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Georgia Institute of Technology

European Union

Fancy overseeing whether Big Tech is playing by European Union privacy rules? The Irish government has posted job ads for two additional commissioners to lead the Data Protection Commission (DPC), which oversees scores of major tech firms' compliance with the region's data protection framework -- and has the power to levy fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover for infringements of the regime.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.HcZWoEWz-2eKa-b17TRvOi&pid=News

Major Big Tech privacy watchdog in EU set to get two more commissioners soon

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.nYADEgS75l8rdCg9D-p_OQ&pid=news

YAHOO!News

Google

Pixel

Google is expected to launch its next-gen flagship phones, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, this fall. Here are the most credible rumors on the internet.

Pixel 8: All the Major Rumors About Google's Next Phone

Meta has unveiled a new series of artificial intelligence chatbots to challenge the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. Speaking at the tech giant’s annual Meta Connect conference, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the AI chatbots would feature different “personalities” based on celebrities.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT._eD1dgWHlS0adIpOEzVgXC&pid=News

Meta launches AI chatbots with ‘personalities’ to take on ChatGPT

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.6l3fMUjuba1Bx26WywDhqQ&pid=news

Mobile

The Google Pixel 7 offers a lot for the price, but we've found some even better value deals with some super cheap offers around. Here are the best.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.thnPcnzmxVolIF_GpDcP5i&pid=News

Best Google Pixel 7 deals: Can you get the phone for free?

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.x644vROjZrRe0pKC7YX3XQ&pid=news

Digital Trends

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are improving security for cloud computing customers as Washington regulators and politicians press for action after breaches.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.AxJadLL6nVr_5PjgDg6HGS&pid=News

Tech giants ramp up cloud security under pressure from Washington

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.JRpbjhQKSgfe9BXmFtAAoA&pid=news

How-to

Christopher Tester became a voice-over artist using Fiverr. He shared how he adapted after his voice was stolen for AI.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.QXucN35oDfDXZuvehLSdii&pid=News

I made $107,000 last year doing voice-overs. Here's how I started with an online course and grew to doing work for Warner Bros, Pepsi, and Google.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.q-ZVWyz-qFnnPRsNgOLlfQ&pid=news

Business Insider

Apple Inc.

Partnership

Apple's deal with Google spotlights the Cupertino company’s flourishing services business. Here’s how vital this partnership might be to Apple’s soaring valuations.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.dfP3jCrNBZSqaiW2qz-PSC&pid=News

Apple Stock: How Valuable Is The Scrutinized Partnership With Google?

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.dsVvdYEiGuqZDGlCaqu-ZQ&pid=news

TheStreet.com

Helpfulness

Google has confirmed that the September 2023 helpful content update is now finished rolling out. The update took 14 days to roll out, starting on September 14, 2023 and ending on September 28, 2022. Google has posted it completed today, September 28. Google wrote, “The rollout was complete as of September 28, 2023.”

Google September 2023 helpful content is now done rolling out

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.4QeTEYHGoXPpi_CNzqJApQ&pid=news

Search Engine Land

India

NASDAQ

Global tech heavyweights HP Inc. HP and Alphabet Inc 's GOOGL GOOG Google have announced their plan to partner up and produce low-cost Chromebooks in India to enhance digital education accessibility.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.pG-HD316dJAwkvVokyT2jy&pid=News

Google, HP Join Forces To Produce Affordable Chromebooks In India

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.LnWAsYULk4XKw3udkffflQ&pid=news

