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DOJ Sues Google for Monopolizing Digital Advertising.. Seeks To Break It Up

Amiga

Member
The Justice Department and eight states on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Google over its digital advertising business, claiming the tech giant illegally monopolizes the market for online ads.
"One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising," prosecutors wrote in the suit on Tuesday.
The Justice Department also says that the company designed a system to force 2 million advertisers, including parts of the U.S. government such as the military, to pay higher rates. According to the filing, federal agencies and departments have purchased more than $100 million in web advertising since 2019, and had to pay "supra-competitive fees" and "manipulated advertising prices."

As if 'Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE'​

Authorities allege that the world of online advertising has been slanted to favor Google "for reasons that were neither accidental nor inevitable."
For instance, in 2017, Google purchased DoubleClick, which makes widely used advertising tools, for $3.1 billion.
It gave Google direct access to the inventory of website publishers and the ad-serving technology used by those publishers.
Google also controls a major online advertising exchange where companies bid in real time to reach an intended audience on the Internet.
The DoubleClick purchase gave the company power on both sides of online advertising commerce: Selling ads to publishers and influence over the tools publishers use to display ads, not to mention the online auction house where the transactions take place.
Prosecutors allege Google abused that power by essentially rigging the system in Google's favor.
The complaint cites internal communication from a Google advertising executive who compared the company's power in multiple parts of the ad-selling process this way: "The analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE," a reference to the New York Stock Exchange.
They also describe how Facebook shuttered its advertising technology project when it realized it would be "subject to one bottleneck and intermediary - Google."

 

ReBurn

Gold Member
google pretty much invented digital advertising as it exists today so it will be interesting to see how they propose to break it up without destroying the company
 

Jinzo Prime

Member
I have to agree with this decision, Google is a monolith on the internet. There is very little competition in the online ad space, search, and video, despite many attempts by many companies to break through.
 

Jinzo Prime

Member
They made att break apart into regional companies. It is where the southern bell, northern bell came from.

Yep, and At&t merged many of its spun off companies back into itself over the years. Getting broken up by FTC is not a death nail, hell it might be the only way "infinite growth capitalism" could ever work.
 

jakinov

Member
I have to agree with this decision, Google is a monolith on the internet. There is very little competition in the online ad space, search, and video, despite many attempts by many companies to break through.
Ads in general there’s strong competition. I think based on what’s posted above, the major concern is that they are making moves that make it harder for people to compete not so much how big they are. Amazon and Meta are huge too. Apple is growing fast. TikTok is expected to have a big ad business.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I'm not familiar enough with the advertising industry to know if it's a true monopoly. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
 
They tried and failed at breaking up the terrifying windows monopoly many years ago. the press even took to calling the little microsofts after the hypothetical breakup “baby bills”
 
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Pagusas

Elden Member
About F'ing time. The GA4 transition shit I'm having to deal with right now alone makes me hate their stupid guts.
 

Amiga

Member
I'm not familiar enough with the advertising industry to know if it's a true monopoly. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Google competitors need to go through Google itself, DOJ made this example:
The DoubleClick purchase gave the company power on both sides of online advertising commerce: Selling ads to publishers and influence over the tools publishers use to display ads, not to mention the online auction house where the transactions take place.
..Facebook shuttered its advertising technology project when it realized it would be "subject to one bottleneck and intermediary - Google."
 
Google is indeed synonymous with the internet - I do wonder if a breakup is good for society long term. Is internet advertising something that would end up getting consolidated down the line anyways? I'm not too familiar with how monopolistic google actually is. Oil was broken up and has been essentially piecing itself together over time as people realized scale/consolidation is good. Same thing with telecommunications. Happening with hollywood studios, gaming, cable, etc. currently.

Would a new competitor entering the space actually be as good of a steward google has been? All negatives/usual criticism of success aside, google has been a good steward and have created plenty of applications that has moved society forward and are basically essential to modern life at this point
 
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BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
Probably several years late. If you look at the things Google have done in regards to advertising they were pretty flagrant about building a monopoly.

All they need to do is separate the ad business, possibly leaving half under the Alphabet umbrella while pivoting off the other half into a new company with DoubleClick.
 

Jinzo Prime

Member
Google Chrome's dominance over internet browsers should also be a major concern for the DOJ.

79% of people use Google Chrome, and Chrome uses Accelerated Mobile Pages, your Google Account, Ad IDs and other tracking technologies that feed data back to Google's core ad business.

Google is not a technology company. They are an advertising firm.
 
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chromhound

Member
Greys Anatomy Cut GIF by Rooster Teeth
 
I always find it strange when the US government goes after companies. The politicians are non stop protecting them, especially when it's a foreign government trying to make them pay fair amount of tax.
 
Google Chrome's dominance over internet browsers should also be a major concern for the DOJ.

79% of people use Google Chrome, and Chrome uses Accelerated Mobile Pages, your Google Account, Ad IDs and other tracking technologies that feed data back to Google's core ad business.

Google is not a technology company. They are an advertising firm.

The irony of the old IE being a memory pig to now Chrome #1 and also a memory pig is not lost on me.
 

Yoda

Member
Case is weak based on existing anti-trust law. Even if they get lucky initially the Supreme Court is stacked with pro corporate judges.
 
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