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Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules
- kemitchell 1y agoCourt Listener has the opinion here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1410.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
- apercu 1y ago[flagged]
- m4r1k 1y agoprobably ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
- CivBase 1y agoWater is obviously wet, depending on your definition of "wet". Likewise Google is obviously an online advertising tech monopoly, depending on your definition of "monopoly". There might be legal or technical rationals for why these statements are not true. But practically speaking, they are obviously true and that's what should matter.
- DrillShopper 1y agoSomething is wet when it is covered in water, so how can water be wet? It's just water.
- CivBase 1y agoBecause unless you're talking about a single molecule of water, water is always covered in more water. But that's beside the point. Practically speaking, a person considers something "wet" if contacting it will make them wet. If a person contacts water, they will become wet. It's not about the technical definition of "wet" - it's about the practical implication of the word and the effect it has on people and things around it. Just like how even if Google does not technically have a monopoly, their influence over the market is monopolistic in practice and has the same adverse effects as a monopoly.
- DrillShopper 1y agoI feel like I should have added a /s at the end of my original post
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- doom2 1y agoDecision here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1410.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xhkkffbf 1y agoGoogle 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.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agoGoogle 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)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- alabastervlog 1y agoThis 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.
- whoknowsidont 1y agoAll 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 some vendetta against Google for being successful AND a pretty good citizen in the overall landscape so to speak. If anyone needs to be broken up it's Microsoft. Microsoft actively harms every other competitor by bundling all their services together to the point where businesses won't even look at other software (teams? Azure is basically sold on nepotism).
- lupka 1y agoHappy to see this and hopefully there are some changes. Right now I'm dealing with a crazy Adsense issue and there is no recourse, no customer support and no alternative.
- whoknowsidont 1y agoThere is no shortage of other ad platforms. Breaking up Google isn't going to solve your specific issue lol
- azemetre 1y agoNo but it would stop a single company from accumulating so much power. How you can argue such things are democratic are beyond me. There is nothing democratic about trillion dollar corporations that can ruin your business for refusing to play their game.
- whoknowsidont 1y agoHow can Google ruin your business?
- afavour 1y agoI've seen countless examples, e.g. a business that depends on online advertising gets its account suspended for incorrect reasons and there is literally no-one to reach at Google to get unsuspended.
- whoknowsidont 1y agoDo you have a documented example of this?
- nickff 1y agoNot parent, but there are many examples of this; they’re often (but not always) unsympathetic cases due to the business model of the business which has been destroyed.
- etchalon 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spacebanana7 1y agoGoogle isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable. For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argument applies to Chrome or any other customer acquisition vehicle. The real barriers to making Google competitive are fixable but require a different sort of regulation outside of antitrust.
- yoshicoder 1y agoI 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
- spacebanana7 1y agoGoogle 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 kept most of the revenue with none of the advertising cost.
- chii 1y ago> 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?
- 1y ago
- internetter 1y agoKinda surprised. Google's core business is advertising. Some vertically integrated aux services (like chrome) feel ripe for antitrust, but I wasn't expecting ads themselves. What is Google without ads?
- bdcravens 1y ago("Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist") Everything else. Cloud provider, operating systems, browsers, hosting business apps, phone licenser, Internet provider, smart home manufacturer, and various moonshots. Their ad company is a monopoly because of those other services. Google as an ad company that can't leverage those other lines of business to gain an advantage over other ad companies still has a viable ad business. They can compete on the basis of that lone company's strengths. ("If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it")
- internetter 1y agoThanks, I like the last quote. But I'm curious... Would it be preferable to have Google owning all of these services you listed—just not the ad company they depend on, or the inverse—all the companies are spun out? I see your point, but also, if Google continued to own all these other things, it would still be a terrifyingly large spread, no?
- bdcravens 1y agoLarge companies, even monopolies, aren't the problem. Unfair leverage to suppress competition is. Those products without the subsidizing revenue of ads, and ads without the information flows of those products, is the goal. Who gets what part of the company is the wrong question to ask. The org chart would get split along those business units. In all likelihood, the company called "Google" would be the software side, since that's where search lives.
- lanstin 1y agoThey are a problem in terms of an efficient free market; they make the information flow asymmetrically biased in their favor, and cause higher prices and implicit collusion. That is true even without any intent to harm.