Benzinga.com

Google, LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 25 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition b) Google Further Stunts Header Bidding by Working to Bring Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold 187. Even before the rise of header bidding, Google had identified Facebook as a potential competitive threat. Facebook had at one point shown ambitions to challenge Google as a full-stack ad tech competitor, acquiring a publisher ad server in 2013 and a video advertising SSP in 2014, though both products were later shuttered. Years later, Facebook recognized that any full-stack ad tech strategy “is subject to one bottleneck and intermediary—Google. They ‘own’ the Ad Server, and hence the last mile relationship with publishers.” Facebook further observed that “[o]ther players in the market, such as Amazon, recognize that unseating Google, and its relationships with publishers is hard, and are also choosing to build on top of Google’s rails.” 188. Though it had abandoned its efforts to be a full-stack competitor, Facebook still aimed to grow its advertising business beyond its owned and operated (“O&O”) digital properties (e.g., Facebook Blue and Instagram apps), which were increasingly supplyconstrained. As the number of advertisers on these properties grew, demand threatened to outpace available inventory; Facebook sought publisher inventory outside Facebook to satisfy this unmet advertising demand. In 2014, it launched Facebook Audience Network (“FAN”), which Facebook described as the “power of Facebook ads, off-Facebook.” FAN allowed Facebook advertisers to extend their campaigns outside of Facebook O&O properties with a oneclick, opt-in button. 189. At launch, FAN primarily worked with mobile app advertisers to place ads in other mobile apps in order to drive app installs and engagement. It later expanded to open web on mobile devices. By 2016, FAN was participating in the growing header bidding movement, partnering with header bidding wrappers to submit real-time, simultaneous bids, and eventually launching full-scale header bidding in 2017. 190. As a large ad network connected to millions of Facebook advertisers, FAN also competed with Google to lock up available publisher inventory for its advertisers. Prior to joining Open Bidding, Facebook executives foresaw a status quo of “hand-to-hand combat” between the companies to secure access to sufficient inventory from publishers. Google feared such competition with Facebook would end up “eat[ing] margin,” and that Google might “respond identically” through deals with top publishers, thus “driving a price war.” Facebook was equally leery of such a future, with one executive fretting that the “significant investment required to lock up inventory through direct deals” with publishers would “[l]ikely start a race to the bottom on margin.” 191. Google took note of FAN’s launch and kept a wary eye on FAN as it grew, describing Facebook as “a unique competitive challenge for us, both short- and long-term” because of its “strength in ad formats and targeting.” Google understood Facebook’s reach with over a billion users, and it understood that just as Google had valuable targeting and demographic data from its O&O properties—including Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, and Play Store—Facebook, too, had a massive amount of valuable data from its O&O properties. Even though Facebook had largely given up on building a direct competitor to Google’s publisher ad tech stack, Google saw looming “[d]isintermediation [t]hreats” to DFP from “[l]arge [n]etworks with unique data and advertiser scale seek[ing] direct inventory access[,] [g]oing direct to pubs or using existing [third-party] channels like Header Bidding.” By contrast, Google characterized full-stack competitors as “historical competition” of little concern: “This is a short-term threat and we are well positioned here.” 192. As FAN began to test and use header bidding, Google grew increasingly alarmed at “the existential threat posed by Header Bidding and FAN.” Google strategized over how to respond to FAN’s entry into header bidding, and in September 2016, Google laid out a plan to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding program. Significantly, Google concluded that bringing FAN demand into Open Bidding was a better alternative to slow publisher adoption of header bidding than “[a]ggressively mak[ing] [Open Bidding] much better than [header bidding].” 3. Rather than making a better product and competing on the merits, Google sought a deal with Facebook to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding—away from rival exchanges’ header bidding auctions—to “dry out” the nascent threat posed by header bidding. If competition with Facebook was inevitable, it would be better for Google to compete on a field it still controlled, with the many advantages it had constructed for itself, thus protecting DFP’s market dominance. Indeed, Google concluded that while it “[c]annot avoid competing with FAN,” it could, through a deal with Facebook, “build a moat around our demand.” And as Google’s product leadership would ultimately recommend to CEO Sundar Pichai, with a Google-Facebook deal, “[f]or web inventory, we will move [FAN’s] demand off of header bidding set up and further weaken the header bidding narrative in the marketplace.” Facebook, meanwhile, was frank in its assessment of Google’s motivation for the deal: “What Google wants: To kill header bidding (us baptizing [Open Bidding] will help significantly).” 194. Ultimately, in September 2018, after a long negotiation and approvals by each company’s top brass—including Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg—Google and Facebook entered into a “Network Bidding Agreement” (“NBA”). The deal provided Facebook with unique terms, including a contractual promise of no last look and direct remittance to publishers, ensuring that Facebook would continue to maintain its publisher-facing relationships. In exchange, Facebook committed to a minimum annual spend on Open Bidding and was incentivized, through an all-units, tiered volume discount, to shift spend to Open Bidding and away from possible alternative header bidding avenues. 195. Having tried and failed to challenge Google as full-stack competitor—in part because of Google’s anticompetitive conduct described above—Facebook ultimately resigned itself to operating on top of Google’s rails. While the NBA satisfied Facebook’s need for increased access to publisher inventory, Facebook recognized that it would also “reduce our future optionality to build our own ad tech and the likelihood of a newbie like Amazon[, which had introduced a header bidding wrapper,] succeeding.” Facebook believed that, while perhaps “inevitable,” the deal would nevertheless “accelerate Google’s stranglehold on ad tech.” Facebook’s then-VP of Partnerships opined that “by doing this deal, we will cement [Google’s] position of power.” 196. Amazon’s TAM posed a different competitive threat to Google’s dominance. It allowed publishers to solicit bids from multiple ad exchanges via a single call from a webpage to Amazon’s extensive network of servers. And Amazon took only a small one cent CPM fee— much lower than Open Bidding’s 5% fee—for every transaction that flowed through TAM. Google initially feared TAM could aggregate advertising demand in a way that challenged Google’s ad exchange and publisher ad server, leading Google to ask Amazon what it would take for Amazon to stop investing in its header bidding product. However, Amazon rebuffed such requests and continued to develop and deploy TAM. But as with other header bidding solutions, TAM could not fully circumvent all of the restrictions and preferences baked into Google’s ad tech products, which website publishers still relied upon. For example, TAM remained subject to a “last look” by Google’s ad exchange, allowing Google’s ad exchange to win any impression that would otherwise flow through TAM by matching the competing price from TAM. 197. Google’s Open Bidding—and Google’s efforts to shift the focus of other major ad tech companies like Facebook from header bidding toward Open Bidding—stunted header bidding’s adoption, leaving header bidding unable to pose a true threat to Google’s monopoly power. In doing so, Open Bidding achieved its goal of blunting the growth of header bidding and protecting Google’s publisher ad server. Today, Google still has its publisher ad server monopoly. Header bidding persisted, but its adoption stagnated. And Google turned to other, more surreptitious methods to restrain competition and “dry out” ad exchanges using header bidding. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Brings Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold

