April 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, to talk about Google's recent antitrust trial losses, Meta's FTC case, and why it should give you hope for the future.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media, I get on their ass. Somebody's got to
do it. This is better offly and I'm d Zetron.
Today I'm joined by the wonderful Jason Kint, who has
(00:24):
been at the Google ads trial and multiple other FDC
and DOJ related trials as well. Now, last week we
have wonderful news the Department of Justice won their ant
trust trial against Google saying they have a monopoly of
our ad tech. This is a wonderful time. And Jason,
of course last year was here for multiple episodes with
us to walk us through the trial. He was there
in person. Jason, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm good, thank you. It's good to see decisions starting
to come in from the courts on what we've been
talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And just to be clear, Jason as the CEO of
Digital Content Next, I did not say that The Top
the professional podcast run by a professional, but soll us
through what the verdict was.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This is the ad tech case against Google that was
in Virginia, to remind the listeners, and it was around
Google having market power and monopoly power on the buy side,
the cell side and in the exchange and then illegally
using that monopoly power. The decision from the judge was
(01:22):
that mostly in agreement with the plaintiffs, and it was
a big win for the Justice Department, who worked really
hard on this case. That they have monopoly power in
the exchange, so where the auctions actually happen, and then
on the publisher side with the ads server marketplace that
determines what ads land on the page, and that they
illegally tied those two products together. So the only part
(01:46):
of the decision, which I think Google's trying to make
to be a bigger deal than it probably is, is
that they the judge did not agree that there was
this market on the buy side the way it was defined.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And so what does that mean in simple in.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Simpler terms, it could affect where remedies go because there
is not a finding that they illegally use monopoly power
on the buy side with advertisers buying ads, and so.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Just they owned the technology to sell the ads and
the ways in which it was like, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, they still it's true that they have significant influence
because they have they're the largest player on the buy
side of ads, so where advertisers are actually buying the ads,
but not that they She didn't find that they that
there was a form legal market there that they abused,
and so as we go through remedies discussions, I think
(02:44):
it's probably it might be less likely that there's some
sort of structural separation where they need to divest the
buy side too, although all this stuff's frankly going to
get tangled together and it will be a whole new
ball game with remedies, especially with search meedies going on
this week too.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So go ahead.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I was going to say, so, what are the remedies
that the Department of Justice is actually seeking.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Here on the ad tech case? On this case, it's
a structural separation of their roles in the ad tech marketplace,
and so that was very clear coming into the into
the trial.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So just break it down for me, though, what they
How would they break up Google in its current form?
Is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I mean yes, absolutely in the in the simplest way
would be forcing Google to divest, which probably would mean
spinning off to its shareholders rather than selling because it's
going to be such a valuable asset.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
But actually a separate company.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
A separate company that is the ad server marketplace. Yeah,
and in the exchange itself too.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So so dumb guy question for you, what is an
AD server in this case? Like, how how does this
actually break down?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's the you know, it's the technology that sits on
the web pages or on the public sure side, that
actually makes the decision on what ad to serve on
the page. So when you're browsing a web page or
on an app, it's what's deciding to serve the ad.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And so Google ran that themselves. They like, they ran
that themselves, So they ended up prioritizing their own ads.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm guessing yes, that's that's the case. And so and
you know, in the findings, what's really interesting is that
the judge very much agreed with and understood that Google's
illegal conduct in terms of how they were able to
manipulate auctions in ways that probably favored them and certainly
(04:39):
harmed the publishers was a part of the finding.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, yeah, when they when you say they harmed the publishers,
is it just the it wasn't possible to compete with
Google on ads because Google both made ads and then
had the platform that showed the ads to people.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You know, she she hit on a number of things
that I think are gonna be super interesting in the remedies.
