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Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Problem with that logic is, humans don't just evolve genetically, we evolve culturally, and that cultural evolution ends up affecting our biology as well. So it doesn't really matter how slow genetic evolution is. Cultural evolution is what defines the human species. It's much more rapid because it includes planning and foresight, unlike the blind watchmaker of biological evolution. It is also lamarckian in that it incorporates the experiences of the previous generation into the cultural phenotype of the next one.

That's precisely how we've changed so drastically is an evolutionary blink of an eye.

And now, our cultural evolution has reached the point where we're even able to change our own genetics with planning and foresight in a single generation. So it seems to me that the blind watchmaker is essentially irrelevant now.

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

#412

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…

The FTC had started many cases on the healthcare front. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/...

If you want to see more, get Lina Khan to be chair again!

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a media buyer puts $1.00 in on one side of the system, on average only $0.60 makes it to the publisher. In some cases less than $0.50 gets to them. Advertising is an intentionally complex system so that companies can clip the ticket at multiple stages throughout the process. Google should be broken up, but the whole ad tech system needs to go into the bin if these problems are going to ever get fixed. https://ww…

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…

"Efficient" in the pursuit of what purpose?

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

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a media buyer puts $1.00 in on one side of the system, on average only $0.60 makes it to the publisher. In some cases less than $0.50 gets to them. Advertising is an intentionally complex system so that companies can clip the ticket at multiple stages throughout the process. Google should be broken up, but the whole ad tech system needs to go into the bin if these problems are going to ever get fixed. https://ww…

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…

> Sure, you could just pay $5,000 a month to a website to show a banner ad directly, but a larger % of your money would be wasted

How do you know that the waste is higher with the banner ad?

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

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Crony capitalist monopolies” are a prominent feature of the real world system for which socialist critics coined the name “capitalism”. They do have a lot to do with “Communism” if by that you mean Leninism and its derivatives, all of which are state-capitalist systems in practice (in theory as a transitional developmental phase to socialism, but few ever transitioned out except a few like China that transitioned to…

the real world critics of crony capitalism also coined the term socialism and then set about forming sociopathic totalitarian states and started slaughtering, torturing and starving people. what's your point? and by socialism i mean the 4th international, the 3rd international, et al, whence were spawned many socialist parties that called themselves socialists, but which are in full agreement with what casual observe…

> the real world critics of crony capitalism also coined the term socialism and then set about forming sociopathic totalitarian stat

No, they didn't; the people who did the latter were different people, decades later than the former, who, despite claiming ideological continuity, departed radically from the theory of the former. The original critics saw capitalism as (like socialism, but prior to it) an imperfect but necessary developmental stage on the road to the end-stage of communism, while the people who built the totalitarian dystopias saw it as a thing to be avoided entirely, adapted Marxist theory to bypass it, etc.

> and by socialism i mean the 4th international, the 3rd international, etc.,

Obviously, the 3rd and 4th international were not the people who wrote the original critiques in which capitalism was named

> but which are in full agreement with what casual observers would call communism and or marxism

“Casual observers” are called that for a reason.

> source: i used to be an active communist

Not at all surprised; you seem to still deeply hold to the propaganda of one of the Leninist-derived branches, even having abandoned it as an ideology/identity.

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

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried prebid? It lets you send your bid requests to as many exchanges as you want so you can advertise your inventory to as many DSPs as possible

When I talk about "sell" I mean sell directly with a human touch. Like the way a newspaper or a network of radio stations has actual salespeople that sell ads.

It sounds like a service some company should step up to provide! Make the job of those salespeople easier.

Instead of selling "clicks" and "impressions", just sell the damn banner ad. The advertiser sets their budget and target audience, a few suggestions of websites where to run a banner for (x) days show up, the advertiser picks some of them. On the other side same story and the website picks which ads they want to run.

Many other models are possible.

I wonder why we don't have such competitors. Ah right, because Google abused its monopoly position. :-)

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the other side of the divide from you. However, mine and many other folks' position is not preferring untargeted intrusive annoying ads over targeted intrusive annoying ads. It's preferring almost zero ads with maybe the rare, non intrusive easily avoidable ad on certain appropriate websites[1]. That is why we aggressively use ad blockers and go to great lengths to avoid the status quo. [1] a shopping website…

> That is why we aggressively use ad blockers and go to great lengths to avoid the status quo. And so you're paying for the content you're reading as well?

Ad-supported does not mean "tacking your every movement and collecting all your private data across the entirety of the internet throughout your entire adult life, and selling that data to the highest bidder"

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

#418
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, I agree. In practice the whole system is rotten. * Google unilaterally changing bid mechanics raising costs 15% https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-changed-ad-auctions-ra... * Conversion attribution and cookie bombing fraud from both Criteo and Steelhouse https://finance.yahoo.com/news/criteo-versus-steelhouse-clic... * Phunware click flooding fraud https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/17/ub…

I was most impressed by a Google Ad that showed up if you searched for the Dutch tax office. It would only show the name "Tax office" with a free to call phone number under it. Only the hyperlink pointed at a paid number 90 cent per minute. Depending on how busy it is or how exotic your question one can easily be on hold for an hour or two. Then you get the bill and pay 54 euro per hour. Google thought this was a gre…

Jesus. What a story! Is that even legal in Netherlands?

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

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can start with the Mayor of NYC

What happened with Mayor Eric Adams?

Tom Homan went on national news and said they they were dropping charges against Eric Adams in exchange for his cooperation with ICE.

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

#420

I'm confused how this is a monopoly, is it just the "if we define a market as Google ads, then Google has a monopoly problem"? Like defining iOS apps as a market (and somehow failed)? Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up, at the end of the day X company is spending $5 per thousand clicks (or whatever) because they think it's worth it. Google can charge whatever they want, they run the platfo…

> There's other ad companies, there is no other way to get an app on iOS. There is no other way to get an ad on sites that use Google Ads, just as there's no other way to get an app on iOS. These seem to be perfectly parallel to me: in either case you can pay a company to get access to their user base or you can choose to not pay that company to get access to their users. But if you make that choice, in either case y…

Yes there is. You can literally just pay them to put up a banner.

Please clarify your statement

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