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Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

nytimes.com

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

#191

Post by bdcravens »

lanstin wrote: post #143
bdcravens wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies, even monopolies, aren't the problem. Unfair leverage to suppress competition is. Those products without the subsidizing revenue of ads, and ads without the information flows of those products, is the goal. Who gets what part of the company is the wrong question to ask. The org chart would get split along those business units. In all likelihood, the company called "Google" would be the software side,…

They are a problem in terms of an efficient free market; they make the information flow asymmetrically biased in their favor, and cause higher prices and implicit collusion. That is true even without any intent to harm.

Sure, but generally speaking that's an orthogonal to the issue of antitrust. The same could be same of many of the typical "big tech" players, or even some of the YC "winners".

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

#192

Post by wbl »

guywithahat wrote: post #188

I've always been somewhat opposed to this, because there's already like 10 different search alternatives, and now AI is taking over, which will further weaken their grip. Google is on top because they do the best job; I use Yandex primarily, but I switch back to google all the time for coding related questions. In terms of advertising, there's billions of views on Facebook/Instagram/X to get, in addition to all the o…

This is not that case. This case is about how Google only serves certain ad inventory to people who use their products.

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

#193

Post by nashashmi »

tonymet wrote: post #93

the FTC is like Jim Cramer. Once they judge a business to be a monopoly, the business falls apart and the monopoly is irrelevant. Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows / IE monopoly trial. the AT&T break up set American technology back by decades and killed our domestic chip production.

> the AT&T break up set American technology back by decades

Actually it helped the telecom industry prosper because of independent innovation. The innovators became separate from the utilizers. This allowed both sides of the industry to mature into full three-part businesses.

I will give you that it killed other shiny unprofitable technologies. But imagine if that same thing happened with IBM? Where would IBM be today? How many old tech would be shown the door? How many companies would be buying the latest and greatest innovations?

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

#194

Post by whack »

tonymet wrote: post #93

the FTC is like Jim Cramer. Once they judge a business to be a monopoly, the business falls apart and the monopoly is irrelevant. Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows / IE monopoly trial. the AT&T break up set American technology back by decades and killed our domestic chip production.

> Once they judge a business to be a monopoly, the business falls apart and the monopoly is irrelevant

You're ignoring the reverse causality. Antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft in the 1990s/2000s put them on edge, and made them think twice about strong-arming their competition. Back when Google was starting to make a name for themselves, MS strongly considered adding a warning on Internet Explorer, telling people to "beware" of any results they see on Google. MS eventually decided against it, because of the antitrust magnifying glass they were under. Having a level playing field allowed Google to grow exponentially, and eventually rendered MS' monopoly irrelevant.

Monopolies use anticompetitive tactics to preserve their moat, and continue being monopolies. When antitrust legislation works effectively, this moat disappears, and the monopolist is eventually overrun and becomes irrelevant.

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

#195

Post by mattmcknight »

xmprt wrote: post #156
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…

Perhaps Google does well for their publishers but do they do well for advertisers? Inherently it seems like it's impossible to do both because what's good for one group is bad for another. Fortunately with healthy competition we solve this problem since alternatives could be used. But since Google is playing both sides and has so much sway over the market, they're able to manipulate things. Even if they're not manipu…

> Inherently it seems like it's impossible to do both

but that is the value of a marketplace, aligning buyers and sellers via the price mechanism

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

#196

Post by nashashmi »

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.

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

#197

Post by wonderwonder »

Curious to see how Google search holds up over the next few years. I find myself not using it at all unless I am looking for something very specific such as the website for a company or local restaurants, etc.

Anything informational now I use ai.

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

#198

Post by IshKebab »

guywithahat wrote: post #188

I've always been somewhat opposed to this, because there's already like 10 different search alternatives, and now AI is taking over, which will further weaken their grip. Google is on top because they do the best job; I use Yandex primarily, but I switch back to google all the time for coding related questions. In terms of advertising, there's billions of views on Facebook/Instagram/X to get, in addition to all the o…

Well they certainly gained dominance by being the best and I would say they still are the best. But maybe there was some competitor that could have usurped them by being even better if not for their anticompetitive tactics. I wouldn't put money against that...

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

#199

Post by nashashmi »

nixpulvis wrote: post #108

I would love to see a company compete in the ad space with the goal of making ads less intrusive . If ads didn't attack me and cause the viewport to jump and become obscured while reading, my first impression with the products would be better, and the sites the ads are on would get more viewership. Quality ads would be at a huge premium.

I think the deed is done. We are never going back to "good" ads anymore. The market's greatest revenue makers are those who are dumb ad clickers. We need more intrusive ads to get them on board now. The smart ones can still use adblock.
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