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Comment by cblconfederate | Hacker News Reader

Google controls advertising on both the supply side and demand side. It's not hard to think ways in which this is anticompetitive. A ton of stuff is black boxes. E.g. are adsense chargebacks real? Are keyword bids fair?

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Google's algorithms are trade secrets just like Coca-Cola recipe formula is. You can not expect somebody making billions and revealing their secret "know-how".

if coca-cola controlled all the fridges, i d expect them to be broken up though

the point of antitrust is not to force companies to give up trade secrets, it's to ensure that there is competition and market alternatives

Do billboard work? Does a fox ad work?

Come on - the company spending the money has MORE visability into what their google ad spend buys them then in almost any other area.

I don't even care if I overpay on a "bid" for a spot - the metric I'm using is return on spend. And trust me, the mainline media companies driving this do not promise advertisers "fair" bidding. They have sales people trying to extract every nickle they can (through sometimes horrible accounting practices where they pay different divisions to drive up various "costs").

Maybe for you ad price is not an issue. That's like saying the price of steak is not an issue for you. There are a ton of billboard companies and TV channels, so competition is presumed to lead to price discovery and low prices. Google has no competition.

Google has no competition in marketing? Are these serious statements? I can advertise on Instagram, pay social media influencers and the ways to market to folks are literally endless, from postcards, to delivery route saturation campaigns to annoying popups on Hulu videos to microtargeted facebook ads. I hate facebook, don't have the app, but campaigns on facebook at least historically could do amazingly well if you had the targeting down.

Historically one paper in town basically got most advertising. Those folks printed money. Classifieds etc.

There has been an explosion of marketing opportunities now. I can market on amazon if I think that would yield more (it does sometimes).

Why are you conflating google with all of marketing and TV ads etc? That's like claimingn that airlines and sealines are the same market. Google's competitors are not billboards, they are the (now extinct) other online ad marketplaces. Their problem is that they control the search and display ad marketplace absolutely, they can ask advertisers to pay $100, pay the publisher $1 and nobody will know if they are being scammed because there is no competiting marketplace to compare.

https://archive.vn/G8cgI

I also don't see what will be lost if google loses its grip on one part of the equation. Don't you want competition?

Huh? Something like 60% goes to website - it's in the agreement.

If they are going to try and prove google charged $100 and paid $1 - good luck. Google makes enough money just on their 40%, and can change that % any time. Google could just set their rate to 50% if they wanted if they'd still be competitive.

If the DOJ is relying on this type of argument, that google is secretly scamming folks, they are probably toast I think.

No that is not going to be their argument, it will probably be along the lines: google may be skewing the bids towards the $100 high end in order to maximize their own cut. We don't know whether bids should really be $100 because all their competitors have died so there is nothing to compare.

I don't think google would violate their agreement with publishers. That said there are many questions to be asked there too : what is that "invalid traffic". Why are inventories not filled , why are some ads not allwed etc etc. Google can claim their agreement is "take it or leave it" , but that is where their problem lies. If both advertisers and publishers are forced to "take it" due to lack of alternatives, it is an admission that they are in a monopolistic position.

Let's be 100% clear, google "skewing" the bids to the high end - EVERY person selling ads tries to get as much as they can from the ads they sell.

The DOJ is making this a crime now? They are going to lose in seconds.

The website hosting the ads and google both want the price they get to be as high as possible. That is what google is selling, ads, and they want as much as they can.

Google is not pretending to be a charity. There is no requirement they or websites charge low rates for ads, so yes, google skews the bids as high as they can without losing volume.

I'm really worried if this is the strength of the DOJ case, this is horrible and clearly political.

Again, the issue is the lack of competition (also, google sells to advertisers as well)

Google has every incentive to find you the least expensive lead, which is not good for you. The least expensive lead is the one that would buy from you even if they didn't see the ad. This means you wasted money, and a lot of it.

But I can judge whether I'm wasting money with google ads vs using TV ads or billboards. Do NPR promise me my sponsorship will result in increased sales or that it's the "lowest" possible price?

Maybe some people hearing an NPR sponsorship would have bought from me anyways - is this now a crime?

What about when people are bidding on CPA and not CPC? Surely that gives a representative number.

A representative number of what? The real price of the CPA? But google controls both the bid price and the ask price, so it could be arbitrary for all i know.

Every other marketing option also is arbitrary. A social influencer doesn't owe you a low price, they will charge what they can. Google will charge what it can for CPA etc.

Once more, there are thousands and thousands of influencers, their price is set through competition. Google is only 1 (one) company, no competition to force them to adjust their prices.

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