- charcircuit 1y agoThe market is being unfairly defined based on how things worked decades ago instead of looking at the modern landscape. Tech evolved rapidly and the way things worked decades ago may not be optimal for the end user as things change.
- seydor 1y ago> how things worked decades ago you mean, before monopolies?
- charcircuit 1y agoEverything is a monopoly if you limit the market enough.
- bdcravens 1y agoMonopolies in and of themselves aren't a problem, and aren't illegal. Unfair leverage to prevent competition is.
- charcircuit 1y agoThe 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.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoThat's a really weird way to define "competition" ?
- CPLX 1y agoThis is not correct and a common misconception, on both sides of the argument. Both monopolies and monopolistic actions are illegal, each alone is enough to be in violation of the law.
- aprilthird2021 1y agoIf the Meta case goes this way too, the ripple effects could be huge. Might affect the bay area, startup scene and a lot of others in ways we can't even grasp yet. All we can do is wait and see..
- owebmaster 1y agoIf Google and Meta are split in 3 parts each, all laid off people will be hired back fast.
- TechDebtDevin 1y agoPretty crazy how this case gets the full support of thr DOJ, along with actions against Harvard, Colombia ect. I dont mind Google being broken up, but how am i supposed to respect the law when the same DOJ lets out ponzi schemers and bond villians because they donated 500k to a Trump friendly super pac. If im Google or anoother tech company im going to be Divesting from the United States as much as possible.
- Extropy_ 1y agoWho are these people that are let out (of jail? prison?) because they donated to a super PAC? Not arguing, just curious
- keernan 1y agoYou can start with the Mayor of NYC
- Extropy_ 1y agoWhat happened with Mayor Eric Adams?
- hiddencost 1y agoTom Homan went on national news and said they they were dropping charges against Eric Adams in exchange for his cooperation with ICE.
- megaman821 1y agoI 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 https://images.app.goo.gl/ADx5xrAnWNicgoFu7. Parts of this can definately be broken up without destroying Google.
- coliveira 1y agoGoogle can extract as much money as they want from this equation, up to the limit of available capital for advertising. They just need to squeeze more from publishers and at the same time increase click costs. They have been doing both of these for several years.
- riku_iki 1y ago> They just need to squeeze more from publishers and at the same time increase click costs. but publishers receive stable share of click cost (67%?), so they should be happy with this arrangement.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- stasomatic 1y agoThat’s assuming a click happened. Premium pubs prefer guaranteed fixed CPMs no matter the amount of real clicks. I’ve worked for a few years at one of the major native ad companies, I’m very familiar with how the sausage is made.
- riku_iki 1y agoIn both scenarios publishers look good: 1. CPC: google has strong incentive to generate clicks, because that's where they get revenue: advertisers are charged per click. 2. CPM: publishers get their guaranteed CPM if that's their choice.
- paxys 1y agoSo happy to see big tech's "kiss Trump's ass and hope all the legal troubles go away" strategy failing spectacularly.
- georgemcbay 1y ago> So happy to see big tech's "kiss Trump's ass and hope all the legal troubles go away" strategy failing spectacularly. From a purely idealistic view, I'm disappointed in how many people and organizations have "obeyed in advance" to try to curry favor with Trump. But idealism aside, its also just weird to me how oblivious they all are to the fact that historically it ends badly because it will always be an entirely one-sided and fully transactional relationship where absolute loyalty is demanded of them but zero loyalty is returned to them. And they will be thrown under the bus as soon as it is expedient. Its almost comical how badly being a Trump ally has worked out for so many people (eg. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, etc)
- herpdyderp 1y agoI wouldn't say it failed yet, nothing dramatic has actually happened as a result of the ruling yet.
- g0db1t 1y ago[flagged]
- dboreham 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agohttp://archive.md/20250417144711/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/technology/google-ad-tech-antitrust-ruling.html http://archive.md/20250417144711/https://www.nytimes.com/202...
- tonymet 1y agothe FTC is like Jim Cramer. Once they judge a business to be a monopoly, the business falls apart and the monopoly is irrelevant. Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows / IE monopoly trial. the AT&T break up set American technology back by decades and killed our domestic chip production.
- snozolli 1y agothe AT&T break up ... killed our domestic chip production That's an interesting take that I've never heard before. Do you have any source that goes into detail?