Google incorpora a Facebook y Amazon a su proceso de licitación abierta

Google intègre Facebook et Amazon dans son programme d'enchères ouvertes

Google Facebook और Amazon को अपने ओपन बिडिंग फोल्ड में लाता है

Google、FacebookとAmazonを自社の公開入札に参加させる

Google traz Facebook e Amazon para seu grupo de licitações abertas

Google đưa Facebook và Amazon vào cuộc đấu thầu mở

谷歌将 Facebook 和亚马逊纳入公开竞价范围

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 24 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition a) Google Develops So-Called Open Bidding, Its Own Google-Friendly Version of Header Bidding To Preserve Its Control Over the Sale of Publisher Inventory 176. Employees working on Google’s publisher-facing platforms responded to the threat of header bidding by developing a limited way for rival ad exchanges to finally compete in real time within Google’s platforms, but on terms dictated by Google. Although Google could not return to a fully closed system of real-time bidding—one Google previously reserved for its own ad exchange via dynamic allocation—it could create a system over which it retained control to dictate the terms on which competition occurred. The mechanism, internally referred to as “Jedi,” came with a number of limitations designed to dampen competition and insulate Google’s ad exchange from vigorous competition. To that end, as explained by Google’s lead product manager for DFP and AdX, Google intentionally designed this new form of integration to be just “slightly better” than early versions of header bidding. 177. Google called this mechanism “Exchange Bidding,” later renamed (for simplicity, referred to herein as “Open Bidding”). Google started testing Open Bidding in 2016 and formally launched the program in April 2018. Externally, Google portrayed Open Bidding as an improvement to header bidding that created a real-time bidding auction with multiple ad exchanges, similar to header bidding, but on Google’s servers to reduce latency. It represented the first time that Google’s ad exchange competed in real time against other ad exchanges, as Google had previously refused to participate in any header bidding auctions. “Open Bidding” 178. Internally, however, Google understood that the purpose of Open Bidding was to “stem[] the bleeding” and “combat the risk of header bidding.” Google understood that if it could blunt header bidding’s momentum, it could maintain its “control point and advantage” gained through its publisher ad server monopoly and ultimately “[g]et pub[lishers] to move away from header bidding back into our platform.” 179. Google outwardly portrayed Open Bidding as a more publisher-friendly way for participating ad exchanges to bid in real time on publisher inventory, as Open Bidding substantially reduced a publisher’s cost to integrate an ad exchange other than Google’s AdX within DFP. By contrast, to utilize header bidding, publishers had to configure thousands of lines of pricing rules in the publisher ad server and update each webpage with new code. Google also offered to share with participating Open Bidding ad exchanges its “last look” advantage over header bidding that dynamic allocation previously had provided only to Google’s ad exchange. 180. But Open Bidding also came with major drawbacks for both publishers and participating ad exchanges. Google handicapped rival ad exchanges to impair their chances of winning impressions through Open Bidding, which otherwise might increase their overall attractiveness to publishers. Google did so in four pivotal, mutually reinforcing ways. 181. , Google extracted for itself an additional fee on every transaction won by a rival exchange, reducing the net payout publishers received from integrating with other ad exchanges. Google imposed a 5% fee on rival ad exchanges’ transactions through Open Bidding, effectively lowering the net bid of Open Bidding ad exchange participants by 5% relative to AdX’s bid. This additional 5% charge effectively amounted to a 25% or more increase in the average ad exchange fee, making bids from rival ad exchanges much less attractive to publishers. First 182. , even if a rival ad exchange won an auction, the rival ad exchange paid Google, and Google paid the publisher. Publishers received payments and reporting related to Open Bidding-won advertisements from Google, not rival ad exchanges, decreasing the number of touchpoints between rival ad exchanges and publishers. By taking control over the payment and reporting functions, Google effectively disintermediated rival ad exchanges from their own publisher customers and, in the long-run, made it less likely publishers would view those rival ad exchanges as valuable partners and continue to use them. Second 183. , if a rival ad exchange also owned an advertiser buying tool (as Google did), that exchange could not allow its own advertiser buying tool to participate in Open Bidding auctions. This decreased the competitiveness of those ad exchanges from the perspective of publishers. Third 184. , through Open Bidding, Google was able to increase its data advantage by obtaining access to the bids of its rivals for each impression, which it could not see in header bidding auctions. Thus, even when other ad exchanges opted to participate in Open Bidding, they initially did not have access to the same data: they were forced to share their bids with Google without any reciprocity.[20] Although Open Bidding provided an additional avenue for rival ad exchanges to participate and potentially to win inventory, those ad exchanges were forced to cede control over the transaction to Google and take steps that diminished their overall competitiveness. By contrast, alternative forms of server-side header bidding offered by market participants without Google’s market power have much lower—or no—fees and do not include the restrictions and limitations that Google incorporated into Open Bidding. Notwithstanding these benefits, Google’s conduct has stunted adoption and growth. Thus, in the end, Open Bidding fulfilled Google’s intent to counter header bidding in a manner that ultimately protected Google’s publisher ad server monopoly, and in turn, Google’s ad exchange, AdX. Fourth 185. Despite Google’s success in using Open Bidding to blunt the impact of header bidding, Google came to fear that a header bidding wrapper (code designed to run a multiexchange header bidding auction), such as Prebid or Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace (“TAM”), could one day supplant the publisher ad server as the ultimate decision-maker of which ad to serve. Doing so would threaten the means by which Google had given its ad exchange an unfair advantage over rival ad exchanges. If header bidding were able to aggregate enough advertiser demand, Google believed publishers might be willing to risk adoption of a header-bidding-focused ad server, because of the diminished importance of advertiser demand exclusively available through Google Ads. 186. In light of this fear, Google set out to lobby other unique sources of advertising demand (such as Facebook) or potential aggregators of advertising demand (such as Amazon) to adopt Google’s Open Bidding rather than invest in header bidding infrastructure. [20] Only recently has Google begun to share some bidding information with Open Bidding participants—but not header bidding ad exchanges—in a form that has largely proven unworkable. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

