 3 is just as crucial: once the advertisers are locked in, make things worse for THEM just for your benefit. That’s how google makes such obscene margins on adverting. Publishers and advertisers would love an alternative - but google has done an excellent job of preventing that through unlawful monopolization tactics. Hence thus case, and why it’s so important.

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

#252

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:52 PM UTC

hamp95 wrote: post #169

CPLX wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue Of course it matters if a middleman is skimming off 70% of the revenue in a given market. > it is incredibly efficient On what planet is a loss of 70% of the resources to the matching process between buyers and sellers "incredibly efficient"? > What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Right, which is…

> On what planet is a loss of 70% of the resources to the matching process between buyers and sellers "incredibly efficient"? One where the market maker is taking up the cost of providing a market. E.g. Steam takes a 30% cut for providing the infrastructure required to distribute games. Some people/companies can do it for less but it is the best option for a majority of sellers. If the market maker did not the seller…

> One where the market maker is taking up the cost of providing a market

Does a landlord on a literal physical market take 30% of revenue? I find that unlikely.

How did we arrive here, where supposedly ‘efficient’ digital marketplace is a form of rent higher than actually building physical rent, and expenses on wages and materials for a typical business?

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

#253

Post by timewizard » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:53 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #218

I'm confused how this is a monopoly, is it just the "if we define a market as Google ads, then Google has a monopoly problem"? Like defining iOS apps as a market (and somehow failed)? Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up, at the end of the day X company is spending $5 per thousand clicks (or whatever) because they think it's worth it. Google can charge whatever they want, they run the platfo…

> I'm confused how this is a monopoly

An example from the case would be: Google bought Admeld. Then it disabled it's real time bidding feature. This created short term losses for them but gave them long term advantage in market control.

> Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up

Then it should be noticed, competitors should form, and the market should move away from this provider. Yet this has not happened because Google keeps buying those competitors.

> and it's not as if anyone is forced to use them.

Technically? Yes. Practically? No.

> that the app store isn't a monopoly, but Google ads are.

Our federal courts are separated into districts. Not all of them use the same precedents and market logic when deciding cases. This is probably why congress passed a law that prevents large companies from removing cases to the district of their choice and instead forces them to hold the case where the prosecutor decides.

The latter point is one reason why this case ended up differently.

> There's other ad companies

Loss leading, exclusive contracts, and price fixing are all crimes that can be committed in that environment. The bar for anti trust isn't "100% market domination." It's actually pretty nuanced. That's a good thing.

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

#254

Post by InsomniacL » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:54 PM UTC

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #155

crowcroft wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a media buyer puts $1.00 in on one side of the system, on average only $0.60 makes it to the publisher. In some cases less than $0.50 gets to them. Advertising is an intentionally complex system so that companies can clip the ticket at multiple stages throughout the process. Google should be broken up, but the whole ad tech system needs to go into the bin if these problems are going to ever get fixed. https://ww…

As someone who has worked in AdTech I would respectfully disagree. It is indeed complex but it is incredibly efficient. Also it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue. What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Some companies like Google are incredible at this. Google is not a "monopoly" in this space. In fact the world has far too many Google eq…

> Also it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue. What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative.

Not if Google illegally monopolizes the market unfairly hindering 'the next best alternative'.

> Google is not a "monopoly" in this space.

You've made that comment on a post where a judge has ruled "Google is illegally monopolizing"...

> In fact the world has far too many Google equivalents but absolutely no one comes close to Google in generating top dollars for publishers.

They have not been able to compete in a fair market.

This comment has some great examples.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43719246

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

#255

Post by timewizard » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:55 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #217

Frieren wrote: post #202

This is necessary now, but it should have been done years back. Nowadays, many companies backed up by investors with very deep pockets are doing this in all markets: start to buy middle-man companies in a space, it does not matter which one, dominate the market thanks to monopolistic power. Screw the clients making them pay too much, screw the providers paying them too little. Go for the next market. Google does this…

If only Marx et al. knew that the end game of capitalism is communism! Would have probably slept much better at night.

So you're acknowledging that the best way to make a population powerless and then rob them blind is Communism?