- tonymet 1y ago[flagged]
- spamizbad 1y agoAT&T was broken up in 1982. Our manufacturing peaked around 1990 and what really pushed it downward was China joining the WTO. We also halted a lot of fab construction domestically after the GFC of '08.
- tonymet 1y agothe *case started in 1973 and was threatened for almost a decade beforehand. That put the entire industry on edge.
- PaulHoule 1y agoTo the contrary AT&T proved itself incapable of delivering end-to-end innovation. Sure it lowered the cost of intercity links for long-distance calls dramatically but couldn’t pass savings on to the consumer. Picturephone was a technical tour de force but demonstrated AT&T couldn’t deliver new services other than little things like call waiting and caller id. Notably high profits from long-distance dialup calls kept online services stuck at 2400 bps for most of the 1980s. Futurists circa 1960-1970 thought online services were going to become widespread about 15 years than they really did and AT&T was the #1 thing to blame.
- jongjong 1y agoThe most surprising thing about big tech is that most of them seem to be less useful than ever and yet they are making more money than ever. For example, it seems like nobody uses Oracle products anymore, yet Oracle stock is at an ATH. Microsoft Windows is less popular than ever and yet Microsoft stock is at an ATH. Apple peaked years ago and yet ATH. Does anyone still use Facebook regularly? FB stock is ATH. Something doesn't add up.
- whatgoodisaroad 1y agoJava is an Oracle product
- olyjohn 1y ago"Java was designed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. It was released in May 1995 as a core component of Sun's Java platform." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) Oracle did what they always do, buy shit out and then milk people for money. That's all they do with it, and why nobody actually uses Oracle's JDK anymore.
- hnfong 1y agoTo state the obvious, OpenJDK is also an Oracle product.
- disqard 1y ago> Something doesn't add up The economy moved away from being founded on Marx's C-M-C to firmly being fixated on M-C-M' which in plain English, means "We now use Money to make more Money, leveraging Commodities as an intermediate step. The Money is all that matters, not the social benefit/harm" -- IMO, that helps explain why, even though many people are suffering financially, the market is at an ATH.
- CPLX 1y ago> most of them seem to be less useful than ever and yet they are making more money than ever This is the classic sign of a company that has achieved monopoly. They don't serve their customers any more because they don't have to.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoThe Court's Opinion: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1411.0_7.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
- nixpulvis 1y agoI would love to see a company compete in the ad space with the goal of making ads less intrusive. If ads didn't attack me and cause the viewport to jump and become obscured while reading, my first impression with the products would be better, and the sites the ads are on would get more viewership. Quality ads would be at a huge premium.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 1y agoIf we must have ads, the best quality ads I see online are dumb ads. Just an image as a link. The most effective ads I see are ones on blogs where the blogger sells ad space (side columns) and they're just images that directly link to the product. The ads are relevant to the blog and readers. 99% of other online ads I see are visual garbage and irrelevant. The "targeting" is abysmal. Convincing all of these sites that Google, Meta, or other services, are "superior" for ads genuinely seems like incredible marketing. They've siphoned up enormous amounts of money and in return put in place a miserable user experience while making media companies wholly reliant on them.
- nixpulvis 1y agoExactly. Sell "dumb" ads with effort made to make the ads simultaneously stand out and fit into the theme of the site. Like how quality newspapers do it sometimes.
- hermitShell 1y agoCheck out this Geiko ad: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/ https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/ Buffett is a rare gem
- LordDragonfang 1y agoThe exact company you're asking for existed already, almost two decades ago. It was called Project Wonderful, and initially focused on independent blogs and webcomics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Wonderful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Wonderful It never managed more than modest success and never expanded far outside its initial sphere. It shut down in 2018 because it was unable to compete with all the monopolist walled garden ad spaces. There are various small projects that could claim to be successors to that ethos -- but (to a rounding error) no one has heard of them because, contrary to your claim, the revealed "premium" that users place on "quality ads" is dwarfed by the premium that advertisers place on aggressive attention vampires (and the latter are the ones actually paying)
- alex1138 1y agoI don't know whether they are a monopoly but I would like them to fix several things 1) Fix your search engine. Stop ignoring keywords, your product as it is currently sucks 2) Stop antagonizing people with user hostile actions in Chrome 3) Enough with the ideological censorship
- thrance 1y agoGoogle doesn't need to fix anything for you, they basically own the market. Their won't be any changes unless the state does something. But I wouldn't expect the most corrupt administration to date to stand against one of the wealthiest organizations in the country. Also, what censorship are you referring to? Them complying with the new regime in advance and removing pride month from the calendar? Or are you playing into the conservative fantasy of being supposedly censored online despite evidence of the contrary [2] ? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/11/google-calendar-black-history-pride-month https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/11/google-calen... [2] https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/publication/false-accusation-the-unfounded-claim-that-social-media-companies-censor-conservatives/ https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/publication/false-accusation-the-u...
