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Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

nytimes.com

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Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#91

Post by roosterIllusi0n »

bigyabai wrote: post #28
strictnein wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judge was appointed by Clinton, so they've been in their role for decades now. It seems unlikely that someone who has served that long in her position would rule based on making the child in the White House happy.

To the contrary, the entire DOJ understands that FAANG and the three-letter-agencies are one revolving door. Any judge that attempts to defang Google's data collection may well run afoul of the American surveillance system, which this administration will fight tooth and nail to defend. Not very different from how federal protectionism keeps Apple's App Store centralized despite trillions of dollars in ostensible mark…

RCS is google's foothold. It forces everyone to share with google and currently, there is no carrier option for RCS. You have to pick google or apple or go without.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#92

Post by sensanaty »

> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about"

Uhhh, what? What kind of colorful accounting is this that they're pulling off?

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#95

Post by cmrdporcupine »

xp84 wrote: post #87

> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Can someone closer to GOOG explain this? The phrase "ad tech" seems to have a very specific meaning here.…

I haven't been in ads there in, like, over a decade and some but I believe what was under threat here was specifically Google's ad exchange network. Basically third party bidding for space in Google's display ad network. Basically a part of the business which sells excess "inventory" and which is a much smaller part of their ad business than AdWords and AdSense. Or whatever they call these things now.

I used to work in AdX (and AdMeld that Google acquired) but not since 2014 or so. I believe the AdMeld acquisition itself was one of the things under the microscope here.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#96

Post by cmrdporcupine »

sensanaty wrote: post #92

> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Uhhh, what? What kind of colorful accounting is this that they're pulling off?

This isn't for the whole of Google's ad business. Just its ad exchange and I think parts of DFP; basically just mechanisms for auctioning off excess display ad inventory.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#97

Post by xp84 »

dragontamer wrote: post #82
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To all the people pissed about the "Lake America" stuff: why in the actual fuck do you want Google of all organizations to be arbiter of geographical info, instead of federal institutions that are (at least nominally) operated under democratic principles? Don't you understand the horror of what you're suggesting: "I want Google to impose it's own personal value judgments over the government's." Yes, I think it's incr…

Yeah it's meaningless to fight. Except not really. If the powers that be are corrupt we can simply keep calling it Lake Ontario across the board, and use the difference to find who is or isn't on my side on that issue. The only people calling it Gulf of America or Lake America are hardcore MAGATs in my social circle. Even former Trump voters in my social circle are annoyed and not using the new names. So it's an effe…

> If the powers that be are corrupt we can simply keep calling it Lake Ontario

This is the same logic that the right wing used when they disagreed with Obama on some issues, so they blocked his Supreme Court nominations just because anything Obama does must be bad.

Sounds like your social circle is in denial. There are certainly plenty of things Trump, buffoon and graft-a-holic he is, has done that are corrupt. Renaming bodies of water doesn't look like one of them. (Obviously, because he would have renamed it after a donor, or at least after himself.)

I mean, sure, we can all call anything whatever. I can call New Mexico "Best Mexico" or call Washington, DC "Bad Washington" and that's my right. But pretending that there aren't official names for things because we don't like the current guy seems immature. It's clearly within the authority of the government. Talk like this makes me think that people want to just live in a reality defined exclusively by party politics where we just pretend every law or policy made by The Bad Party doesn't exist, rather than try to win elections so we can shape the one actual reality.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#98

Post by mpalczewski »

colincowardly wrote: post #3

[flagged]

who is to say that it is great. what makes it so, why is that valuable. Is doing more good than harm. that there is even some inherent value in a "great institution". A bunch of smaller companies would probably be better economically and be more innovative.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#99

Post by xp84 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #96
sensanaty wrote: post #92

> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Uhhh, what? What kind of colorful accounting is this that they're pulling off?

This isn't for the whole of Google's ad business. Just its ad exchange and I think parts of DFP; basically just mechanisms for auctioning off excess display ad inventory.

Thanks. I was trying to figure out exactly what's in scope here. I'd love to get a broad breakdown or a big pie chart that goes to this level of granularity so I can see where this sits within its other 'non-Google-property' ad businesses.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#100

Post by xp84 »

cj wrote: post #43
strictnein wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU has a long history of prevailing in court, as does the NRA. Courts should regularly issue rulings you don't like. Their job isn't to make people happy.

"long history of prevailing in court" is another way of saying "Google isn't being punished as much as they deserve" > Their job isn't to make people happy. Sure, but I think we can all agree the US legal system very, very, very rarely issues any ruling that materially punishes a corporation. Even the worst of the worst typically get off very easy. Do you disagree with that?

Not GP, and I regularly lament as well the incredibly gentle treatment of certain companies that I'd argue should have been literally fined out of existence (e.g. Equifax, PG&E, etc.), but we should probably stop to reflect that if the US were a country which erred in the other direction, issuing crippling fines often, we would probably stop being the country where innovative companies choose to do business. I don't just mean that as a talking point, I actually think I probably would prefer to have the economy we have here today (with its injustice) compared to one where most innovative companies won't do business here because they can't afford the possible fines.
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