US targets Google's online ad business monopoly

 

U.S. targets Google's online ad business monopoly in latest Big Tech lawsuit

WASHINGTON, - The U.S. Justice Department accused Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google on Tuesday of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, threatening to dismantle a key business at the heart of one of Silicon Valley's most successful internet companies.

The government said Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, tackling a business that generated about 12 percent of Google's revenues in 2021, but also plays a vital role in the search engine and cloud company's overall sales.

"Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," the antitrust complaint said.

Google, whose advertising business is responsible for about 80% of its revenue, said the government was "doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow."

The federal government has said its Big Tech investigations and lawsuits are aimed at leveling the playing field for smaller rivals to a group of powerful companies that includes Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O).

"By suing Google for monopolizing advertising technology, the DOJ today aims at the heart of the internet giant’s power," said Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at Public Knowledge. "The complaint lays out the many anticompetitive strategies from Google that have held our internet ecosystem back."

Tuesday's lawsuit by the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, follows a 2020 antitrust lawsuit brought against Google during the term of Donald Trump, a Republican.

The 2020 lawsuit alleged violations of antitrust law in how the company acquires or maintains its dominance with its monopoly in online search and is scheduled to go to trial in September.

EIGHT STATES IN LAWSUIT

Eight states joined Tuesday's lawsuit, including Google's home state of California.

California State Attorney General Rob Bonta said that Google's practices have "stifled creativity in a space where innovation is crucial."

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said that Google's dominance had led to higher fees for advertisers and less money for publishers with ad space to offer. "We are taking action by filing this lawsuit to unwind Google’s monopoly and restore competition to the digital advertising business," he said in a statement.

Google shares were down 1.9 percent on Tuesday.

 

[1/2] A logo of Google is seen at its exhibition space, at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France June 15, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

In addition to its well-known search, which is free, Google makes revenue through its interlocking ad tech businesses. The government asked for the divestiture of the Google Ad Manager suite, including Google's ad exchange, AdX.

Google Ad Manager is a suite of tools including one that allows websites to offer advertising space for sale and an exchange that serves a marketplace that automatically matches advertisers with those publishers.

Advertisers and website publishers have complained that Google has not been transparent about where ad dollars go, specifically how much goes to publishers and how much to Google.

The lawsuit raises concerns about certain products in the ad tech stack, where publishers and advertisers use Google's tools to buy and sell ad space on other websites. That business was about $31.7 billion in 2021 or 12.3 percent of Google’s total revenue. About 70% of that revenue goes to publishers.

An ad tech divestiture "may not be a game changer but it could be sneaky important to Google's ad targeting capability," said Paul Gallant with the Cowen Washington Research Group.

"It connects to all of Google's other businesses and ties them together. I think Google might be more concerned about losing ad tech down the road than people might think," Gallant said.

The company made a series of purchases, including DoubleClick in 2008 and AdMob in 2009, to help make it a dominant player in online advertising.

'PROJECT POIROT'

While Google remains the market leader by a long shot, its share of the U.S. digital ad revenue has been eroding, falling to 28.8% last year from 36.7% in 2016, according to Insider Intelligence.

The Justice Department asked for a jury to decide the case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The lawsuit lays out a number of Google's attempts to dominate the advertising market.

The complaint discussed header bidding, which was a way that companies could bypass Google to bid on ad space on websites.

It lays out a series of projects including one dubbed "Project Poirot" named after Agatha Christie’s master detective, Hercule Poirot. The project "was designed to identify and respond effectively to ad exchanges that had adopted header bidding technology."

The 149-page complaint said Google doubled down after Project Poirot's initial success in manipulating its advertisers' spending to reduce competition from rival ad exchanges. Rivals AppNexus/Xandr lost 31% of DV360 advertiser spending, Rubicon would lose 22%, OpenX would lose 42%, and Pubmatic would lose 26%, the complaint said.

Reporting by Diane Bartz and David Shepardson; additional reporting by Sheila Dang; editing by Chris Sanders and Grant McCool

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U.S. targets Google's online ad business monopoly in latest ...