- heromal 1y ago> 3) Enough with the ideological censorship What's this referring to? It seems to me they've stayed out of the culture war stuff (compared to Meta who is wading in it, for example).
- alganet 1y agoAdvertisement seems to be a hot topic for endless discussion these days. Throw in some "that thing sells ads" and endless tarpit discussion ensues with no clear conclusion. We should be better than this.
- adrr 1y agoWeird calling them a monopoly when they only control 26% of the market for digital marketing. For comparison when Microsoft was found guilty, they had 90% of the desktop market. Att was at 100% when they were broken up. Standard oil was at 90%. Is this lowest percentage of market for a company being found monolopy?
- Clubber 1y agoBeing a monopoly is legal, it's using your monopoly status at the expense of the competition is what isn't legal.
- adrr 1y agoNever said it was illegal. Hence my phrasing monopoly and not an illegal monopoly aka monopoly that abuses their position. But was defines a monopoly? 26% of market doesn't sound like a monopoly to me looking at past antitrust actions. Which why i ask my question, is this lowest percentage of the market for antitrust action?
- Clubber 1y agoIn the global search engine market, Google maintains a dominant position. In January 2025, its market share was approximately 89.62% across all devices, and 93.89% in the mobile search market. While Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo! hold a smaller share of the market, Google continues to be the leading search engine.
- adrr 1y agoWhat does search have to do with this? This is on their display ads. You can read decision here. No mention of search. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508/gov.uscourts.vaed.533508.1410.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.53...
- hnfong 1y ago
- franczesko 1y agoGoogle also destroyed journalism as we know it. Who knows how the industry would look like, if it wasn't suffocated by its monopoly
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- PunchTornado 1y agofacebook destroyed journalism
- ars 1y agoMedia companies destroyed journalism by making news into entertainment instead of information. For example by finding the one extremest in a group of people and running stories about his minority - but exciting - viewpoint, instead of the boring viewpoint of most of the group.
- franczesko 1y ago"this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers" From the money perspective it was Google. But I agree on Facebook's contribution, as they've pretty much created an advertising cartel together
- fallingknife 1y agoJournalism destroyed itself
- chris_va 1y ago(disclaimer that I was the TL of Google News a very long time ago, so feel free to ignore what I say as biased) I would argue that monster.com and craiglist, which collectively removed the majority of newpaper revenue, were probably the nail in the coffin. You can see some of the decline pre-internet in this 1999 take: https://niemanreports.org/newspapers-arrive-at-economic-crossroads/ https://niemanreports.org/newspapers-arrive-at-economic-cros... ... which already laments the decline of journalism. Pre-internet, editorial boards were fundamentally gatekeepers of knowledge. They were certainly not unbiased, but for the most part they had a level of integrity. Now, one can find (or have pushed) any "narrative" one chooses, whether or not it bears any resemblance to reality. While Google does make it easier to find any/all of this content, I would argue that the intrinsic incentives of social media platforms for more engagement are probably the high order bit.
- xlinux 1y agoAll the ads i see on youtube are nothing but scams. Google has become evil.
- guywithahat 1y agoI'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 other sites. I get they're a big player, but I worry we're just beating Google because they're down, not because it's good for the consumer.
- wbl 1y agoThis is not that case. This case is about how Google only serves certain ad inventory to people who use their products.
- jack_h 1y agoThen what is the definition of a monopoly? It doesn’t appear to be the same definition as “the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.” Do they exclusively control all ad inventory? Do they control all devices receiving ads? GP states that they don’t have exclusive control broadly, just within their own ecosystem. That’s not the definition of a monopoly though, so it seems like a motte and bailey calling google a monopoly.