She hit on that Google was able to keep charging
twenty percent of the exchange market, so they could take
twenty percent of every single transaction, and that that price
never moved from twenty percent for the most part because
of their monopoly power. But she also hit on all
the ways that they could manipulate the auctions, which could
(05:17):
end up being that's a bigger issue when you start
thinking about the private lawsuits they're out there too. You
get into, you know, literally tens of tens of billions
of dollars of potential harm to publishers from auction manipulations.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And how were they manipulating your auctions?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Just so we understand, well, the allegations were that and
this in what she addressed in the opinion were things
like first look and last look where they actually were
able to see the prices ahead of time or at
(05:55):
the end of the auction and make decisions based on
the bids that they uniquely were able to.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Do, which is.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Which is so insane that they were able to like
they basically set prices like get to everyone to bid
and then just immediately beat them. Like it's it's shocking,
that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
It's kind of flagrant.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So with last Look, I think, you know, I think
I've hit on two things here. One of the last look,
which I think the judge very much understood because I
can remember her, you know, who was completely new to
this marketplace. She totally got why that was an issue
when she you know, last look. If you take to
like a silent auction where you put your little bids
(06:37):
down in an envelope and everybody has kind of their
secret bid, this would be like Google. Then at the
end was able to look at everybody's bid, see what
the highest bid was, and then bid higher if they wanted.
That was last Look, And there were a bunch of
other things that stemmed from that, and she really seemed
to understand it, which is what is it's you know,
it's nice to.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
See so kind of impressive to see a judge just
pick up an entire subject.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Matt to like that.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, I totally agree. You know what, who I'd be
should be most scared, frankly by this opinion, is if
I'm Facebook or Meta, who is like counting on this
idea that the judge in their case doesn't know or
use social media and TikTok and Instagram, et cetera. It
tells you once again that a judge that understands the
law and sits there for four weeks plus all the
(07:23):
pre trial stuff and listens to the evidence can understand
these issues. And the most important greening I think was
the Justice Department who really understood the case in a
way that they could dive deep and then explain it
to the judge. And they succeeded to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So it kind of reminds me so during some of
the Google ads trial things you talked about the spaghetti thing,
when they are trying to do this kind of slight
of hand thing and like, ah, it's too impossible to understand,
it's too complex, and they turned it into that ridiculous thing.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's right, they did, And yeah, and that tells you
that that is not going to be a successful defense.
Is trying to confuse a judge who has never used it,
we would understand add tech, that's not going to work.
The just departments succeeded and explaining it. They kept it simple.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So what happens next? What are the next moves with
this pub Well.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
A reminder, this is what's called the rocket docket. The
Virginia District Eastern District of Virginia. And so the judge
moved really really fast. That's why they have that name.
This case was filed in January of twenty twenty three,
and so we got to a trial, you know, eighteen
months later, in a decision that took you know, frankly,
the decision took a lot longer than anyone thought it
(08:51):
was going to take to come out. People are starting
to get nervous, but you know, it just took time.
And she clearly wrote a really clear opinion and it's
very it's very easy to read through. So that keeping
in mind, I think she'll probably move fast. They have
a meeting. I think it'll be tomorrow in terms of
(09:12):
what's the schedule going forward for remedies, and so I
would expect the dates to all be in the next
few months.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
But what would the remedies be?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So they would have to break off the three parts,
like the AD side, they would have to break off
the cell side, Like.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
What are they going to have to do in theory?
I realize you're just guessing.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm just guessing. You know that the findings are clear
enough that there's going to be structural separation that they're
going to be pushing for you know, how the buyside
gets handled, it's going to be really important because a reminder,
and this doesn't come out really in the proceedings as much,
but the ad tech case is downstream from the Search case,
(09:54):
and the arguments were that the reason Google was able
to dominate the buy side, the cell side, and ad
tech was because of the monopoly power in search, which
we also have remedies now that started on Monday, and
so these things are going to start to swirl together.