US v. Google: Header Bidding? More like Open Bidding! 

Estados Unidos contra Google: ¿Oferta de encabezado? ¡Más bien una puja abierta!

États-Unis contre Google : Header Bidding ? Plutôt un système d'enchères ouvertes !

यूएस बनाम गूगल: हेडर बिडिंग? खुली बोली की तरह!

米国対 Google: ヘッダー入札? Open Bidding のようなものです。

EUA x Google: lance de cabeçalho? Mais como Open Bidding!

Hoa Kỳ và Google: Đặt giá thầu dựa vào tiêu đề? Giống như tính năng Đặt giá thầu mở hơn!

美国诉谷歌：标题竞价？更像是公开出价！

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 23 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition 174. Google moved swiftly to respond to the perceived threat header bidding posed to its ad exchange dominance and publisher ad server monopoly. Instead of leaning into the increased real-time competition between ad exchanges spurred by header bidding—which would have led to higher revenue for publishers, lower ad tech fees, and better return-on-investment for advertisers—Google adopted a multi-prong strategy to forestall the adoption of header bidding by publishers and, as a Google partnership strategist phrased it in an internal email, “dry out” rival ad exchanges that adopted header bidding. 175. In doing so, Google aimed to return to a more outdated, closed, two-tiered system of competition for advertising transactions. Header bidding represented a real opportunity for the market to move to a more open system where publishers could effectively multi-home their inventory across competing ad exchanges and varied sources of advertising demand. Although Google realized that its original vision of all display advertising transactions flowing through Google’s ad exchange was no longer realistic, Google also recognized it could take advantage of its dominance at each layer of the ad tech stack to impede publishers, advertisers, and rival ad tech providers from further opening up the ad tech ecosystem and loosening Google’s control over where transactions flowed. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition

