Google is willing to cough up more promoting data to publishers to handle concerns about its illegal monopoly over digital promoting technology, a top executive on the search giant said Tuesday.
Glenn Berntson, an engineering director for Google Ad Manager, acknowledged the potential treatment through the second week of a high-stakes antitrust trial in Virginia federal court. He was called as a witness by Google’s defense lawyers.
Providing “publishers with these detailed insights, I feel, is idea,” Berntson said during cross-examination by the Justice Department’s attorneys, based on Bloomberg. “The specifics is something we’d need to explore.”
Google is attempting to wriggle out of a more damaging forced breakup of its digital promoting empire. The DOJ has argued that Google needs to be required to sell its key ad exchange, AdX, to revive fair competition and protect news publishers and advertisers that depend on the system.
Any treatment wanting divestiture needs to be a “hard pass,” based on Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade group that represents online publishers.
“What publishers need isn’t one other last-minute desperate gesture from Google as they fight to avoid absolutely essential structural remedies,” said Kint. “The Department of Justice has placed on a good case presenting remedies that can actually stop Google’s illegal conduct harming publishers, deny Google the fruits of it, restore competition and to avoid re-monopolization going forward.”
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who has final say over which remedies to implement, ruled in April that Google had violated the Sherman Act by dominating the web publisher ad server market, in addition to the ad-exchange market that connects ad buyers to sellers.
The shared data could include details on how Google’s ad server determines which display ads to indicate – boosting transparency in regards to the inner workings the auction system that the corporate uses to purchase and sell ad space in real time, based on Berntston.
The DOJ has also proposed that Google make the auction process more transparent by sharing data, but Berntson testified on the stand that simply releasing source code in regards to the auction process wouldn’t necessarily help publishers understand it.
As an alternative, Berntson said Google could release a breakdown explaining its digital auction process. At the identical time, he admitted that larger publishers with more resources would likely wish to see the source code itself.
On the stand, Berntson was “incredibly non-committal and fairly vaguely acknowledged that transparency is nice,” based on Arielle Garcia, the COO of Check My Ads, a digital ad industry watchdog.
“Technical documentation isn’t an alternative choice to allowing publishers to independently audit the information about their very own campaigns or to see the underlying logic, so that is one more surface-level commitment that doesn’t do much,” Garcia said.
News publishers and other Google critics have long complained that the auction process for ad sales is just too opaque and leaves businesses at a loss to clarify how ads are chosen.
The trial’s treatment phase is anticipated to conclude as soon as this week. Google has vowed to appeal Brinkema’s original finding that it has a monopoly in digital promoting.
Attorneys for Google, led by CEO Sundar Pichai, said the DOJ’s proposal for forced divestiture could break the technology, causing disruption for the companies that depend on the system to do business.
Quite than a breakup, Google has floated making the tools easier to make use of and more compatible with third-party tools.
Nonetheless, in a key moment last week, Google promoting executive Tim Craycroft admitted under the DOJ’s questioning that the corporate held internal discussions in regards to the feasibility of selling a part of its ad business as recently as last yr, The Information reported.
The consequence of the case represents a possible existential threat for Google, which dodged the worst-case scenario in a separate antitrust case targeting its online search business earlier this month.
In that case, US District Judge Amit Mehta shot down the DOJ’s request for a forced selloff of Google’s Chrome web browser. As an alternative, he required Google to share more search data with rivals.
Google is willing to cough up more promoting data to publishers to handle concerns about its illegal monopoly over digital promoting technology, a top executive on the search giant said Tuesday.
Glenn Berntson, an engineering director for Google Ad Manager, acknowledged the potential treatment through the second week of a high-stakes antitrust trial in Virginia federal court. He was called as a witness by Google’s defense lawyers.
Providing “publishers with these detailed insights, I feel, is idea,” Berntson said during cross-examination by the Justice Department’s attorneys, based on Bloomberg. “The specifics is something we’d need to explore.”
Google is attempting to wriggle out of a more damaging forced breakup of its digital promoting empire. The DOJ has argued that Google needs to be required to sell its key ad exchange, AdX, to revive fair competition and protect news publishers and advertisers that depend on the system.
Any treatment wanting divestiture needs to be a “hard pass,” based on Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade group that represents online publishers.
“What publishers need isn’t one other last-minute desperate gesture from Google as they fight to avoid absolutely essential structural remedies,” said Kint. “The Department of Justice has placed on a good case presenting remedies that can actually stop Google’s illegal conduct harming publishers, deny Google the fruits of it, restore competition and to avoid re-monopolization going forward.”
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who has final say over which remedies to implement, ruled in April that Google had violated the Sherman Act by dominating the web publisher ad server market, in addition to the ad-exchange market that connects ad buyers to sellers.
The shared data could include details on how Google’s ad server determines which display ads to indicate – boosting transparency in regards to the inner workings the auction system that the corporate uses to purchase and sell ad space in real time, based on Berntston.
The DOJ has also proposed that Google make the auction process more transparent by sharing data, but Berntson testified on the stand that simply releasing source code in regards to the auction process wouldn’t necessarily help publishers understand it.
As an alternative, Berntson said Google could release a breakdown explaining its digital auction process. At the identical time, he admitted that larger publishers with more resources would likely wish to see the source code itself.
On the stand, Berntson was “incredibly non-committal and fairly vaguely acknowledged that transparency is nice,” based on Arielle Garcia, the COO of Check My Ads, a digital ad industry watchdog.
“Technical documentation isn’t an alternative choice to allowing publishers to independently audit the information about their very own campaigns or to see the underlying logic, so that is one more surface-level commitment that doesn’t do much,” Garcia said.
News publishers and other Google critics have long complained that the auction process for ad sales is just too opaque and leaves businesses at a loss to clarify how ads are chosen.
The trial’s treatment phase is anticipated to conclude as soon as this week. Google has vowed to appeal Brinkema’s original finding that it has a monopoly in digital promoting.
Attorneys for Google, led by CEO Sundar Pichai, said the DOJ’s proposal for forced divestiture could break the technology, causing disruption for the companies that depend on the system to do business.
Quite than a breakup, Google has floated making the tools easier to make use of and more compatible with third-party tools.
Nonetheless, in a key moment last week, Google promoting executive Tim Craycroft admitted under the DOJ’s questioning that the corporate held internal discussions in regards to the feasibility of selling a part of its ad business as recently as last yr, The Information reported.
The consequence of the case represents a possible existential threat for Google, which dodged the worst-case scenario in a separate antitrust case targeting its online search business earlier this month.
In that case, US District Judge Amit Mehta shot down the DOJ’s request for a forced selloff of Google’s Chrome web browser. As an alternative, he required Google to share more search data with rivals.
