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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

#351

Post by shadowgovt »

milesrout wrote: post #313
shadowgovt wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, capitalism seems to be doing a pretty good job of it right now. I'd have to see some hard numbers on efficacy. Has anyone done a normalized any% speedrun to breadlines on these two fierce contenders? Can monarchy get in on this?

We are wealthier than we have ever been so I fail to see how capitalism has made us poor. Poor compared to what? The past when we were poorer?

You can hide a lot of bad experiences behind averaging over 300+ million people.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...

... And, to be blunt, if things are better than ever, why is the US sliding straight into fascism?

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

#352

Post by econ »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #321
hammock wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And crucially, there are leaked emails, other evidence that demonstrate (at the very least historical and occasional) corruption of this dual- (multi?) agency arrangement. Among the allegations: The Google ad exchange favored its own platforms, limiting the ability of other exchanges to compete fairly in bidding for ad inventory. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... In limiting the number o…

> In limiting the number of bidders, Google inflated the prices for ad inventory. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-26/closing-arguments-giv... Note that this link says absolutely nothing to support the sentence before it. Which isn't a surprise given that limiting the number of bidders could hardly drive the prices those bidders are paying up . But the issue isn't even mentioned.

Im not sure but I think what they mean is that if you chose adsense the TOS says you may not display ads from other providers.

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

#353

Post by darthwalsh »

rtkwe wrote: post #84
Analemma_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up In what way? They all just re-consolidated back into monopolies. I have one choice of telecom provider in my location: if I don’t like Xfinity, I get to eat shit. At least Ma Bell had to get the government’s permission to raise prices; frankly, I’d prefer having that back.

Xfinity is Comcast which I don't think has much connection to the Baby Bells or their reconsolidation. Unfortunately the the cost of running cable to the broad US suburbs is a pretty big natural barrier to competition. https://i.redd.it/7v0zi94tms181.jpg

Too bad we can't treat laying cable as a public utility, then multiple companies could use the same infrastructure to compete.

Instead we ended up paying for dark fiber with companies having no incentive to use it.

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

#354

Post by shadowgovt »

timewizard wrote: post #293
mystified5016 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because we aren't even doing that the best way. Can't even fail successfully.

So real "capitalism devolved into communism" has never been tried before?

We've watched communism devolve into capitalism. That's modern Russia.

What are they up to these days?

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

#355

Post by alabastervlog »

milesrout wrote: post #311
ksec wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully HN is finally at a stage people can come out and talk about Ad tech without being harassed or attacked. Could you explain more on this. What do you think makes Google Ad or DoubleClick so special? And >What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Correct me if I am wrong, you are suggesting even if publisher only earns 30% of the revenue they still earn more than on othe…

[flagged]

They weren't positively received in any computer nerd spaces, at any time that I can ever recall—with the sole exception of the "non-evil", well-marked, text-only Google ads that they used to run. There was a lot of "everything except these is bad".

Now google's as bad as any of the old pop-up flash advertisers, plus they intentionally trick people into confusing ads with search results, and they're more effective at tracking people than any of those ad networks were. So there's nothing left to say anything positive about. The single arguably-good version of this entire field of Web ads is long gone.

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

#356

Post by econ »

adrr wrote: post #250
ksec wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully HN is finally at a stage people can come out and talk about Ad tech without being harassed or attacked. Could you explain more on this. What do you think makes Google Ad or DoubleClick so special? And >What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative. Correct me if I am wrong, you are suggesting even if publisher only earns 30% of the revenue they still earn more than on othe…

I am on the purchasing side. Google is very efficient when delivering traffic especially their Max Performance product. Probably the cheapest of all platforms. So they are serving relevant ads to users who engage with the ads. This is win for me and I assume also a win for publishers who get revenue due to higher engagement. Also users should benefit because they are getting relevant ads. Linear tv is notorious for n…

To me that reads like endless drug ads for the disease your loved one died from 10 years ago.

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

#357

Post by maujun »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #306
pclmulqdq wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I personally want to see ads that are as irrelevant as possible. I hate getting a sales pitch forced on me, and would rather see something funny or entertaining showing off an irrelevant product in a clever way than whatever your customers want to shove in front of my eyes. This is why I block all ads, but still appreciate super bowl commercials. And I have discovered that this actually works on me. I like the Ni…

This doesn’t make sense. Why would any advertiser pay the same in such a scenario? They would obviously value your attention much less on average if that was a hard limit.

It doesn't make sense financially. But money is not the only thing that matters.

My emotions matter. If I see a scary person who is not my friend, I yell "put him down" in my head, and take actions.

If that scary person knows more about me than I know about myself. I bark like a small dog. Arf! Arf! Arf! In English, that roughly translates to "Get out of my sight! Get out of my head! Then I'll feel fine again."

If this doesn't make sense to you, then you are suggesting a world where money/truth matter more than emotions. But then why do people make money, if not just to survive? Arf! Arf! Arf! (This originally translated to: "Don't engage with me unless you value low-status people")

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

#358

Post by Aloisius »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #201
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

87% of Googles revenue in 2023 was advertising. $265 billion. They hold more than 80% market dominance in all markets they compete in. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven...

Market share and market dominance are very sensitive to how you define the market. Facebook has >$100B ad revenue [1]. Does that compete with Google? Reasonable people can probably disagree about exactly how much so. From an advertisers perspective they compete for the same marketing budget, but from a consumers point of view they feel like different products. Things get even more tricky when we compare YouTube to Ti…

A simple test is if you got rid of a product, what would customers use as a direct replacement? Those competitor products, the product you got rid of plus the customers of those products, are a market.

Here, the products are Google Ad Exchange (Doubleclick Ad Exchange) and the Publisher Ad Server (DoubleClick for Publishers) which are now Google Ad Manager and the customers are publishers selling space for ads on their websites.

Website publishers can't really use Facebook as a direct replacement, so they're not in the same market.

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

#359

Post by johannes1234321 »

viraptor wrote: post #330
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good argument against bad and exploitative ads. Not all ads are necessarily bad. Eg have you ever seen an ad for an event in your town? Maybe a play or a concert you'd want to see. Those to me feel more like "public notice: thing is happening" and every once in a while I'll actually go buy tickets. But technically, those are ads, just not the kind of exploitative ad you are talking about. A good ad informs,…

> have you ever seen an ad for an event in your town? I get those on the local town board, online in the town group I explicitly joined, and from people around. I do not want those on a random page when I'm trying to do something else.

Especially as the random page will be organized in a way to steer me towards the ad rather than the thing I want to do.

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

#360

Post by ocdtrekkie »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #336

What are the odds this case will continue to be pursued honestly under the Trump administration?

Pretty high. Antitrust against Google started during the first Trump administration and continued during Biden. Dealing with Big Tech is a bipartisan issue, though each side has partisan reasons for it: Republicans argue tech companies have a liberal bent, Democrats argue tech companies allowed misinformation to get Trump elected. At the end of the day, we can all agree it's time for Google to go.

I think the only real risk is that Google could just buy Trump out on the matter, now that we live in Russia of the West, resolving a dispute like this can just be lining someone's pockets enough.

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