Google reduce las ofertas de encabezado al "secar" la competencia

Google émousse les enchères d’en-tête en « asséchant » la concurrence

Google ने प्रतिस्पर्धा को "ख़त्म" करके हेडर बोली को कुंद कर दिया

Google、競合を「干す」ことでヘッダー入札を鈍化

O Google reduz os lances de cabeçalho ao “secar” a concorrência

Google Blunts đặt giá thầu bằng tiêu đề bằng cách “làm khô” cuộc thi

谷歌通过“干涸”竞争来削弱标题竞价

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 22 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 1. The Industry Attempts to Rebel Against Google’s Exclusionary Practices 163. By 2015, Google’s publisher customers and ad exchange competitors had grown so frustrated with Google that they attempted to implement a form of open, real-time competition with Google’s ad exchange that evaded Google’s exclusionary restrictions. This innovative technology was called header bidding. 164. Header bidding worked as follows: publishers inserted certain computer code into the “header” section of the HTML code of a web page. This code triggered a real-time auction among ad exchanges before the publisher’s web page called the publisher ad server. [18] The highest bid from the header bidding auction was then sent to the publisher’s ad server. Because of the way Google configured DFP, the winning bid from the header bidding auction was then sent to Google’s ad exchange to see if it could beat that price. Critically, through dynamic allocation, Google’s ad exchange always received this “last look” advantage, essentially a right to buy any impression as long as it had at least one advertiser willing to match the competing bid price from the header bidding auction. 165. As originally designed, header bidding had limitations that stemmed from Google’s restrictions on how publishers could sell their inventory through Google’s publisher ad server. For example, publishers had to configure thousands of entries into the publisher ad server and recode their pages to implement a workaround to enable header bidding. Web pages also ran somewhat more slowly because publishers had to run multiple auctions sequentially: the header bidder auctions first, and then Google’s ad exchange auction, which always ran last. Despite these limitations, for the first time, Google’s ad exchange was forced to compete, at least in some fashion, against real-time bids from rival ad exchanges rather than against static, historical average prices from those ad exchanges. In assessing the impact of header bidding, a 2016 Google internal presentation noted “header bidding and header wrappers are BETTER than [Google’s platforms] for buyers and sellers.” Google explained that competition between AdX and buyers using header bidding increased publisher revenues by 30 to 40%, and provided additional transparency to advertisers. In essence, header bidding allowed publishers, advertisers, and Google’s rivals an opportunity to at least partially circumvent Google’s restrictions against real-time competition. Market participants had demonstrated their preference for improved choice, flexibility, and competition, even if it came at the cost of burdensome computer workarounds and slower load times for end users. 166. In practice, header bidding dramatically improved the competitiveness of rival ad exchanges. Header bidding provided a real opportunity for rival ad exchanges to see and compete for more publisher inventory, and potentially gain scale to compete effectively with Google. By allowing a publisher to call multiple ad exchanges in real time—effectively multihoming at the ad exchange level—header bidding vastly increased the amount of inventory rival ad exchanges could offer their advertisers. In turn, advertisers had the opportunity to see and bid on more inventory—potentially through lower-cost channels than Google’s ad tech tools— increasing their chances of winning inventory. By improving the ability of advertisers and publishers to connect, these rival ad exchanges were able to clear more transactions, increase revenues for publishers, and improve the quality of matches. In turn, header bidding had the potential to attract more advertisers and publishers to these rival ad exchanges by increasing the incremental value they could offer. 167. Due to this increased competitiveness, non-Google affiliated buyers began to buy more advertising inventory through third-party ad exchanges using header bidding. Google’s internal analysis showed a deceleration in spend by non-Google advertiser buying tools on AdX as “header bidding removed AdX inventory exclusivity . . . [and] buyers shift[ed] spend as other inventory sources delivered equal/better value.” A large buyer explicitly indicated to Google that they were “shifting spend over to HB partners” because they were “seeing better performance.” 168. More transactions flowing through rival ad exchanges made it easier for those ad exchanges to offset the massive cost of processing billions of ad requests each day; ad exchanges are only compensated for requests that result in a won transaction. These new transactions also provided ad exchanges with additional data on the universe of publisher inventory, user targeting data, and the competitive landscape. 169. Building on the success of early client-side header bidding, several companies invested to develop new innovative free or low-cost tools (called “wrappers”) that enabled “server-side” header bidding. This new form of header bidding allowed the header of a web page to call a single server, which then sent calls to multiple ad exchanges, each of which returned a bid to the server, which in turn passed on the winning bid to the web page. Server-side header bidding turbocharged the scale benefits of header bidding by decreasing integration costs and improved the internet user experience by reducing latency introduced by header bidding. 170. Internally, Google recognized that header bidding substantially benefited every market participant except one: Google. For that reason, Google refused to participate and instead chose to stifle any competitor that dared employ header bidding. As one Google employee explained, “[Header bidding] gives many publishers better yield, so it’s a no-brainer for a publisher to adopt it.” A late 2015 internal discussion somberly noted that Google “[did] not have incredibly robust arguments to discourage header bidding” and conceded that header bidding offered the competition Google had publicly preached but privately precluded: With AdX we’ve always advocated the more competition a pub has being considered with real time price competition the better the yield. Our competition is using this same argument for why header bidding makes sense. If they can submit a near real time price into DFP the[] competition with AdX is improved. As another Google employee observed, “[Google’s ad server] has historically made it difficult for [ad exchanges] to compete on a level playing field with AdX.” 171. Google viewed header bidding—and particularly server-side header bidding—as a direct and, in the words of a 2016 internal strategy paper, “existential threat” to the market power Google had amassed. Internal Google documents confirm that Google understood header bidding to be a direct response by its customers and competitors to counteract Google’s increasing dominance and its “unwillingness to open our systems to the types of transactions, policies and innovations that buyers and sellers wish to transact.” Header bidding was an attempt to “circumvent dynamic allocation,” one Google employee noted in late 2015. Another employee recognized that “[p]ublishers felt locked-in by dynamic allocation in [Google’s ad server] which only gave [Google’s ad exchange the] ability to compete, so HB was born.” Another described header bidding as a “world of true, multi-sourced [real-time bidding]” without Google as the “authoritarian intermediary.” 172. Beyond breaking the restrictions Google had put in place, header bidding also represented a pervasive threat to Google’s market power stemming from its unique and substantial advertiser demand. If header bidding could bring together a critical mass of nonGoogle advertising demand into a single real-time auction (e.g., a server-side header bidding auction), it might be able to undermine the power Google wielded through its Google Ads’ advertising demand, thereby weakening the need for publishers to use Google’s publisher ad server and ad exchange in the first place. 173. While header bidding was an important step toward more competition among ad exchanges, it could not displace Google’s dominance overnight. Google had hard-coded into the ad selection rules of its publisher ad server several advantages for its own ad exchange that would prevent rival ad exchanges from competing. Absent toppling Google’s monopoly position in the publisher ad server market, header bidding could offer publishers and advertisers only incremental gains. Thus, in the wake of header bidding, Google implemented still further measures to limit the growth of both header bidding and the rival ad exchanges deploying this technology. [18] Because early versions of the header code were run on the device of the user, or client, they were referred to as “client-side” header bidding. [19] “SSPs” refers to non-Google ad exchanges. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Header Bidding was AdTech's Attempt to Rebel Against Google’s Monopoly, but with Mixed Results

