Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

I'm confused how this is a monopoly, is it just the "if we define a market as Google ads, then Google has a monopoly problem"? Like defining iOS apps as a market (and somehow failed)?

Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up, at the end of the day X company is spending $5 per thousand clicks (or whatever) because they think it's worth it. Google can charge whatever they want, they run the platform, and it's not as if anyone is forced to use them.

I just don't see how you could in the same breath (how the government basically has) that the app store isn't a monopoly, but Google ads are. There's other ad companies, there is no other way to get an app on iOS.

Um, no, the market is obviously not defined as “google ads.” You could bother to do one single search (maybe even with google!) before spewing nonsense.

Specifically, part of the case found google liable for “unlawfully [tying] its publisher ad server and ad exchange” in violation of the Sherman antitrust act. Basically, google has locked down both the supply side (sites with space the sell for ads) and demand side (market of advertisers bidding on that space) so it can play both sides - and (crucially!) it has integrated them so as to lock in both advertisers and publishers. That’s how you unfairly build a monopoly.

And funny that you use the App Store as an example. Two years ago google lost an antitrust case brought by epic games about their android store practices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google?wprov=sft...

> I'm confused how this is a monopoly

An example from the case would be: Google bought Admeld. Then it disabled it's real time bidding feature. This created short term losses for them but gave them long term advantage in market control.

> Even if they play games with the auctions to keep the price up

Then it should be noticed, competitors should form, and the market should move away from this provider. Yet this has not happened because Google keeps buying those competitors.

> and it's not as if anyone is forced to use them.

Technically? Yes. Practically? No.

> that the app store isn't a monopoly, but Google ads are.

Our federal courts are separated into districts. Not all of them use the same precedents and market logic when deciding cases. This is probably why congress passed a law that prevents large companies from removing cases to the district of their choice and instead forces them to hold the case where the prosecutor decides.

The latter point is one reason why this case ended up differently.

> There's other ad companies

Loss leading, exclusive contracts, and price fixing are all crimes that can be committed in that environment. The bar for anti trust isn't "100% market domination." It's actually pretty nuanced. That's a good thing.

> There's other ad companies, there is no other way to get an app on iOS.

There is no other way to get an ad on sites that use Google Ads, just as there's no other way to get an app on iOS. These seem to be perfectly parallel to me: in either case you can pay a company to get access to their user base or you can choose to not pay that company to get access to their users. But if you make that choice, in either case you're locked out of a large market.

I agree with you that there's a strong argument to be made that the cases should have been decided the same way, but I also think they made the right call with Apple, so that leaves me reevaluating my gut instinct on this one.

Yes there is. You can literally just pay them to put up a banner.

Please clarify your statement

Okay, by that logic you can get apps on iPhones by just individually inviting each user to download the developer tools and install the app on their phone from source.

Unnecessarily rude but okay.

>Two years ago google lost an antitrust case brought by epic games about their android store practices:

It's wild this ever happened when their competitor literally doesn't allow third party apps installed in any way.

>supply side (sites with space the sell for ads) and demand side (market of advertisers bidding on that space) so it can play both sides - and (crucially!) it has integrated them so as to lock in both advertisers and publishers.

You could argue every grocery store does this, they provide the 'supply side' (shelving), brands negotiate for both shelf space and shelf positioning. There's not a super obvious bidding market like Google setup, though ironically Google's method actually makes it easier for smaller companies to participate. Getting a small item in a major grocery store chain is a major move that many companies simply can't do.