
The pole
Tie both CEOs to it and flog them for fourty lashes.
Come back every month with the same treatment.
Let's see how long they last . . .
Google and Meta are facing scrutiny from UK and EU competition regulators over their infamous "Jedi Blue" ad-slinging deal. Jedi Blue is the name Google gave to an agreement with Facebook (now Meta) over bidding for ad space. Header bidding is where sellers can offer online ad space to multiple buyers at the same time. Sellers …
It's a shame that neither company can completely sound like they aren't spewing the most parsed and picked-over statements imaginable. There are likely more untruths and half-truths than there are actual truths in what they said. And that's assuming there is actually ANY truth to what either mouthpiece said. But hey, if you're a hip, modern, Internet company, "truth" is an antiquated concept that could possibly cause you to rake in less profit, so it's best avoided if at all possible.
Or... simply more "Google's". Google == X
When all paths flow back to company X, X is the centralized distributor. X actively deteriorates X/2 but, promotes X + X. It's obvious what X is doing no matter where X is doing it. EU, US, UK... doesn't matter, it's always a X + X problem. I suspect that if you look at the politicians in any region, their bank accounts are following the same pattern. To fix this, someone/something has to develop a system where X becomes divisible. It looks like an easy problem to solve, but everyone becomes greedy then becomes part of the X + X problem.
If you find a few folk who have the means and are fine with _only_ making a few dozen million, then you'll have a shot at solving this cancer of a problem. Of course, after that we'll be onto a new problem but, at least this one will be behind us (this one has been dragging through the brush for far too long to still be "just part of the environment", it's time to clean the perimeter).
So, to be honest, I doubt that this impacted me. On normal web activity, I block adverts. As for mobile use, the damned adverts made web use too painfully useless. A recent mobile update tried to force every picture to be a video, and even polluted it with some god-awful noise. I deleted the crap, together with what might be the origin, an unwanted video and picture editing crap-app.
"...and therefore restrict or distort competition in markets for online display advertising, to the detriment of publishers, and ultimately consumers."
Maybe it's just me but I've never thought of myself as a "consumer" of online ads. They're more something I need to put up with. Are there any actual ad consumers out there?
So, to be honest, I doubt that this impacted me. On normal web activity, I block adverts. As for mobile use, the damned adverts made web use too painfully useless. A recent mobile update tried to force every picture to be a video, and even polluted it with some god-awful noise. I deleted the crap, together with what might be the origin, an unwanted video and picture editing crap-app.