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Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

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Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#161

Post by blhack »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #156
blhack wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not a terrible question. It is a general question about the business of online advertising, something that Sundar Pichai is unquestionably an expert about since he is the CEO of the largest company in the world that sells online advertising, and for all you know it could have been a web game that the grand daughter was playing in a chrome browser. A reasonable, non-combative answer to this question may have…

Strong disagree, it's a terrible question, most likely not entirely factual, and there's no reason to dignify it with an in depth answer as it would require breaking down multiple company's ad ecosystems for one question. You're re-interpreting the question as something he didn't actually say. The question, as it is in the official record is "how does that show up on a 7 year old's iPhone". > Senator, ad providers ha…

Let's look at the possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant.

Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone".

Interpretation 1:

>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone"

Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text.

Interpretation 2:

>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"

Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo..

Interpretation 3:

>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"

Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children.

Interpretation 4:

>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"

Senator my company doesn't make the iphone.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#162

Post by throwaways885 »

wuunderbar wrote: post #155
mensetmanusman wrote: post #105

If Congress cuts Google into pieces, they should be consistent and set some sort of maximum market value (as a percentage of US GDP). That way, once companies reach a certain size, they can expect a split. I actually think this would be good for society, because it would shuffle things up consistently to force new ideas. Also, smaller companies can grow more effectively, so the stock market should enjoy that as well.

And then how do US companies then compete with overseas companies that don’t have this setback?

Other than the US regulating the shit out of overseas companies like China does, they can't.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#163

Post by throwaways885 »

justaguyhere wrote: post #88
amelius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ban targeted advertising, but allow websites that ask the user to tell about themselves in order to get tailored product recommendations.

Or educate users to pay for quality and make quality websites/products so we don't have to depend on advertising. This would be insanely difficult to pull off, but it is at least worth a try. The incumbents have trained users to expect everything on the internet for free. People think they pay $75 (or whatever their internet connection costs) and that should cover everything - news, search, email... How many people e…

$75 should cover the basics, including a sub to Facebook/Google if you want it. It's far too much to pay for only the internet pipes.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#164

Post by treis »

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #66

What so many people fail to realize about these issues vis-a-vis Google, it’s not so much the issues of Google having a monopoly or not on the ad market...in either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries t…

>n either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition.

It's not that clear how much that helps. The places where Google won (Maps, Gmail, Chrome) they had a pretty clearly better product. Other places where they didn't (Duo/Hangouts, Plus, Gsuite, Chromebook, GCloud) they don't dominate the market.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#165

Post by LatteLazy »

No one seems to agree on what the problem is or what the solution is. Any "solutions" are complex and it's hard to predict the outcomes of implementation. The motives of politicians implimenting these solutions have never been less reliable or more corrupt or short-term-ist as far as I know. And in the background we have problems 100 times larger than whatever Google is meant to be: the collapse of democracy, climate change, Chinas rise in power and fall in decency etc.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#167

Post by vharuck »

turtleturtle wrote: post #148
hannasanarion wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too. Monopolies are traditionally assessed in terms of product categories, not entire industries. Nobody ever said "standard oil isn't a monopoly, because you can also buy coal fuel"

And practically any company can build as many billboards as they want. Online ads aren't restricted by physical space. Google just happens to own most web traffic because they're really good at search.

Maybe a better analogy is Google owns the biggest road system (search) and all land beside it for billboards (ads). Very few people use other road systems.

Now, one might say "But users can choose other search engines." But users are the resource, not the customers. Right now, Google controls most of these resources. And the very nature of search means they're not sharing access with competitors.

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#168

Post by cortesoft »

hannasanarion wrote: post #140
Spivak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't think this tracks unless you treat search as something special. If I own a billboard then I have a monopoly on that billboard. Presumably I built/bought that billboard because I knew that the ad space would be valuable and that companies would need to pay me for it. Google owns extremely valuable ad space but that to me doesn't make a monopoly just because Bing or Facebook's ad space isn't as good for cer…

And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too. Monopolies are traditionally assessed in terms of product categories, not entire industries. Nobody ever said "standard oil isn't a monopoly, because you can also buy coal fuel"

> And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too.

You mean clearchannel? (Now iHeartRadio)

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#169

Post by jayd16 »

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #66

What so many people fail to realize about these issues vis-a-vis Google, it’s not so much the issues of Google having a monopoly or not on the ad market...in either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries t…

So whats the solution? Make it illegal for any search company to build any other product?

Re: Google says it doesn't monopolize digital ad market – senators don't buy it

#170

Post by boogies »

treis wrote: post #164
throwaway_kufu wrote: post #66

What so many people fail to realize about these issues vis-a-vis Google, it’s not so much the issues of Google having a monopoly or not on the ad market...in either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. Google has often used data acquired through their market position to start subsidiaries t…

>n either case google is a dominant market incumbent that uses its position (in this case web traffic, data and online ad platform) to unfairly compete and stifle competition. It's not that clear how much that helps. The places where Google won (Maps, Gmail, Chrome) they had a pretty clearly better product. Other places where they didn't (Duo/Hangouts, Plus, Gsuite, Chromebook, GCloud) they don't dominate the market.

Translate at least seems to have some people ignorant of the alternatives convinced that they have a clearly better product — “no competitors that even come close in terms of quality” when they objectively don’t. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23975001
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