- ThatPlayer 1y agoThe courts don't use "monopoly", they use the term "monopoly power": https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... Like this says, it doesn't strictly require a monopoly. It's just a term that gets simplified by journalist and articles, because no one is familiar with monopoly power. From the court filing: > Plaintiffs have proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.
- 1y ago
- wonderwonder 1y agoCurious to see how Google search holds up over the next few years. I find myself not using it at all unless I am looking for something very specific such as the website for a company or local restaurants, etc. Anything informational now I use ai.
- kytazo 1y agoWait until you see AI
- Frieren 1y agoThis 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 for ads. But, with Apple, does the same for app vendors. Amazon does it for all kinds of brands with physical products. Uber does it for taxi drivers and their clients. All of them take a big chunk of the profit while making things more expensive, but they are the only real option to reach clients as they have used tactics to monopolize entire markets. This should be impossible, because there are laws against it. If it is allowed the future of the economy is one big corporation with all workers working for it, and everybody buying from it. It looks like a scifi dystopia.
- precommunicator 1y agoIf you look at the actual decision, Google court cases are quoted there many times (Search, Play etc.) as the precedent of e.g. what monopoly is.
- foobarian 1y agoIf only Marx et al. knew that the end game of capitalism is communism! Would have probably slept much better at night.
- timewizard 1y agoSo you're acknowledging that the best way to make a population powerless and then rob them blind is Communism?
- shadowgovt 1y agoI don't know, capitalism seems to be doing a pretty good job of it right now. I'd have to see some hard numbers on efficacy. Has anyone done a normalized any% speedrun to breadlines on these two fierce contenders? Can monarchy get in on this?
- psunavy03 1y agoGo figure that it's taken so long to do this that it was possibly almost mooted by Google enshittifying itself out of existence.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoThere's a long way to go before YouTube and Android become niche options...
- matthest 1y agoFirst, 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 AMA had a study last year that concluded these insurance companies are charging monopoly pricing. This is why Americans are paying astronomical prices for healthcare. This is IMO by far the most pressing issue. Yet the FTC is seemingly spending all its time going after Big Tech, which has a comparatively lower impact on the quality of everyday Americans' lives.
- smj-edison 1y agoOr Visa and MasterCard...
- BlueTemplar 1y agohttps://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/16/is-the-eu-banning-american-credit-cards https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/16/is-the-eu-bann... (But talk is cheap.)
- fallingknife 1y agoI don't really see how that's possible. They are prevented by law from charging more than 25% on top of what they pay out to medical providers. The problem is the providers who are represented by the AMA.
- matthest 1y agohttps://acdis.org/articles/news-ama-report-details-health-insurers%E2%80%99-monopolies-us-market https://acdis.org/articles/news-ama-report-details-health-in...
- fallingknife 1y ago
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoI'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 platform, and it's not as if anyone is forced to use them. I just don't see how you could in the same breath (how the government basically has) that the app store isn't a monopoly, but Google ads are. There's other ad companies, there is no other way to get an app on iOS.
- turtletontine 1y agoUm, no, the market is obviously not defined as “google ads.” You could bother to do one single search (maybe even with google!) before spewing nonsense. Specifically, part of the case found google liable for “unlawfully [tying] its publisher ad server and ad exchange” in violation of the Sherman antitrust act. Basically, google has locked down both the supply side (sites with space the sell for ads) and demand side (market of advertisers bidding on that space) so it can play both sides - and (crucially!) it has integrated them so as to lock in both advertisers and publishers. That’s how you unfairly build a monopoly. And funny that you use the App Store as an example. Two years ago google lost an antitrust case brought by epic games about their android store practices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google?wprov=sft...
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoUnnecessarily rude but okay. >Two years ago google lost an antitrust case brought by epic games about their android store practices: It's wild this ever happened when their competitor literally doesn't allow third party apps installed in any way. >supply side (sites with space the sell for ads) and demand side (market of advertisers bidding on that space) so it can play both sides - and (crucially!) it has integrated them so as to lock in both advertisers and publishers. You could argue every grocery store does this, they provide the 'supply side' (shelving), brands negotiate for both shelf space and shelf positioning. There's not a super obvious bidding market like Google setup, though ironically Google's method actually makes it easier for smaller companies to participate. Getting a small item in a major grocery store chain is a major move that many companies simply can't do.
