This is a frank discussion about "search advertising", probably from someone at google. If it was not already clear to anyone, this explains it clearly:
"... we could mostly ignore the demand side of the equation (users and queries) ..."
In other words the people who use google search and what they want to know can mostly be ignored.
Instead the focus is on "advertisers" where advertiser is a euphemism for anyone who wants to target people for any purpose. This purpose can and does include disrupting our social order, promoting extremist causes, selling products that are unfit for use or products that are prohibitively expensive.
In case you have not been paying attention, welcome to clickbaitnet.
There’s nothing surprising here. We’ve known for two decades that Google and others treat users as the product being sold to their actual customers - the advertisers.
We need to stop being shocked that the companies themselves, addicted to ad revenue, did some truly despicable things and most of the people at them (yes, many on this forum) actively enabled these behaviours and acted as apologists for them.
Seriously, fuck Google and fuck Meta and if your company is ad driven then it’s on you too.
Seems to me like there are two disjointed teams worrying about two different things. Search org is worried about daily active users and user experience, and ads is worried about monetizing search. The reason finance doesn't have to worry about demand is because search org is worrying about it.
Did that person work on the Youtube search? You can search for any topic and videos from your feed keep appearing in the search results, no matter how unrelated.
Google’s lawyers should make the case that they can’t be trialled for monopoly on the search, because it’s one aspect that they don’t even do anymore.
What's missing is that they've exhibited monopolistic behavior toward their "supply" side (advertisers) as well. "Tear the economics textbook in half" is a weird way to say "follow exactly what the book says regarding monopolies".
Well it’s true, they don’t have to worry about amount of demand because everyone needs search and Google dominates that market, with no one challenging their >90% market share or the use of that kind of search to find things on the Web.
I don’t think ads are really the “supply,” though.
This seems like one person writing down their personal observations, which are not super deep.
What is your definition of challenging? There are multiple other search engines that make up your admitted <10% share. That sounds like challenging to me. Your definition must be closer to neck-to-neck competing which is unrealistic expectations
At a feature level Bing is super competitive, if not outright superior with their AI search features. It hasn't proven effective yet in becoming people's idea of the defacto search, but it is competing (see Googles humiliating AI launch).
If you wanted to rewrite it as a sentence and weren't constrained by conventions used in headlines, you could rewrite it as, "Evidence released in DOJ v Google case includes an exhibit that the Judge called embarrassing [for Google]"
I spent too much time trying to parse the meaning of this headline. I wish HN would train a regressor for the difficulty in understanding a headline's meaning, and then automatically restrict them past some threshold.
What is the correct parsing of the headline? At first I figured it was a regular garden-path sentence [1] but after multiple readings I still can't figure it out.
[1] A garden-path sentence is one where you find at the end that the expected parsing is wrong. e.g. "The old man the boat" or "The horse raced past the barn fell".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
I mean, it should be a pretty easy case, Google search is objectively terrible and their other practices are extremely shady as shown repeatedly. Obviously law isn't that simple but at least the judge appears to be seeing through their behavior!
Not having to worry about the demand side of the equation == no interest in gaining the consent of the advertised to.
The advertising industry has a problem with consent.
Q.E.D.
I will not accept anyone who fundamentally tries to use platitudes to go "but it's just ads". No damnit. It's not "just ads". My answer is no, not only do you not ask, but when you go and do it anyway, you get pissy when I start blocking everything to do with you.
Anything that can be destroyed by the truth deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
To hell with Google, and to hell with web advertising. Let it all burn.
Agreed. Our attention is ours. It doesn't belong to these people. They are not entitled to it. They do not get to insert little brands and taglines into our minds without our consent.
[+] [-] talkingtab|2 years ago|reply
"... we could mostly ignore the demand side of the equation (users and queries) ..."
In other words the people who use google search and what they want to know can mostly be ignored.
Instead the focus is on "advertisers" where advertiser is a euphemism for anyone who wants to target people for any purpose. This purpose can and does include disrupting our social order, promoting extremist causes, selling products that are unfit for use or products that are prohibitively expensive.
In case you have not been paying attention, welcome to clickbaitnet.
[+] [-] jcranmer|2 years ago|reply
> probably from someone at google.
Specifically, it's "meeting notes that Google’s vice president for finance, Michael Roszak, created for a course on communications."
[+] [-] voisin|2 years ago|reply
We need to stop being shocked that the companies themselves, addicted to ad revenue, did some truly despicable things and most of the people at them (yes, many on this forum) actively enabled these behaviours and acted as apologists for them.
Seriously, fuck Google and fuck Meta and if your company is ad driven then it’s on you too.
[+] [-] jppittma|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eastbound|2 years ago|reply
Google’s lawyers should make the case that they can’t be trialled for monopoly on the search, because it’s one aspect that they don’t even do anymore.
[+] [-] notacoward|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgreensp|2 years ago|reply
I don’t think ads are really the “supply,” though.
This seems like one person writing down their personal observations, which are not super deep.
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohdannyboy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remram|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyldfire|2 years ago|reply
"DOJ v Google evidence release" is a noun phrase.
If you wanted to rewrite it as a sentence and weren't constrained by conventions used in headlines, you could rewrite it as, "Evidence released in DOJ v Google case includes an exhibit that the Judge called embarrassing [for Google]"
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avidiax|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitshiftfaced|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kens|2 years ago|reply
[1] A garden-path sentence is one where you find at the end that the expected parsing is wrong. e.g. "The old man the boat" or "The horse raced past the barn fell". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
Is it really that difficult?
[+] [-] throwaway67743|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recursive|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinventullo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salawat|2 years ago|reply
Not having to worry about the demand side of the equation == no interest in gaining the consent of the advertised to.
The advertising industry has a problem with consent.
Q.E.D.
I will not accept anyone who fundamentally tries to use platitudes to go "but it's just ads". No damnit. It's not "just ads". My answer is no, not only do you not ask, but when you go and do it anyway, you get pissy when I start blocking everything to do with you.
Anything that can be destroyed by the truth deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
To hell with Google, and to hell with web advertising. Let it all burn.
[+] [-] RandomLensman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorjusborg|2 years ago|reply