Check My Ads Institute

If you use PayPal, you might be unknowingly sharing your data. For today’s WTFriday, we’re breaking down what you can do about it, thanks to reporting from 404 Media. Read more from 404 Media here: https://lnkd.in/ebzxkaYx

Claire Atkin had a message for the UN: Unaccountable adtech companies shouldn't get to pick what media companies live or die.

Check out the final episode of Arielle Garcia and Jason Kint breaking down the Google trial on Ed Zitron's podcast, Better Offline https://lnkd.in/gXN6YMhz

The Google trial that could change everything just wrapped up -- and our very own Arielle Garcia was there watching it. Here are highlights from her third week the courtroom.

One company controls most of what we see on the internet. They control who can do business on the internet. No company should have this much power. Allison Schiff of AdExchanger, Jason Kint of Digital Content Next, and I spoke about the USA vs Google Ads trial at Programmatic IO last week. And it was so fun! For more about the trial, Check My Ads Institute has this website for you: https://lnkd.in/g6yMrD2D Link to AdMonsters' outline of the talk in comments. Thank you to everyone for having me/us. It's a pleasure to have the conversation.

One company controls most of what we see on the internet. They control who can do business on the internet. No company should have this much power. Allison Schiff of AdExchanger, Jason Kint of Digital Content Next, and I spoke about the USA vs Google Ads trial at Programmatic IO last week. And it was so fun! For more about the trial, Check My Ads Institute has this website for you: https://lnkd.in/g6yMrD2D Link to AdMonsters' outline of the talk in comments. Thank you to everyone for having me/us. It's a pleasure to have the conversation.

"The facts aren’t on their side, and Google’s credibility has long been damaged by evidence deletion." After sitting through 15 days of #USvGoogle, Arielle Garcia has a lot of thoughts on where arguments landed. Thanks to Digital Content Next for hearing her out. https://lnkd.in/eH3K6W3f

Climate change is real, and advertisers don’t want to fund denial. So how are ads being slapped on articles denying scientific consensus? We answered that question with our partners from Climate Action Against Disinformation. Read our full investigation here: https://lnkd.in/eWs_t6Zj

"Google, Pubmatic, Magnite, The Trade Desk, many of these companies, most people have never heard of, are in control of our entire media ecosystem. They choose where ads go, and what media dies. "We're in an information disorder crisis." Our CEO Claire Atkin spoke at the United Nations today as part of #ClimateWeek! She was joined on the panel, Advertising and Information Integrity, by Jake Dubbins of Conscious Advertising Network and Rupen Desai of The Shed 28 . Watch the full panel here: https://lnkd.in/ePuwk3ej

Day 14 of #USvGoogle started with Google Finance Director, Jessica Mok. Google tried to minimize the financial importance of its adtech business, showing that it operated at a loss from 2015-2017, to downplay the role of display in generating revenue, and land an out-of-context soundbite about how much they pay publishers. On cross, DOJ highlighted that Google tracks revenue separately for display, video and app inventory, and for direct vs. indirect-sold inventory supporting their market definition argument. DOJ also pointed out that Google decides whether to classify revenue as principal or agent, which informs whether Traffic Acquisition Costs (”TAC”), money paid to publishers, is included in their figures. Obviously, without TAC, booked revenue will appear lower, and margin will appear higher. Google then called Dr. Mark Israel to play some more number games. He is an economics expert, and his analysis is central to Google’s case. While I expected something at least somewhat compelling, instead we got analysis that appears completely detached from reality. Google seems to want to pretend their publisher customers simply do not exist. While DOJ’s case focuses primarily on harm to publishers, there was a 30 minute stretch of time at the beginning of Israel’s testimony where his only mention of anything publisher-adjacent was to explain the origin of the “cellophane fallacy” as the theory that prices for cellophane might go up so much that people resort to wrapping their sandwiches in newspaper. He starts by refuting the DOJ’s definition of 3 distinct markets, proposing instead that adtech is a single two-sided market. He says that DOJ excludes other places advertisers find impressions, other ways “connections” to audiences are made, and the other types of adtech that exist. No mention of publishers. He talks about shifting media consumption trends, highlighting growth of apps and mobile environments, as well as the growth of ad spend on social, and the rise of retail media. Still, no mention of publishers. He talks about how social and retail media companies act as competitive restraints on Google and serve as reasonable substitutes…again, with respect to advertisers. Google even pulls up a deck to make their point that compares Google and Amazon, and explicitly references the fact that Amazon does not offer a publisher ad server, while Google has DFP. Finally he mentions publishers, to say that if ROI for advertisers were to fall, both advertisers and publishers might switch. For example, he says, publishers might move to a different exchange, move more of their content to apps, or adopt a subscription model. Soon after, he explains publishers can move more of their inventory from indirect to direct sales. It’s about “how hard sales people work” to sell direct. A few minutes later, he suggests that if Google’s publisher ad server isn’t good, advertisers might switch to Facebook. I literally wrote “What??” in my notes. (more in comments)