- kazinator 1y agoPeople are illegally thinking of nothing but 'google.com' when they are about to search for something, rules judge. In so doing, they leave Google no choice but to reluctantly comply in behaving like a monopoly. This flagrant behavior is punishable by exposure to pages and pages of spam, advertising, inauthentic content, nonsensical AI summaries (unless 'fucking' is added to the query) and malware. Our reporter tried reaching out to a few representatives of the people to see what they have to say for themselves, but they were too busy doom-scrolling YouTube shorts or TikTok to even blink their eyes.
- throwaway743 1y agoThey should dig into admob while they're at it. They love screwing devs over and have purposely left their email option broken for years now. They'll cut you off even when it's their fault and you'll have no means of recourse. It's a joke, but they have the best ecpm around unfortunately.
- HackerThemAll 1y agoIt seems the judge went with reasoning resembling an orange monkey logic. "I know online advertising better than anyone else on the planet, and Google is a monopoly". US&A has already turned into idiocracy.
- somerandomness 1y agoTalk to the ruling directly: https://radpod.ai/share/court-ruling-google-violated-the-sherman-antitrust-act-snapshot-b0a313d0 https://radpod.ai/share/court-ruling-google-violated-the-she...
- CommenterPerson 1y agoCould this be used as a shakedown by Trump (give me 1 billion and I'll get the case withdrawn)
- zombiwoof 1y agoSundar booking flights to Mar A Lago
- mark336 1y agoPart of the problem is the Capitalist system. Google shares are traded on the market. They have an obligation to grow every year. Sure when your a small hungry startup you can grow fast, but when you are the size of Google and try the same thing you inevitably get into these types of problems where you try to dominate, but you are also the biggest player because of pressure from your shareholders.
- NelsonMinar 1y agoWhat are the odds this case will continue to be pursued honestly under the Trump administration?
- ocdtrekkie 1y agoPretty high. Antitrust against Google started during the first Trump administration and continued during Biden. Dealing with Big Tech is a bipartisan issue, though each side has partisan reasons for it: Republicans argue tech companies have a liberal bent, Democrats argue tech companies allowed misinformation to get Trump elected. At the end of the day, we can all agree it's time for Google to go. I think the only real risk is that Google could just buy Trump out on the matter, now that we live in Russia of the West, resolving a dispute like this can just be lining someone's pockets enough.
- wraaath 1y agoA decade too late for Appnexus
- mattigames 1y agoAnd the president is doing a lot of illegal things, and senators are doing a lot of illegal things, why do Google has to pay for it's crimes if not even politicians have to pay for their crimes?
- TriangleEdge 1y agoI think this decision would have been impactful 10 years ago. Why did the government wait until Google started becoming irrelevant?
- sidcool 1y agoGoogle becoming irrelevant is the most naive take in technology. It's more if wishful thinking. Google is equally, if not more relevant today. Their AI models are currently one of the best in the world. They still have a commanding search market share. YouTube and Android rule in most countries in terms of number of users. Chrome is the leading browser. Google maps is omnipresent. Gmail is the biggest email service online. Their revenues are steady. They are not doing well with certain areas like social, GCP, messaging, enterprise etc. But it's not an existential threat.
- upmind 1y agoNot to say Google is in the right but Google seems to be pitted against the entire industry constantly.
- xvector 1y agoIt's because Google is the face of big bad evil tech companies to normies that don't understand the first thing about technology.
- givemeethekeys 1y agoCompared to Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon, is Google really bigger, badder and eviler?
- xvector 1y agoThe average person sees them all as big bad and evil, and they all must be taken down, because what have they done for humanity!? This is truly how the average person outside of the tech bubble thinks. The general public collectively has the memory of a goldfish, and seems to have the strongest opinions about things it understands the least.
- rexpop 1y agoWell, yeah; according to the judge, they're engaged on monopolistic behavior. That's tautologically "against the entire industry."
- tempodox 1y agoThe big question now is whether this will have any noticeable consequences.
- ashu1461 1y agoThere have been similar such statements in the past but nothing happened, What will be different this time ?
- danman7788 1y agoThis is fantastic news. Break up the Google monopoly.
- urbandw311er 1y agoNo shit