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

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

#221

Post by kazinator » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

People are illegally thinking of nothing but 'google.com' when they are about to search for something, rules judge.

In so doing, they leave Google no choice but to reluctantly comply in behaving like a monopoly.

This flagrant behavior is punishable by exposure to pages and pages of spam, advertising, inauthentic content, nonsensical AI summaries (unless 'fucking' is added to the query) and malware.

Our reporter tried reaching out to a few representatives of the people to see what they have to say for themselves, but they were too busy doom-scrolling YouTube shorts or TikTok to even blink their eyes.

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

#222

Post by fallingknife » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #65

whoknowsidont wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no shortage of other ad platforms. Breaking up Google isn't going to solve your specific issue lol

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.

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

#223

Post by p3rls » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:07 PM UTC

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…

Really? Even non-technical people are waking up and seeing the 3 in web3 stands for India, OnlyFans and AI content.

As someone who runs a large platform in the music niche, every independent interesting webapp in the kpop community besides me has been killed by Google's ceaseless enshittification and I'd be thrilled if everyone who worked there had their stock options reduced to 0 to atone for what they've done to the internet.

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

#224

Post by throwaway743 » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:09 PM UTC

They should dig into admob while they're at it. They love screwing devs over and have purposely left their email option broken for years now. They'll cut you off even when it's their fault and you'll have no means of recourse. It's a joke, but they have the best ecpm around unfortunately.

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

#225

Post by Henchman21 » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #219

Henchman21 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were really smart guys. But smart guys don’t stand a chance in the face of all that money because it attracts people who know how to manipulate and control smart people . Smart people think they’re at the top of the totem pole. But really its those without ethics who sit at the top in our society. This is a conundrum humanity must address if we’re to survive over the long term, IMO.

> This is a conundrum humanity must address if we’re to survive over the long term, IMO. Who's to say that this is not actually an evolutionary adaptation that allows the more ruthlessly led tribes to dominate their enemies? The stat about 1/25 of individuals being sociopaths is very telling

Each and every one of us has the ability to choose to be better. That so many just “go along with whatever” is why I personally think we’re unlikely to survive over the long term, unless a more enlightened species leads us by the hand.

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

#226

Post by fallingknife » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:11 PM UTC

matthest wrote: post #212

First, let me say I'm glad the FTC is going after monopolies. True capitalism requires competition, not massive corporations. That said, I feel like going after Big Tech is a massive misuse of resources. Not because it's not a monopoly (it is), but because there's a far more important monopoly that should be broken up: healthcare insurance. Something like 7 corporations dominate 70% of the healthcare insurance market…

I don't really see how that's possible. They are prevented by law from charging more than 25% on top of what they pay out to medical providers. The problem is the providers who are represented by the AMA.

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

#227

Post by heromal » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:11 PM UTC

alex1138 wrote: post #110

I don't know whether they are a monopoly but I would like them to fix several things 1) Fix your search engine. Stop ignoring keywords, your product as it is currently sucks 2) Stop antagonizing people with user hostile actions in Chrome 3) Enough with the ideological censorship

> 3) Enough with the ideological censorship

What's this referring to? It seems to me they've stayed out of the culture war stuff (compared to Meta who is wading in it, for example).

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

#228

Post by alexey-salmin » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:11 PM UTC

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.

Web ads are bearable for me most of the time, but I'm dismayed by ads in mobile games my kids play. Unskippable 30 second videos that peddle poorly made F2P games.

I manage to keep them mostly out of it by paying for worthy games and deleting the rest.

However I would in fact happily welcome _some_ ads. Ones that would simply inform me of existence of masterpieces like Tiny Bubbles or Monument Valley rather than peddle anything. This idea of a tiny ad network with curated content comes up in my head often. Sure it won't make any money it would do some good.

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

#229

Post by cornel_io » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

tmtvl wrote: post #178

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (Open)RTB system makes things more competitive and reduces costs for advertisers by making unsold inventory available to an automated marketplace while also increasing revenue for smaller publishers who otherwise wouldn't have been able to create first party relationships with advertisers. The middlemen are various identity providers and other tracking/data enrichment services, as well as third party exchanges, D…

> * Identity providers who have lists of user IDs that belong to "high CTR" audiences (users more likely to click ads) > * Geo providers who tell the bidders where the User's location is so that they can target locally-focused advertisements to them > * User intent plugins, "abandoned cart" retargeting, product recommendation providers, etc. who look at user interaction events and build profiles of people who can be…

None of that seems at all user-hostile to me, it's literally all aimed at making sure what the user is shown is more likely to actually be useful to them.

I guess this is a big and probably unbridgeable divide, some people think this sort of thing is obviously evil and others, like me, actually prefer it very strongly over a world where all advertising is untargeted but there is massively more of it because it's so much less valuable...

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

#230

Post by matthest » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #226

matthest wrote: post #212

First, let me say I'm glad the FTC is going after monopolies. True capitalism requires competition, not massive corporations. That said, I feel like going after Big Tech is a massive misuse of resources. Not because it's not a monopoly (it is), but because there's a far more important monopoly that should be broken up: healthcare insurance. Something like 7 corporations dominate 70% of the healthcare insurance market…

I don't really see how that's possible. They are prevented by law from charging more than 25% on top of what they pay out to medical providers. The problem is the providers who are represented by the AMA.

https://acdis.org/articles/news-ama-report-details-health-in...