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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

#421

Post by shadowgovt »

milesrout wrote: post #407
shadowgovt wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It isn't. Just like it wasn't sliding into fascism under Reagan, or Bush, or Clinton, or Bush 2, or Trump the first time, even though all the same people claimed that at the time.

Oh, good. I must have misunderstood the whole "disappeared to an El Salvadoran prison without due process" story.

... And you've gotten very close to the point without touching it. The country has been sliding, this whole time. Reagan arguably started the ball rolling. It just takes a long time to break down the democratic norms in a country this big.

But they're broken down now.

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

#422

Post by BlueTemplar »

smj-edison wrote: post #216
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…

Or Visa and MasterCard...

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/16/is-the-eu-bann...

(But talk is cheap.)

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

#424

Post by BlueTemplar »

charcircuit wrote: post #102
bdcravens wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolies in and of themselves aren't a problem, and aren't illegal. Unfair leverage to prevent competition is.

The existence of competition doesn't always make things better. For example forcing middlemen to exist so that there is competition can lead to a worse situation than without middlemen. Direct to consumer is unfair leverage to middlemen, but it can be better for consumers.

That's a really weird way to define "competition" ?

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

#425

Post by BlueTemplar »

ajross wrote: post #72
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google seems harder to split up than Bell to me. Bell was split regionally which makes sense since each region has it's own wires and can make money separately. Google has the problem that all their products other than adds lose money (or make money through integration with Google adds)

Yeah. The problem with splitting up Google is that Google products, taken in isolation, are themselves keys to preventing other monopolies. Split off Android to swim on its own and we get an iPhone monopoly. Split off Workspace and we go back to the days of MSOffice's monopoly. Splitting out Chrome essentially kills the World Wide Web as an application platform as no one else wants to support it. Cloud would probably…

This is like looking at a farm overrun by weeds but doing nothing using the pretext that just removing one of them isn't going to fix the problem.

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

#426

Post by CPLX »

kaashif wrote: post #401
CPLX wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The divergence between the interests of shareholders and the actions of a corporation in cases like this is a textbook example of a well established concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

Naively I would've thought that by making management huge shareholders, (most of) the agents then become principals. So when we talk about "the shareholders" we also include the CEO. I guess the argument here is that that actually doesn't work and the CEO would prefer being in charge of a larger company even if it personally costs him tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. That's what I'm skeptical of.

Being CEO of the larger company would make him more money. His money comes from constant grants of new stock and options and incentives not the simple appreciation of stock granted the day he was hired.

And just in general the incentive of management is to preserve monopoly because it’s a lot less work to sit and collect monopoly profits than to actually compete and win.

The principal agent issue here is that management can sit on their ass all day and make a lot of money instead of working like hell to compete and possibly getting replaced but ultimately creating more shareholder value.

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

#427

Post by CPLX »

carlosjobim wrote: post #262
afavour wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't one of the specific complaints about monopolies that it leaves you with no choice but to be dependent on the third party? If Google blocks my access to the only viable ad network do you really think it's reasonable to say I need to set up my own ad exchange?

Trillions of dollars are spent on advertising outside of Google. You can advertise in print, billboards, radio and television ads, Netflix, or on social media behemoths. Hackers call every big business they do not like a "monopoly". What's next, Burger King is a monopoly? I dislike Google more than most and would never buy nor sell ads with them, but they have no monopoly on advertising.

> I dislike Google more than most and would never buy nor sell ads with them, but they have no monopoly on advertising

You’re commenting on an article with the title “Google is illegally monopolizing” which is reporting on the official verdict of a federal trial where Google was well represented and lost.

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

#428

Post by pclmulqdq »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #404
pclmulqdq wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't give a shit what advertisers want. I was merely pointing out to someone in the ad business that I don't want to see relevant ads when they made the statement that I do. This is something that people in advertising say a lot, but it's generally not true. I do not want or benefit from you having "better" ad targeting - I will find your product if I want it without the sales pitch.

Why does your individual opinion matter to Google (or advertisers or their markets) then? It’s probably not even possible for decision makers to discern it from noise.

My individual opinion is (presumably) not unique. They also absolutely can tell who is a decision maker: around 2015, people used to serve facebook ads specifically to VCs to get investment in their startups. I'm sure targeting has only improved.

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

#429

Post by lolinder »

casey2 wrote: post #420
lolinder wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Okay, by that logic you can get apps on iPhones by just individually inviting each user to download the developer tools and install the app on their phone from source.

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

#430

Post by LunaSea »

troupo wrote: post #417
LunaSea wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"

Usual the news publishers don't sell user data because they have so little of it.

However external data providers are used to retarget specific audience segments on said publisher's users.

If you want to sell ad impressions at reasonable rates, you'll need to provide audience segment targeting, otherwise the ad performance will be too low for brands to continue buying it at previous rates.

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