Google’s dominance in ad tech supply chain harms businesses and consumers
accc.gov.au
accc.gov.au
How would this work, will Australians see non Google ads on Youtube in the future? And if so, then I assume those ad companies will pay money to youtube to put ads there, who sets that rate? And how do we ensure that hosting youtube videos is still profitable under those ad rates, maybe it runs under so tight margins that giving away money to other ad companies would make it unprofitable again?
I don't really see how this would work at all. What are they thinking? And even ignoring all of the above, who thinks that putting others ads on youtube would benefit consumers?
Edit: Lastly I am not sure how being able to put your own ads on your own website is bad for consumers. It means that people has to go via Google to put ads on a Google website. How can anyone view that as "anti competitive"? I mean, Google could just create a separate ad service for Youtube, say that Youtube now uses its own service and therefore is not anti competitive. Wouldn't that just circumvent this law completely? Or is the goal to be able to force arbitrary ads on any website?
The timesheets of engineers or digital infrastructure isn't a barrier to making this happen, although it might involve some work for external APIs, authentication and reporting.
Likely the solution would be to spin out a separate service for third party ads and make the main network only run on Google services. But that wouldn't help ad websites in Australia at all. The end result would be that websites would probably have a harder time getting money from Google, which would be good for competing ad tech systems but it wouldn't make more money go to those sites.
Still interesting dynamics though, what might theoretically increase bottom line for one part of the org is probably horrible for another.
"PROPOSAL NO. 5: TRANSITION TO PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATION
Shareholders request our Board of Directors take steps necessary to amend our certificate of incorporation and, if necessary, bylaws [...] to become a public benefit corporation [...]. Shareholders request that one of the public benefits included in the amendment be provision of the Company’s viewers with an accurate understanding of current events through the exercise of journalistic integrity [...]"
I thought it was a pretty classy troll. Credit to Matt Levine for the pointer. And in all fairness, the insurgents do put a veneer of reasoning over why it would make sense:
"The vast majority of our diversified shareholders lose when companies harm the economy, because the value of diversified portfolios rises and falls with GDP. While a concentrated holder may profit when the Company inflicts costs on society by emphasizing viewership over accuracy, diversified shareholders internalize those costs."
Just the facts on the matter:
Murdoch owns zero (yes zero) of the 5 major public TV channels and 23% of newspapers in Australia. Hardly a monopoly.
The truth behind the matter is that Australian's elites are constantly trying to force their point of view on to the Australian people by my monopolizing all the public channels, and using government money to push out private organization. Unfortunately for them, no one is interested in listening to them. Instead of admitting they are out of touch and that their ideas are not based in reality, they make these crazy claims that the whole country is under some kind of magic spell cast by Rupert Murdoch which makes it impossible for them to hear anything but those 23% of Newspapers that Murdoch owns.
News Corp earns 40% of total Australian television revenues — combining free-to-air television advertising and subscriptions — almost double that of second- place holder Nine.
News Corp owns a 59% share of the metropolitan and national print media markets by readership.
News Corp has 23% of total radio market by revenue.
As for your other points. If you try to stand back and be objective, the fact that 60% of newspaper readers are forced to read 23% of newspapers should indicate that Newscorp is the only company offering them the choice of media they desire. This would indicate it is the other media companies that are attempting to corner the market and push their views onto people.
The situation becomes even clearer when you look at who is being targeted by whom. Newscorp media online is all paid for and pay walled. They target mature audiences and the rich. Their competition on the other hand offers free products, and they advertise relentlessly on Facebook and other social media. They intentionally target young and groups who are more vulnerable to manipulation.
Finally, a conversation with someone who reads the ABC, or other government products is enough to close the case. These people are always full of extremely hateful, emotional, and even sometimes violent rhetoric (just look at some of the comments on here). Meanwhile if you have a conversation with someone who reads a Newscorp product it will always be fact based and unemotional, and they will almost always be older and more mature.
What?
So the argument is that Google has to support alternate advertising middleware on their platforms? Like, it's not about "they don't take ads from X" but "they don't let other middle-men get involved deploying advertising onto their platforms"?
This doesn't make any sense to me.
There's a lot to hate about internet advertising, but most of that concerns the race-to-the-bottom problems... and forcing platforms to allow alternate ad providers onto their services seems like a good way to make it worse.
Isn't this a compelled speech issue? Shouldn't I have control over what ads run on my site?
Right now they have the advantage that their parent company Google deals with the ads infrastructure for them without any hit to their margins since all the revenue rolls up to the same company anyway.
Or they're being forced to allow other companies to build rental units on their property, who would in turn pay pay the rent up to the provider.
I'd like to see Google kicked out of Australia on national security grounds. But I don't think them being better at advertising than everyone else is a reason.
The report finds that Google has used its position to preference its own services and shield them from competition. For example, Google prevents rival ad tech services from accessing ads on YouTube, providing its own ad tech services with an important advantage.
I don't particularly want to see any ads. If Google does their own thing that is cool.
> ...but unlike showing ads it's actually illegal...
The law is stupid and they should change it.
I believe you make too strong of an assumption of Australian sovereignty and independence relative to the US. Australia is too subservient to the US to declare a national security interest that contradicts the commercial interests of a key US corporation like Google.
No, if anything, the direction is the opposite one with the AUKUS military alliance against China. Australia will take nuclear subs plus Google dominance. ... unless some kind of radical political change takes place down under. IIANM, Australia doesn't have a single strong anti-Imperialist political party at the federal level.
Even though Australia was founded as an imperial colony...
1. It was a colony of Britain, not the US.
2. It's been a couple of hundreds of years by now. Many generations.
3. The internal social relations are class-stratified just like any capitalist democracy.
Also, I don't see why it should not be able to exist long without a sponsor.