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U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#131

Post by amadeuspagel »

dekhn wrote: post #94

I'm less concerned about Google Ad market share and more concerned with their placement of Google properties above competitors on the search results page (IE, Google Reviews over Yelp, or airline prices, etc).

For the vast majority of google searches there are no relevant ads. All these searches are subsidized by someone googling "flights to new york" and booking a flight right there. Google provides an immense public good with free (and mostly ad-free) results to all kinds of questions, which other flight search engines do not.

Imagine: A flight search engine as a marketing gimick starts a web search engine, and shows flight results if someone searches for "flights to ...". Seems like a good thing, no? It seems like no other flight search engine would have a right to complain about unfair competition here.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#132

Post by scarface74 »

danaris wrote: post #123
scarface74 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. The major case was more about MS forcing OEMs to buy licenses for Windows whether the computers shipped with Windows or not.

> And absolutely nothing came of browser bundling in the US. But that has much less to do with the merits of the case, and much more to do with the fact that just before any action could be taken, George W Bush was elected president and began our current trajectory toward unbridled corporate governance of America.

Merits of the case decided by who? A bunch of not-lawyers on HN?

Do you think the government should step in and not allow any device to bundled with a browser? Why stop at browsers? Why don’t we just force all manufactures to ship every device without an OS?

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#133

Post by dannyr »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #118
Closi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league? Being a monopoly doesn’t mean you have no competitors - it means you have enough control of the market to artificially affect/set the market price for something (ie that there was not enough competition for efficient pricing).

> it means you have enough control of the market to artificially affect/set the market price for something Does it? Then why isn't every App Store's 30% developer fee a much more obvious monopoly?

That's a different antitrust violation.

This one is about ad tech.

DoJ is probably filing this lawsuit first either it's easier to win and/or they have gathered enough evidence.

Pretty sure they are looking into App Store antitrust too.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#134

Post by scarface74 »

Spivak wrote: post #90
scarface74 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a divestiture of Google’s ad business when their entire business is selling ads?

Google sells the ability to run ads on search to DoubleClick and DoubleClick buys Google's user data.

Wow that sounds like a step forward for privacy and the consumer…

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#135

Post by judge2020 »

postalrat wrote: post #125
dahfizz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-trust lawsuits don't require an absolute monopoly. It requires proving that a company behaved anti-competitively. > The lawsuit said Google had “corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers and brokers to facilitate digital advertising.”

Then their first target should be Apple.

Epic Games is still fighting their antitrust case against Apple so the federal government isn’t going to swoop in and take over the case. If Epic truly fails and DOJ doesn’t see it as a favorable outcome, they might further explore antitrust litigation.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#136

Post by decremental »

debacle wrote: post #122
xxpor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the general point, but it's undeniable that corporatism has used conservative politics as the means to the end they desire. See also: every culture war, the fact that the only thing Republicans can agree on are court appointees and tax cuts.

I don't think you understand the US political system in a nuanced or realistic fashion.

This could be an accurate auto-response to just about any comment on these types of threads.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#137

Post by dannyr »

emodendroket wrote: post #126
booleandilemma wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wouldn't be smaller Googles, they'd be different companies altogether, with their own practices and work cultures. They'd have less bureaucracy, which might help them to innovate and move faster, and in different directions from each other.

In absolute terms more bureaucracy is required now because they must all duplicate administration that they can currently share.

Would you rather have McDonalds and Burger King operating all restaurants instead of having millions of small restaurants?

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#138

Post by remarkEon »

starwind wrote: post #127
xxpor wrote: post #78

One of the conservative's legal project over the past 50 years main goals has been to maintain a Borkian consumer harm standard for anti-trust. With the current SCOTUS, I don't see much of a realistic path for this.

Bork argued that antitrust law shouldn't inherently challenge bigness. He felt that the antitrust should seek to maximize consumer welfare. That's been interpreted by the courts to mean lower prices, but any economist worth their salt will say consumer choice is an aspect of consumer welfare. It doesn't matter if Little Caesars pizza is the cheapest option, if there aren't any other pizza options, consumer welfare is…

Thomas does seem at least open to having the discussion, and has mentioned social media market position in previous opinions.

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#139

Post by shadowgovt »

scarface74 wrote: post #128
basch wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of their businesses that display ads could display ads from AdWords/DoubleClick, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon, just like any other website that hosts third party ads.

So now the government is going to force a separation into multiple companies and by doing so increase user tracking and sharing information across companies… Win???

You and I are in agreement. It's one of the reasons I think trying to break up Google is actually a terrible idea for the health of the Internet (in any frame of reference other than an anarchist "burn it to the ground" mentality).

Re: U.S. accuses Google of abusing monopoly in ad technology

#140

Post by paulluuk »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #118
Closi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league? Being a monopoly doesn’t mean you have no competitors - it means you have enough control of the market to artificially affect/set the market price for something (ie that there was not enough competition for efficient pricing).

> it means you have enough control of the market to artificially affect/set the market price for something Does it? Then why isn't every App Store's 30% developer fee a much more obvious monopoly?

The 30% fee is being targeted in the EU as monopolistic abuse (or whatever the proper legal term is)
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