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US targets Google's online ad business monopoly

 

Bursting at the seams: The Emergency Department at most public hospitals are packed and there are hardly any beds available. — SHAARI CHEMAT/The Star

 

PETALING JAYA: It’s like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie: patients holding on to their own IV bags, in pain from their illness or wounds, some standing while others sit on the hard hospital floor.

They’re all waiting long hours to be treated or to be admitted into a government hospital ward.

Some have allegedly been turned away from inpatient treatment due to a lack of beds.

These are among the claims shared by the public on social media as people experienced overcrowding in government hospitals when seeking treatment, as public healthcare facilities are stretched to bursting point with a high number of patient arrivals.

ALSO READ: Groups: GPs can help ease emergency dept case load

On Jan 18, the Twitter account of the group championing rights for contract doctors, @HKontrak (HartalDoktorKontrak), shared a picture of fully occupied beds and a packed emergency department at Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL).

“Received this picture from someone who went to the HKL emergency department. I believe this happened somewhere else as well.

“Patients coming in nonstop. Overcrowded. Doctors? Obviously not enough. We are still waiting for action from @Zaliha_DrZ @KKMPutrajaya,” the caption read, referring to Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa’s social media handle.

The post claimed that there a was more than 24-hour wait to be admitted into a ward, with almost 100 patients stranded in the emergency department during peak hours.

ALSO READ: Ministry: We will seek comprehensive solutions to tackle the problems

“Are we going to do something or just leave it to collapse?” the tweet said.

Another Twitter user, @hippochan94, said she saw a similar occurrence at another government hospital in the Klang Valley.

“Just yesterday I had a patient with acute appendicitis sitting on the floor with a bottle of drip in his hands, and a three-year-old kid with dengue who had to stand with the drip in her father’s hands. It is that bad. Medical officer to patient ratio 1:30,” she tweeted on Jan 18.

ALSO READ: Hospital emergency depts need sustainable system to ease congestion, ministry told

Azimah Abdullah Zawawi, in a Facebook post on Jan 17, said she was disappointed by the poor treatment of her son at Hospital Pasir Mas in Kelantan after he was involved in an accident.

She claimed that her son was not given proper treatment and the family told to take him home with only an outpatient follow-up scheduled for the next day, despite his poor condition.

She said the doctor refused to give inpatient treatment as the hospital was packed and didn’t have any beds available.

“An hour after I received a call that my son was involved in an accident, I arrived at the hospital and saw my son sitting in a wheelchair, with his face bleeding, vomit [on his front] and looking frail, with his clothes covered in blood.

“During treatment [to stitch her son’s mouth injuries], my son was left alone without supervision and with his mouth open for about 30 to 40 minutes,” she said.

ALSO READ: Health clinics operating beyond office hours to reduce hospital congestion

She said she later took her son to be treated at another hospital after failing to persuade the attending doctor to admit him.

At the second hospital, her son’s stitches were redone and a wound on the stomach, which was overlooked at the previous hospital, was cleaned. She said she will submit a formal complaint to the Health Ministry via the Public Complaints Management System.

Public healthcare expert Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar, who went for a follow-up medical examination at a government specialist clinic last month, said it took him more than three hours to finish the examination, after taking a number to queue for his turn at 9am.

“Everything finished at 12.30pm. Many people were queueing up and many were also standing because there were not enough seats.

“The specialist room was also shared with medical officers. It was crowded too,” he said in a Facebook post on Dec 22 last year.

He said some examinations not available at the hospital were outsourced to a private facility at an estimated cost of RM120.

“The staff was not sure whether the cost of outsourced service is paid by the hospital or not,” he said.

Dr Zainal said he hopes the government will transform the national healthcare service system by taking into account all aspects, including services, resources, environment and financing.

On Jan 14, Yong Peng assemblyman Ling Tian Soon said Hospital Sultanah Aminah in Johor Baru is among government hospitals facing constant overcrowding.

“The hospital is full of patients even early in the morning as patients come with their families to get treatment.

“With the assistance provided by the Johor state government in placing additional chairs, it has provided comfort for patients and families as they wait for their turn,” he said. 

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Ministry: We will seek comprehensive solutions to tackle the problems

Hospital emergency depts need sustainable system to ease congestion, ministry told

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MySejahtera users unable to access appointment details