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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

#51

Post by bdcravens »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #41
alabastervlog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why it's important to bust them up: all those other products are effectively "dumping" on whatever sector they compete in. This even discourages time-investment (to develop) and learning-to-use investment (for users) for free alternatives, not just commercial ones.

All of their products helped the sector they are in. They didn't "dump" into it. Google continually improved areas where other companies previously refused to, even if they were charging for their services. Mail. Internet browsers? Does it really need to be stated? Open source. Kubernetes. Open source. Tensor architecture. Freely released. I don't see the argument for breaking Google up other than people are holding…

Their business apps division is probably a billion dollar business.

Their cloud generates a couple of billions in profit each year.

Besides that, I don't think giving away anything for free justifies any activity. If we're trying to compare to Microsoft, remember that Internet Explorer was free, and modern day Microsoft literally owns Github.

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

#52

Post by sieabahlpark »

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.

[dead]

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

#53

Post by bdcravens »

newsclues wrote: post #11
xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

Google really should start floating some plans for splitting itself up. Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up. Some people thought it would all fail, but the companies have done a good job competing and cooperating at the right times. If Google comes up with the plans, it's better than some antagonist.

The baby bells just bought each other up, and nothing really changed

Then there's no harm in splitting Google and letting them buy up those companies in 30 years.

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

#55

Post by arrosenberg »

chii wrote: post #43
spacebanana7 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can't cancel it right now because then otherwise Bing would bid for it. Antitrust rules which prevented anyone from bidding it would protect against this. A historical parallel is when tobacco advertising was banned, and cigarette companies because more profitable. Advertising greatly affected which cigarettes people smoked but had a smaller (though still real) impact on whether they smoked. So the companies k…

> Antitrust rules which prevented anyone from bidding it would protect against this. why would anti-trust rules prevent _anyone_ from bidding? Apple can sell their browser search, just like mozilla can sell firefox search. And anyone with a browser could do the same. Unless the anti-trust rules somehow become so overarching that the selling of space for advertising becomes illegal?

I think it would be a good move to prevent browser deals. There is no reality in which the winner is Firefox, Kagi or DDG - it will always be Google or Bing. That's clearly anticompetitive - it locks the other browsers out of a major share of the market.

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

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #39
nativeit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google isn’t a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Aren’t they? It doesn’t sound like those two interpretations are mutually exclusive.

In the sense of the Sherman Act and similar legislation, monopolies exist in the sense of having exclusive control over some supply and raising prices against consumers. This isn't what Google does, they generally lower prices for consumers and the competition is only a click away.

> In the sense of the Sherman Act [...]

> This isn't what Google does [...]

Odd, then, that this is the second case within a year where Google has been found, in fact, to have violated the Sherman Act. This suggests that your description of what the Sherman Act means, or of what Google does (or both) are wrong in significant ways.

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

#57

Post by burningChrome »

newsclues wrote: post #11
xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

Google really should start floating some plans for splitting itself up. Things worked out pretty well when Ma Bell was split up. Some people thought it would all fail, but the companies have done a good job competing and cooperating at the right times. If Google comes up with the plans, it's better than some antagonist.

The baby bells just bought each other up, and nothing really changed

Even worse, when the local exchange carriers were renting their infrastructure and trying to compete on the thinnest of margins, it allowed the baby bells to see who could survive and who couldn't. Those who didn't survive went under. The successful smaller CLEC's, were then bought by the baby bells for their customers.

They essentially created a test market for their competitors, then simply acquired the ones who presented any kind of competition or had decent enough management to properly manage the very thin margins they were working at.

So yeah, even when the govt thought they had leveled the playing field and allowed competition, all it did was give those baby bell companies another competitive advantage.

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

#58

Post by no_wizard »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #39
nativeit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google isn’t a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Aren’t they? It doesn’t sound like those two interpretations are mutually exclusive.

In the sense of the Sherman Act and similar legislation, monopolies exist in the sense of having exclusive control over some supply and raising prices against consumers. This isn't what Google does, they generally lower prices for consumers and the competition is only a click away.

The consumer harm standard is an outgrowth of the work of Robert Bork, who was Solicitor General for Nixon and Ford, respectively.

It was not established by legislation but rather as a matter of conservative legal doctrine. Before Bork the commonly held evaluation standard was based on the Rule Of Reason.

The Sherman Antitrust Act didn’t establish any guidelines for how it was suppose to be interpreted (the whole thing is only a few pages in length) and the Clayton Act only expanded upon what actions could be considered as part of an Anti trust case.

The consumer welfare standard has no basis in legislation, only legal doctrine.

It’s unfortunate we haven’t codified anything more concrete, as the consumer welfare standard has a number of flaws, as admittedly did prior legal doctrine.

The Rule of Reason was more rigorous, though not flawless, as far as market competition goes though, my view is it is a better legal doctrine overall and could be updated to better address todays and future concerns, particularly with digital goods and technology.

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

#59

Post by jt2190 »

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.

Yeah I’m listening to a legal analyst on Bloomberg radio and there’s a lot of detail that’s getting lost under the headline. It’s not yet even clear yet that Google would need to divest from anything in order to address this.

Bloomberg Radio April 17 2025: https://www.youtube.com/live/iEpJwprxDdk?si=9WaFIJENUwyIJvpk

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

#60

Post by DrillShopper »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #27
yoshicoder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it wouldn't make sense for it to be more profitable for google if there were no search deals, since otherwise they would just cancel the deal themselves. Clearly they see long term value in blocking out competition even at that high of a price

Google can't cancel it right now because then otherwise Bing would bid for it. Antitrust rules which prevented anyone from bidding it would protect against this. A historical parallel is when tobacco advertising was banned, and cigarette companies because more profitable. Advertising greatly affected which cigarettes people smoked but had a smaller (though still real) impact on whether they smoked. So the companies k…

The real reason that tobacco advertising ended on television is the fairness doctrine.

After the FCC agreed that the fairness doctrine applied here every station was required to run one PSA for every 10 tobacco ads. The industry, realizing that nobody would stop advertising without being forced to, actually lobbied Congress for the passage of the law banning it. One reason total revenue went up was that stations were no longer required to run anti-smoking PSAs.

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