Header Bidding fue el intento de AdTech de rebelarse contra el monopolio de Google, pero con resultados mixtos

Le Header Bidding était une tentative d'AdTech de se rebeller contre le monopole de Google, mais avec des résultats mitigés

हेडर बिडिंग Google के एकाधिकार के ख़िलाफ़ विद्रोह करने का AdTech का प्रयास था, लेकिन मिश्रित परिणामों के साथ

ヘッダー入札は Google の独占に反抗する AdTech の試みでしたが、結果はまちまちでした

Header Bidding foi uma tentativa da AdTech de se rebelar contra o monopólio do Google, mas com resultados mistos

Đặt giá thầu dựa vào tiêu đề là nỗ lực của AdTech nhằm chống lại sự độc quyền của Google, nhưng có nhiều kết quả khác nhau

标头竞价是 AdTech 反抗 Google 垄断的尝试，但结果好坏参半

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 21 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK C. Google Buys and Kills a Burgeoning Competitor and Then Tightens the Screws 3. Google Manipulates Google Ads’ Bidding Strategy to Block Publisher Partnerships with Rivals 161. Google also took the opportunity to tweak its Project Bernanke algorithm to further lock in publishers who considered using innovative bidding technology offered by Google’s rivals. Some publishers attempted to partner with rival ad exchanges to offer them “first look” access to inventory—an opportunity to bid in real time for inventory before it was offered to Google’s AdX. “First look” could potentially prop up rival ad exchanges by giving them effective access to some of the most valuable inventory.[17] 162. Beginning in 2014, Google recalibrated the earlier Project Bernanke to decrease Google Ads’ bids on AdX for publishers that allowed rivals an opportunity to buy inventory ahead of AdX. Google called this “Project Bell.” Where publishers tried to partner with rival sources of advertising demand for “first look” access to inventory, Google reduced bids— without any input from or awareness of the underlying advertiser—by about 20%. According to Google’s documents, it explicitly warned publishers that utilizing innovative “first-call” technology from rivals would cause publisher yield to drop 20 to 30%. Of course, only a company like Google with substantial market power across the entire ad tech stack would have the incentive or ability to implement such a program. Project Bell both insulated Google’s ad exchange from this new form of competition and preserved preferential access for buyers on Google’s ad exchange, including Google Ads. [17] Previously, Google used dynamic allocation in its publisher ad server to exclude rival exchanges from meaningful competition. By only permitting Google’s own ad exchange to bid in real time—ahead of any other exchange—for impressions, Google was unfairly advantaged and competitors were effectively stymied from competing. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Manipulates Google Ads’ Bidding Strategy to Block Publisher
Partnerships with Rival

Google manipula la estrategia de oferta de Google Ads para bloquear al editor
Asociaciones con rivales

Google manipule la stratégie d'enchères de Google Ads pour bloquer l'éditeur
Partenariats avec Rival

Google प्रकाशक को ब्लॉक करने के लिए Google विज्ञापनों की बोली रणनीति में हेरफेर करता है
प्रतिद्वंद्वी के साथ साझेदारी

Google、Google広告の入札戦略を操作してサイト運営者をブロック
ライバルとのパートナーシップ

Google manipula estratégia de lances do Google Ads para bloquear editor
Parcerias com Rival

Google thao túng chiến lược đặt giá thầu của Google Ads để chặn nhà xuất bản
Hợp tác với đối thủ

