Technology

59979 readers

3967 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Why the DOJ’s Google Ad Tech Case Matters to You (techpolicy.press)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/technology

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Later this month, the United States Justice Department will offer its closing argument in its antitrust case against Google’s advertising technology business. I have a personal interest in this case because I used to be an advertiser. As a marketing executive in the 1990s and into the 2010s, I leveraged changes in consumer behavior to exploit the precision and cost efficiency of digital advertising. But I left my career in marketing after it became clear that digital advertising capabilities were not only oversold but also causing harm by eroding people’s privacy, compounding challenges for publishers, and facilitating the amplification of harmful content. The DOJ’s case exemplifies how significant Google’s role was in creating and sustaining those harms.

I hope that by sharing how this unfolded, I can help convey why everyone – not just advertisers and publishers – has a personal interest in this case.

top 2 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] postnataldrip 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

She makes some good points, but only focuses on Google's monopoly being an issue. It is, but there's no mention of privacy concerns, the oversaturation of ads, space being created for ads by deliberately worsening the UX, etc. The industry itself is a shitshow.

The issue isn't so much that Google has a monopoly on the enormously invasive data that's collected. The issue is that it is being collected.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I agree with you about the core of the problem, but the reason the monopoly is the thing being focussed on is because that's the legal basis against Google that we have right now (speaking as someone who enthusiastically followed the proceedings).

The crucial bit now that Google has been deemed an illegal monopolist is how this gets resolved, because of the possible remedies to this situation, some are better for user privacy, and some are worse. This is an opportunity to do some real good here on that front.

Unfortunately, as I understand it, actually getting to a solution will take time, because of how Google will try to haggle down whatever remedy is suggested. This seems likely to be easier to do under a Trump administration.