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

#256

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:56 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #250

ksec wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully HN is finally at a stage people can come out and talk about Ad tech without being harassed or attacked. Could you explain more on this. What do you think makes Google Ad or DoubleClick so special? And >What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Correct me if I am wrong, you are suggesting even if publisher only earns 30% of the revenue they still earn more than on othe…

I am on the purchasing side. Google is very efficient when delivering traffic especially their Max Performance product. Probably the cheapest of all platforms. So they are serving relevant ads to users who engage with the ads. This is win for me and I assume also a win for publishers who get revenue due to higher engagement. Also users should benefit because they are getting relevant ads. Linear tv is notorious for n…

No, I personally want to see ads that are as irrelevant as possible. I hate getting a sales pitch forced on me, and would rather see something funny or entertaining showing off an irrelevant product in a clever way than whatever your customers want to shove in front of my eyes.

This is why I block all ads, but still appreciate super bowl commercials.

And I have discovered that this actually works on me. I like the Nike ads, so on the occasions when I buy sportswear, I have positive feelings about Nike stuff. I spend 100-10000x more on stuff that isn't sportswear, but I think Nike gets more value from me watching that ad than anyone who advertises some "relevant" SaaS product or whatnot.

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

#257

Post by azemetre » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #157

Hasu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it when my counterparty's breach of contract is my fault because I foolishly trusted that they would do what they said they would in exchange for my money. I'm sure you also believe that she was asking for it because she was wearing a short skirt and your dad was right to hit you because you wouldn't shut up.

If you aren't prepared for the contingency where your counterparty bails, then yes, strategically you are failing to commoditize your product for the specific market. I think that's the basis of competition and free market economics.

lol in what world is breaking paid user contracts and flagrantly getting away with it democratic? What does free market even mean in this context? That the big trillion dollar corporation can bury you in legal fees or remove your means of making money with no way to question the decision to prove it was done in error?

This is insane. In no free society would this be just.

They need to rightfully be broken up to ensure a free society for everyone, not just the cohort of people that own alphabet stocks.

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

#258

Post by adrr » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #158

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked in AdTech I would respectfully disagree. It is indeed complex but it is incredibly efficient. Also it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue. What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Some companies like Google are incredible at this. Google is not a "monopoly" in this space. In fact the world has far too many Google eq…

> it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue Of course it matters if a middleman is skimming off 70% of the revenue in a given market. > it is incredibly efficient On what planet is a loss of 70% of the resources to the matching process between buyers and sellers "incredibly efficient"? > What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Right, which is…

There are three parties. Media Buyers, publishers and users. As a publisher, you can go with “dumb” platforms that don’t deliver quality users to media buyers because of relevancy, you’ll make less money m. Apple ad platform is 40/60 split but for media buyers, it’s not efficient so we spend less money on it. Assume publishers make less money with it as well.

We seen dumb platforms with linear tv. Go watch any TV with an antenna.

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

#259

Post by azemetre » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #222

azemetre wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but it would stop a single company from accumulating so much power. How you can argue such things are democratic are beyond me. There is nothing democratic about trillion dollar corporations that can ruin your business for refusing to play their game.

Of course it's not democratic, but what business ever is? There is no recognized right to access the advertising market on terms that you like.

Yes there is no right to access an advertising market for Google, luckily the government agrees they are an illegal monopoly. Hopefully the ramifications are massive and company breaking.

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

#260

Post by hnfong » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #182

Clubber wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the global search engine market, Google maintains a dominant position. In January 2025, its market share was approximately 89.62% across all devices, and 93.89% in the mobile search market. While Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo! hold a smaller share of the market, Google continues to be the leading search engine.

What does search have to do with this? This is on their display ads. You can read decision here. No mention of search. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...

> You can read decision here. No mention of search. I count 13 mentions of "Google Search" and 44 mentions of "search" in the linked document.

Of course this doesn't mean the monopoly is in "search", but before you complain that I just grepped the document for the keywords without reading it, here's the actual relevant text:

  Plaintiffs have proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising. For over a decade, Google has tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through contractual policies and technological integration, which enabled the company to establish and protect its monopoly power in these two markets. Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features. In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web. Accordingly, Google is liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.

So it's quite clear the court thought Google was a monopoly in "publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising". Not "market for digital marketing" as you alluded to.

I really don't know what to make of your comments here -- either you read the document and decided to just spin it as some braindead decision, or you didn't read the document and just wantonly claimed it didn't mention "search".