谷歌操纵谷歌广告的出价策略来阻止发布商
与竞争对手的合作伙伴关系

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 20 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK C. Google Buys and Kills a Burgeoning Competitor and Then Tightens the Screws 2. Google Doubles Down on Preventing Rival Publisher Ad Servers from Accessing AdX and Google Ads’ Demand 154. After acquiring and killing AdMeld’s innovative technology in order to prevent publishers from having the opportunity to experience real-time competition between Google and rival ad exchanges and publisher ad servers, Google clamped down on similar attempts by publishers to allow Google’s ad exchange to integrate with rival publisher ad servers. 155. By 2015, Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, had reached a 90% market share and had snuffed out most meaningful competition. In part because of the scale that Google’s publisher ad server had achieved by excluding competitors, Google’s ad exchange was large and growing quickly; Google Ads likewise remained the dominant advertiser ad network and an especially valuable source of advertising demand for many publishers. Emboldened by its success, in 2014 Google changed the AdX terms of service to further entrench its market power. Those changes prohibited publishers from using non-Google ad servers, or the remaining yield management solutions, to compare bids from Google’s ad exchange with bids from other ad exchanges in real time, notwithstanding the increased access to inventory such an integration could provide to advertisers buying on AdX. In effect, Google decreed that any publisher that wanted real-time competition involving AdX would have to use Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, formally cementing in policy what Google had intended from the outset of its relaunch of AdX in 2009. 156. Google’s decision was bad for publishers, locking them into a less innovative publisher ad server with artificial limitations on real-time price competition for advertising inventory. It was also bad for any would-be publisher ad server rivals—effectively sounding the death knell for future publisher ad server competition. Google’s exclusionary policy effectively prohibited a competing publisher ad server from offering any form of real-time competition that included Google’s ad exchange and the unique advertiser demand that came with it. Forgoing such competition was a non-starter for nearly all publishers. This restriction is still in place today, an insurmountable obstacle for any nascent publisher ad server competitor. 157. Google built a wall around its exclusive link between its publisher ad server and ad exchange because it feared competition. In particular, Google feared a rival could offer a more attractive publisher ad server by simply allowing all advertiser demand to compete in real time on a level playing field for publisher inventory. More demand competing in real time for publisher inventory generally increases the likelihood that the advertiser that is willing to pay the most for an impression will have a chance to buy it. Rivals that offered technology upending this policy would be seen as offering a better publisher ad server. As one Google employee wrote, if another publisher ad server could place Google’s ad exchange in real-time competition with other ad exchanges, that ad server could offer publishers a “super set of demand” and “[n]o one would sign up for AdX directly” through Google’s publisher ad server. 158. Even though both publishers and advertisers benefit from real-time competition between AdX and other ad exchanges, by policy, Google limited real-time competition from rival ad exchanges to maintain its dominant positions at both ends of the ad tech stack and to further insulate its growing position in the ad exchange market. Google’s decision was based on business, not technology. As the lead architect of AdX explained in an internal email about the policy, “Our goal should be all or nothing – use AdX as your SSP [ad exchange] or don’t get access to our demand.” Indeed, Google had already worked quietly to develop the technology that might allow AdX to integrate in real time with non-Google publisher ad servers. But Google made a “strategic decision” to prohibit such integrations via contract; it terminated its internal projects and blocked efforts by rivals and publisher customers to implement such integrations. That prohibition endures today, and both publishers and advertisers are paying the price for Google’s anticompetitive refusal to innovate or integrate. 159. Now, the only way a publisher can access Google’s ad exchange outside Google’s publisher ad server is by placing an “AdX Direct” tag on the publisher’s website. Even though these tags could benefit buyers on Google’s ad exchange by providing access to additional publisher inventory, Google designed the tags to discourage publishers from using them. They offer only the most rudimentary functionality: publishers can send a request to Google’s ad exchange with a price floor, and if there is an advertiser on AdX willing to pay that price or higher, Google’s ad exchange wins the inventory. No other competing bids are considered, and Google’s bid cannot be compared to other ad exchanges’ bids. 160. Recognizing that AdX Direct is an antiquated relic in comparison to real-time bidding, Google even planned to eliminate the tag entirely in 2019. Google later paused that project as antitrust enforcers focused their gaze on the company’s digital advertising business. But Google has not retained AdX Direct because it is a competitive product offering valued by publishers. Rather, in the words of a Google employee, it merely serves as “a concept for antitrust”—something Google’s antitrust lawyers could claim offers rival ad servers some remote chance of competing on the merits with Google’s ad server. Google’s internal analyses of AdX Direct, however, reflect publishers’ reality: Google’s restrictions make impossible any reasonable substitute for the real-time integration with Google’s ad exchange available exclusively through Google’s ad server. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Prevents Rival Publisher Ad Servers from Accessing AdX and Google Ads' Demand

Google impide que los servidores de anuncios de editores rivales accedan a AdX y a la demanda de Google Ads

Google empêche les serveurs publicitaires des éditeurs rivaux d'accéder à la demande d'AdX et de Google Ads

Google प्रतिद्वंद्वी प्रकाशक विज्ञापन सर्वरों को AdX और Google विज्ञापनों की मांग तक पहुंचने से रोकता है

Google、ライバルのパブリッシャー広告サーバーによる AdX と Google 広告の需要へのアクセスを阻止

Google impede que servidores de anúncios de editores rivais acessem AdX e a demanda do Google Ads

Google ngăn máy chủ quảng cáo của nhà xuất bản đối thủ truy cập nhu cầu của AdX và Google Ads

