Google insists the ad tech business ain't broke, urges Washington not to fix it

Google defended its advertising technology businesses in the court of public opinion on Sunday, just as its attorneys prepared similar arguments against US antitrust allegations now being heard in a Virginia courtroom. The Justice Department and eight states sued Google in January, claiming the megacorporation has unlawfully …

[FF22]

In reality if anything it's the ad exchanges that need to be taken away from Google

... because currently Google is present both at the supply and demand side of ads, and has (near-)monopolies on both sides, which obviously gives them not only a chance but also incentives to manipulate the market, which they do. They also do it when their Chrome browser blocks certain type of ads which Google judges not to be preferable, or when Google Search ranks pages higher or lower depending on what kinds of ads they're running.

Now obviously you can't force Google to not show ads (or if you did, then you'd have to do the same thing with every other vendor company), so, the only solution to resolve that conflict is to remove the other side from the equation, and take away their ad exchanges. This will force Google to compete for the ads like anyone else does, and will not allow them to manipulate the ad market (or at least to a lesser degree) than currently in their own favor.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: In reality if anything it's the ad exchanges that need to be taken away from Google

Aren't you in danger of simply creating a different monopoly?

[Anna Nymous]

Re: In reality if anything it's the ad exchanges that need to be taken away from Google

A "danger of creating a different monopoly" sits lower on my ladder of threats than "definitely totally a monopoly".

We should do something about "definitely totally a monopoly" and then prevent that second potential monopoly from forming. But thanks for the warning of that potential for the different monopoly, now we can take that into account to prevent it from happening while we deal with the "definitely totally a monopoly"-situation!

[Anonymous Coward]

And also…

How about the vast volume of clearly fraudulent adverts stuffed up the top of search results?

Or is a deal a deal, no questions asked?

[Joe W]

Re: And also…

It's a deal and if you point them out to Google they refuse to see the problem.

I'd really like somebody to celebrate happy friendship day....(Liam style)

[LybsterRoy]

Re: And also…

I'm obviously a bit thick. I just tried a couple of searches and yes I had a small slew of adverts before the search results but as far as I can tell they are genuine adverts offering to sell something I could buy. OK I didn't ask for them but they were sort of relevant so in what way are they fraudulent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And also…

Try searching for a phone number for a bank/cable TV/Software company.

You know, the sort of information that scammers try and exploit.

Jim Browning explains: https://youtu.be/qO5u_smv2AU?si=XIC_7XeC4Z9KZBOr

[T. F. M. Reader]

Wanamaker 2.0

Version 2.0 of John Wanamaker's famous quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half” should read "More than a third of my advertising money is wasted; there is no trouble at all to know which third it is - the one that Google pockets."

[Groo The Wanderer]

We're not evil - seriously

We're insanely greedy, but we aren't actually evil.

At least not any worse than kicking-a-puppy evil...