Grilling Google
April Fool’s Day was an interesting choice for a congressional hearing regarding rules to reign in the excesses of Big Tech. But here we are.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights invited representatives from DuckDuckGo, the American Economic Liberties Project, Y Combinator, the Boston University School of Law and publisher trade org Digital Content Next (DCN) to share their views.
Jason Kint, the CEO of DCN and an outspoken critic of Google and Facebook, did not hold back.
In his prepared remarks, he decried the “murky” supply chain, “rampant with fraud, insider trading and hidden fees.”
“Unfortunately, there are no common-sense rules for the digital advertising marketplace,” Kint writes. “Ad tech companies often arbitrage users’ data to use on behalf of other clients and for their own profits.”
And who’s the biggest ad tech company of them all? Google, of course.
A bipartisan group of state attorneys general have now filed suit to end Google’s alleged monopoly, Kint continues, noting that the DOJ’s investigation into Google’s ad tech business began during Trump’s presidency, Part One. The current Trump administration is considered lax on business regulation, but it has taken a more aggressive stance regarding Big Tech antitrust actions.
Which brings us to the question of when the heck we’ll receive a verdict in the DOJ v. Google ad tech antitrust trial, which ended late last year. We’re still waiting.
Only an octogenarian judge in Virginia with a razor-sharp mind and wit to match knows the answer to that.
IP, Oh Please
In 2021, Nielsen began a campaign of IP infringement suits against promising startups offering new TV ad currencies or alternative panel-based TV ratings.
Nielsen’s IP suits have all accused its competitors of infringing its automated solution for determining whether a device or smart TV is on or off, which is a basic trade practice.
That was part of the case Nielsen brought against HyphaMetrics in 2021. TVision was sued at the same time over, in part, connecting in-home audience data to ad exposures.
Of Nielsen’s nine IP suits, five have been dismissed, the latest being a Delaware US District Court’s ruling in favor of VideoAmp, Ad Age reports.
But Nielsen doesn’t need judges to decide in its favor for its legal bombardment tactic to succeed. The startups targeted by these suits, including TVision, HyphaMetrics and VideoAmp, were trying to raise money, court potential investors or outright buyers and scrape by in a tough market. Fighting a lawsuit is an expensive distraction.
Nielsen may end up winning none of its suits, but who knows if bringing them prevented any important opportunities for the cottage industry of Nielsen challengers – some of which are fighting back.
TVision got the go-ahead in a separate Delaware District Court antitrust case, in which it countersued Nielsen in 2023 for allegedly suing startups on unfounded IP claims to reduce investor interest and blanket them with legal costs.
Reddit’s No Credit
Is Reddit overreliant on Google?
Investors are growing wary of Reddit’s well-documented “sky bridge” partnerships with Google. Together, Reddit and Google have generated major revenue and user growth and made product development integrations that are unique to the two platforms.
Aside from Google’s $60 million annual fee to license Reddit data for its AI training set, Google has become a critical driver of Reddit’s advertising growth. Google also supports Reddit’s stronger role in affiliate marketing and product reviews, since Reddit data is now surfaced much more effectively by Google’s generative AI.
Business Insider reports that investors also question whether the very strong growth in Reddit’s overall audience reach might also be inflated by Google Search, which could greatly increase logged-out traffic while actually preventing growth in logged-in users.
Then there are the international numbers. Search Engine Roundtable (SER) reports that Reddit’s impressive recent leaps in global markets like Spain and France come down to the company auto-translating its subreddits and then indexing those translations to Google Search.
SER posits that Google might shut down this practice – but maybe not, since preferential treatment is part of the deal when it comes to major platform partnerships.
But Wait! There’s More
X is offering Omnicom – and presumably other holdcos – big incentives to get advertisers back on the platform. Important to note, though, that these incentives are for free ads in highly undesirable placements. [Adweek]
Amazon’s dominance and market share in retail media is only growing. [Digiday]
An entrepreneur bought up local newspapers to try and “fix” local news. It remains broken. [WSJ]
You’re Hired!
Bell Media hires Matt McGowan as SVP of business solutions. [Campaign]
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