Ah yes, another case that will likely just end in a $xxxM fine.
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U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
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Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#12It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.
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Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#13I was neutral on google, they seem to be very low key, so they fly under the radar.
Then I started to see their little ads tricks and the story on how they "acquired" google maps aka terra vision and yes , wouldnt put it beyond them to use every trick in the book they can get away with.
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#14It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.
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Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#15https://archive.ph/vJYU2 I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? In fact, perhaps more recently Facebook/Meta has chipped into that market more than how things were 8-10 years ago. I was part of an acquisition that Google made in the ad-tech industry back in 2011 and ther…
In 2017, Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. It said everyone was getting antitrust wrong, and there were other ways giant conglomerates were harming competition. Traditionally, unless the consumer was harmed through short term price fixing, just about anything was allowed to fly. The paper took the legal world by storm, and two years ago, she was nominated, confirmed, and appointed as chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
So largely, someone new, with new ideas, took over a regulatory body that has been coasting along on its lorals. The FTC will now behave non-traditionally, disregarding what has been a very consistent school of thought (defined by Yale Law School professor Robert Bork and University of Chicago Law School professors Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook) since the 1977 Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania Supreme Court Case redefined the Judicial Systems perspective on anti-trust, neutering the Sherman Act.
In 1978 Robert Bork wrote the book The Antitrust Paradox and Richard Posner wrote Antitrust Law, summarizing the previous decades shift in attitude towards government intervention in the marketplace. Khan believes the those three people influenced the government to become too lenient and hands-off, when it should have been doing more to protect the marketplace from harmful entities that threaten competitiveness.
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#16It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.
We joined on collusion for oil at the start of the pandemic with an oil production cut deal that lasted into 2022:
> Oil prices remained depressed for the rest of March. On 2 April, U.S. President Donald Trump, after significant internal pressure, called Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, threatening to withdraw U.S. military support if OPEC and its allies did not cut oil production.[33] The following day, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered energy minister Alexander Novak to prepare an extraordinary OPEC meeting and stated that global production could be cut by 10 million barrels. In response to Putin's statement, oil prices jumped.[34] Even with a 10 million bpd cut, the International Energy Agency estimated that global oil stockpiles would still increase by 15 million bpd. IEA's director, Fatih Birol, stated that 50 million jobs related to oil refining and retail was at risk globally.[35] US oil prices increased by 25% on 2 April, the biggest one-day increase in history. Brent oil increased to $32 on 3 April.[36]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Russia%E2%80%93Saudi_Arab...
Almost as soon as we became a net exporter, we joined in on everything we complained about others doing in the 70s.
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#17It's pretty irritating that in the presence of clear collusion and abuse inflicted upon general consumers of things like eggs and motor fuels and insulin, the administration spends its limited enforcement capacity this way.
You'll be happy to know that the FTC is actually investigating and taking action against all of those things, though the egg price investigation is only a Senate request at this point.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/06/...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/06/...
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/egg-prices-gouging-ftc-inve...
Having FTC leadership that isn't insanely conflicted makes a difference.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/388069-ftc-names-lawye...
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#18Is this perhaps why Google has yet to respond to ChatGPT with their own version yet? In order for "competition" to be demonstrated as evidence against monopoly claims.
Similar to Google paying Mozilla Firefox $400m+ per year or otherwise Chrome would be the only dominant browser on the market and scrutinized much more.
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#19https://archive.ph/vJYU2 I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? In fact, perhaps more recently Facebook/Meta has chipped into that market more than how things were 8-10 years ago. I was part of an acquisition that Google made in the ad-tech industry back in 2011 and ther…
> I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons?
As the article points out, "preventing monopolies" is not the prima facie goal of antitrust law as traditionally interpreted. Monopolies are bad because of their effects on the market (e.g. they can raise prices higher than a competitive market would allow), not because of their "monopoliness".
There is a somewhat confusing quote in the article that implies that the DOJ is filing this suite in an attempt to get higher courts to revisit that standard. But then it finishes the paragraph with "put corporate America on notice", and I genuinely don't know whether that was the intent of the quoted prosecutor or not. This angle would be really big news if so, but... it seems poorly sourced.
(Full disclosure: I work at Google, but nowhere near advertising.)
Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology
#20https://archive.ph/vJYU2 I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons? In fact, perhaps more recently Facebook/Meta has chipped into that market more than how things were 8-10 years ago. I was part of an acquisition that Google made in the ad-tech industry back in 2011 and ther…
In 2017, Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. It said everyone was getting antitrust wrong, and there were other ways giant conglomerates were harming competition. Traditionally, unless the consumer was harmed through short term price fixing, just about anything was allowed to fly. The paper took the legal world by storm, and two years ago, she was nominated, confirmed, and appointed…
Interesting story. By the way, the phrase is "resting on its laurels".