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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

#361

Post by tdb7893 »

foobarian wrote: post #217
Frieren wrote: post #202

This is necessary now, but it should have been done years back. Nowadays, many companies backed up by investors with very deep pockets are doing this in all markets: start to buy middle-man companies in a space, it does not matter which one, dominate the market thanks to monopolistic power. Screw the clients making them pay too much, screw the providers paying them too little. Go for the next market. Google does this…

If only Marx et al. knew that the end game of capitalism is communism! Would have probably slept much better at night.

Not to be overly pedantic but what he described isn't communism, monopolistic private corporation is pretty much the exact opposite of communism.

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

#362

Post by MichaelZuo »

maujun wrote: post #357
MichaelZuo wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

This still doesn’t make sense.

Since everyone values emotions differently... there would still need to be some intermediary, like money, for emotions to have any agreed upon value at all beyond narrow circles.

Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value?

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

#363

Post by gregw134 »

barkerja wrote: post #320
gregw134 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really only one alternative, Bing. Virtually all the other western search engines are using the Bing api, and just slightly modify the results.

I use Kagi ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Which uses Bing as its primary index

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

#364

Post by foobarian »

moshegramovsky wrote: post #246
foobarian wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Even if you're correct, is that the world you want? (And to be clear, I'm not saying it's the world you want.) DNA isn't destiny.

Right, I don't. It's an interesting conundrum because on an evolutionary scale the civilized era is so short it probably hasn't had an effect yet, which means that getting to a Star Trek style utopia would require a conscious struggle against our nature.

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

#365

Post by ambicapter »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #362
maujun wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

This still doesn’t make sense. Since everyone values emotions differently... there would still need to be some intermediary, like money, for emotions to have any agreed upon value at all beyond narrow circles. Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value?

"The only way to understand emotions correctly is through money" What a take.

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

#366

Post by forgotoldacc »

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…

> Google is on top because they do the best job

Companies become monopolies often through doing their job the best. Companies stay the best because they're monopolies.

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

#367

Post by maujun »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #362
maujun wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

This still doesn’t make sense. Since everyone values emotions differently... there would still need to be some intermediary, like money, for emotions to have any agreed upon value at all beyond narrow circles. Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value?

I like the idea.

With money, we can value emotions. Since everybody has some money, everybody's emotions (outside of children) will have positive value.

Relating to my original example:

I, as a provider of PII, feel scared about my information being sold. If Google has a $100/year option to stop my PII from being spread, I would consider buying it.

However, I predict now some people feel angry. They feel Google should not be allowed to do this. They won't pay Google to stop, they will go to the govt.

Considering this problem, I wonder what is the next step we would need to do to ensure a world of positive emotions and money.

> Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value?

Well, I think a lot of people value my emotions negatively, especially angry people and corporations. In particular, corporations like to take money and make it time consuming for me to get a refund.

As for people, I am at peace because I cannot change my skin color, face, or personality, but I can adjust my goals to be smaller/non-overlapping.

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

#368

Post by adrr »

thfuran wrote: post #345
adrr wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I choose option three in the false dichotomy: Render it illegal to attempt to force me to see ads.

You can always pay for service. Kagi, YouTube Premium, Reddit Premium, Spotify Premium, ProtonMail etc. Platforms needs money to run.

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

#369

Post by rfrey »

foobarian wrote: post #217
Frieren wrote: post #202

This is necessary now, but it should have been done years back. Nowadays, many companies backed up by investors with very deep pockets are doing this in all markets: start to buy middle-man companies in a space, it does not matter which one, dominate the market thanks to monopolistic power. Screw the clients making them pay too much, screw the providers paying them too little. Go for the next market. Google does this…

If only Marx et al. knew that the end game of capitalism is communism! Would have probably slept much better at night.

Genuinely confused... How is anything in this scenario at all related to communism?

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

#370

Post by pyrale »

hammock wrote: post #95
megaman821 wrote: post #38

I don't think this article explains it well. Google sells ad space on behalf of the publishers and also sells the ads on behalf of the advertisers. It also runs the auction that places the ads into the ad space. See this graphic https://images.app.goo.gl/ADx5xrAnWNicgoFu7 . Parts of this can definately be broken up without destroying Google.

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…

If we're to compare Google's situation to that of finance companies on other markets, even a small part of what Google did would result in a significant part of their execs and maybe a few tech staff wearing orange jumpsuits for these companies. Given the nature of Google's transgression and the way they've been robbing their own customers, they'd deserve it.

There's a case to be made that on top of google being broken up, the market should be heavily regulated in order to restore trust for market participants.

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