Google 阻止竞争对手发布商广告服务器访问 AdX 和 Google Ads 的需求

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 19 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK C. Google Buys and Kills a Burgeoning Competitor and Then Tightens the Screws Google Extinguishes AdMeld’s Potential Threat 146. In 2011, Google acquired a competitor, AdMeld. In doing so, Google removed from the market what it viewed as a “critical threat” to its ad exchange and publisher ad server businesses. AdMeld’s yield management technology could receive bids in real time from multiple ad exchanges and other demand sources. This could allow other ad exchanges to compete in the same way Google’s publisher ad server allowed Google’s ad exchange to compete through dynamic allocation, utilizing in part a real-time bidding standard. Publishers quickly moved to adopt the yield management technology because it allowed them to multihome more effectively among ad exchanges and ad networks. It also gave publishers the ability to connect with the advertisers who especially valued their inventory. In contrast, Google’s publisher ad server did not permit connections to any advertising demand source other than the buyers on the AdX ad exchange, which of course included Google Ads’ advertiser base. Quite simply, AdMeld threatened to destroy the advantage Google had created for itself in its exclusionary publisher ad server by allowing website creators to offer their digital advertising inventory to multiple ad exchanges in order to find the best available match. 147. Externally, AdMeld described itself as “the largest, independent practitioner of RTB [Real Time Bidding] behind Google,” “connect[ing] to more than 200 ad networks, & 35 Demands Side Platforms (DSP) and process[ing] more than 11 billion bids daily” with links to 20 leading data providers. Relying on its “core functionality” of real-time bidding, AdMeld proposed becoming its customers’ “central ad decision hub,” the key role Google reserved for its own publisher ad server product. 148. In a 2010 strategy discussion, Google executives noted that “Yield Managers are a threat we need to take very seriously” with “AdMeld [being] the largest concern” and one of three “Key competitors.” Specifically, if AdMeld continued to attract publishers to its technology, Google worried about the possibility of having to “pass real-time AdX pricing into a non-DFP ad server.” If Google were forced to do so, it would eliminate DFP’s exclusive access to AdX, which Google believed would be—and which ultimately was—the key to DFP’s growth and enduring dominance. 149. AdMeld typically charged only a 7% revenue share compared to Google’s 20% revenue share on AdX. So rather than compete with AdMeld, what did Google do? It bought and buried it. In a presentation outlining the “Strategic Rationale” for the deal, Google executives explained that the acquisition would “reduce [the] risk of disintermediation,” i.e., the possibility publishers and advertisers would transact through rivals. Disintermediation at any level of the ad tech stack was a serious threat to Google’s entire strategy of being the sole entity with end-to-end control over digital advertising transactions. 150. In other documents evaluating whether to buy a yield manager like AdMeld, Google candidly acknowledged that the underlying “technology is irrelevant to us.” Google already had in place the only yield management tool it wanted publishers to use: dynamic allocation’s real-time bidding integration with Google’s ad exchange. Google also recognized that its customer base already largely overlapped, “so we aren’t buying customers.” Only one real question remained open for Google: “How does the competitive landscape change if we buy one?” 151. The Antitrust Division investigated the AdMeld deal before it closed. Like the FTC considering the DoubleClick acquisition, the Antitrust Division declined to challenge the deal based on assumptions about the ad tech market that, with the benefit of hindsight, were incorrect—in no small part due to Google’s subsequent anticompetitive conduct. At the time, the Antitrust Division cited multi-homing among display advertising platforms as a factor that “lessens the risk that the market will tip to a single dominant platform.” But Google’s increasing scale and dominance across the ad tech stack, coupled with its subsequent exclusionary conduct, destroyed the ability of advertisers and publishers to effectively multi-home among alternative ad exchanges. As a result, the market tipped and AdX became the dominant ad exchange. 152. Shortly after the AdMeld deal closed, Google combined the yield management functionality of AdMeld into DFP and migrated all AdMeld customers to AdX. Critically, it then shut down AdMeld’s nascent real-time bidding technology, quashing a competitive threat that otherwise might have challenged Google’s market position and forced Google to move toward a more open system that allowed publishers to utilize AdMeld’s innovative technology to facilitate real-time competition among non-Google ad exchanges and advertisers. 153. By acquiring AdMeld, Google eliminated the existing competition between AdMeld and Google’s sell-side products, foreclosed any potential competition, and helped eliminate the leading yield management technology that Google knew might displace its dominant market positions. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Buy-and-kill Works: Google Extinguishes AdMeld’s Potential Threat by Acquiring it

Obras de comprar y matar: Google extingue la amenaza potencial de AdMeld al adquirirla

Buy-and-kill Works : Google éteint la menace potentielle d'AdMeld en l'acquérant

खरीदें-और-मारें कार्य: Google ने AdMeld का अधिग्रहण करके उसके संभावित खतरे को समाप्त कर दिया

バイ・アンド・キルは機能する: Google は AdMeld を買収することで潜在的な脅威を消滅させる

Obras de comprar e matar: Google extingue a ameaça potencial do AdMeld ao adquiri-lo

Hoạt động mua và tiêu diệt: Google dập tắt mối đe dọa tiềm tàng của AdMeld bằng cách có được nó

买杀奏效：谷歌通过收购消除 AdMeld 的潜在威胁

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 18 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK C. Google Buys and Kills a Burgeoning Competitor and Then Tightens the Screws 145. By 2010, Google’s rivals had begun to design and market technology in an attempt to circumvent the limitations on competition that Google imposed through its publisher ad server. Google’s response was forceful, extinguishing the leading innovator via acquisition and tightening its restrictions to head off similar potential threats. Google continued to impede its rivals’ ability to offer real-time competition for publisher inventory on the same playing field as Google’s ad exchange. Google used anticompetitive means to keep customers on both sides of the stack (i.e., publishers and advertisers) locked in to its ad tech tools, while ensuring that competitors for those valuable customers were locked out. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

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