Home The Big Story The Big Story: Google’s Legal Drama Laid Bare

The Big Story: Google’s Legal Drama Laid Bare

SHARE:
The Big Story podcast

More than a year after 17 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, the hits keep coming.

A newly unredacted version of the suit – now ballooned to 242 pages – dropped on Friday and provides quite the scratch-off surprise.

AdExchanger has been busy polling the industry and reading up on the latest allegations about how Google ran auctions with undisclosed data advantages, dynamic floors and dynamic take rates.

Together, these tactics shifted hundreds of millions of dollars from publishers and rival exchanges to, who else, Google – allegedly. So tune in to learn more about Project Bernanke, RPO (reserve price optimization) and DRS (dynamic revenue share).

After our Google rant, we shift to another sore spot in advertising: the ad experience on streaming.

Because CTV is younger (and programmatic makes manual review impossible), all kinds of funky ad experiences proliferate. We talk through three of the biggest offenders: high ad frequency, ads that interrupt a scene midsentence and “We’ll be right back” slates that run for minutes while viewers twiddle their thumbs. Though the ad experience is starting to get better, CTV still has a ways to go before it offers as smooth of an experience as lean-back linear.

Must Read

PubMatic’s Agentic AI Is Going Beyond Direct Deals

PubMatic has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns through the SSP’s AgenticOS platform, in addition to more than 1,000 direct publisher deals.

The Trade Desk Has A Grand Vision, But Needs A New Breed Of CMO To Make It A Reality

TTD CEO Jeff Green laid out the DSP’s plan for winning in a new world of advertising that – AI aside – necessitates major changes in how marketers behave.

A Publisher Didn’t Get Its UID2 Setup Right. The Trade Desk Didn’t Notice. What Went Wrong?

TTD confirmed that this CTV publisher’s errors would have made its UID2s useless for ad targeting. But TTD also said it wouldn’t have had enough information to flag the issue.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Criteo Faces Tough Headwinds Until Agentic AI Ad Revenue Materializes

Criteo shares dropped by 20% Wednesday morning after the company reported shaky Q1 earnings and revised its guidance downward for the rest of the year.

Disney’s New CEO Is Focused On Two E’s: Engagement And ESPN

On Wednesday, Josh D’Amaro led his first earnings call as the new CEO of Disney. The company closed last quarter with $25.2 billion in revenue, a 7% year-over-year increase. Disney Entertainment advertising revenue rose 5% YOY, but ESPN ad revenue was down 2% YOY, although subscription and affiliate revenue was up 6%.

People Inc. Looks Inward For Growth As Its Search Traffic Downsizes

People Inc. previewed plans to downsize by focusing mainly on its key properties. The strategy makes sense considering its publishing portfolio has lost about two-thirds of its Google traffic.