And when you think about Google having to divest Chrome
and some of the other remedies within the search case,
(10:17):
it's you know, it's quite possible that there will be
some larger settlement that will be proposed, or a larger
structural separation that needs to play out between the two decisions.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So as as you've been hinting at, there was the
there was the verdict last year that Google did have
a monopoly over search. How do you think that these
two things are going to play together? You kind of
got it there, But what are the ways in which
this could go?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Well, the search decision was not There were two monopolies
that they were found of abused. One was searched. The
other was search text ads. So it's the ads that
we see in search, which is Google's largest business, right
And so.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Just so I'm clear, you're saying that there's the monopoly
over a search engine and then the advertising onset search.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Engine exactly, and so and that advertising on said sir,
that advertising on said search engine is is what allowed them,
according to the JUST Department, to then dominate in the
ad tech stack. And so I think that's the connection
point between the cases and will also start to be
a part of the discussion in the remedies. Both cases
(11:28):
involve network effects. Both cases involve using data to to
maintain market power and to abuse it.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Right, So the potential remedies, it sounds like, could be
almost breaking up Google into multiple different companies.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
With this case, the the baby bells, you know, idea
of what happened to AT and T should be much.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
More happily than to several listeners.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
They divided AT and T up into into pieces and
so so you know, not just forcing them to vest
one piece of their business. And so you know, with
the ad tech case, again there's you know, there's settlements
that can happen, there's appeals that will happen. But the
argument for you know, should Google have to divest not
(12:18):
just its advertising ad tech business, but also you know,
other areas of its business, I think becomes much stronger.
You can imagine Chrome, you can imagine Android, you can
imagine YouTube.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah. Actually, here's a good question for you.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I I know Chrome, and I'm sure many listeners know
Chrome as a free browser, not really a business entity.
How does selling off Chrome meaningfully help with the monopoly
situation Chrome?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know, Google's entire advertising business is based on targeting
ads based on signals that it in, data that it
gathers from the various ways that it can touch the user.
And so Chrome as a web browser is an incredible
way to harvest data about how you're browsing the web
(13:10):
and where you are location, search, et cetera. And so
you know where Google believes it has permission to use
that data to target ads and train its into its
machine learning and AI training. That is very valuable.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I did so, wait, so this is perhaps I'm very stupid.
So Chrome collects data on your browsing habits for every user.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Now, for every user, there's there's privacy, you know, settings
and all sorts of things you can do. You can
go into incognito mode. But if Google is acting as
your browser, it has access to your browsing history and
what you're doing on the web, and they can, where
they believe they have the rights, they can use that data.
(13:55):
Two help you know, provide further information on both both
for search but also for you know, what content to
serve up and what adds to serve up. What they're
actually doing becomes a bigger question.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right, So was that established a whole trial not.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was in the search in the search case that
but it was more specifically focused on the default settings
for search from the browser, right. And so within Chrome,
if you type in your location bar, you're always going
to be doing a Google search. That's it's pretty clear
that how that le then gets passed from the browser
(14:35):
to the search engine.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, and if they have billions of users, then they
can think everyone is searching using Google because they have
because it's the default. That's so crazy. But the thing
with Chrome as well, isn't a revenue driver? Is that
like a direct source of revenue for Google?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know, it's if you if you think about the
search case again, I mean Google is paying Apple, you know,
twenty five billion dollars. Let's say I'm estimating twenty It
was twenty billion a few years ago, but let's say
twenty five billion dollars. They were paying to Apple to
be the default search on Safari and all of the
access points on iOS. So Chrome technically is making revenue
(15:16):
off of those search queries. It's just Google's pain itself, right,
And so that's the that's the issue.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Well, the reason I bring that up is one of
the remedies the idea of selling Chrome off. Why would
you like, what value would that be in Chrome? If
the whole value of it is to just be kind
of a flume towards Google, like a like a kind
like a way to like almost like a marketing arm
of Google. If you sold off Chrome, surely it wouldn't
have as much business value.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It wouldn't have as much business value to Google. The
whole point would be it be an independent business that
would be making decisions. I mean, technically a browser is
supposed to be a user agent. It's supposed to be
making decisions for the user. And what would they.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Value right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
As an autonomous business? Like yeah, because right now is
it's not like people pay for creat It just doesn't
feel like that is a practical thing to do, because
if the whole value proposition of it is that it's
a free product that makes Google money and it doesn't
make any money for anyone else, or like it isn't
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, so it could make a decision to point to
you know, a new Amazon search site or sure that
gets into search, right and so and get paid.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
For it, right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I mean it almost feels like this could lead to
I don't want I'm not going to say the death
of Google in the sense that Google will cease to be,
but the death of modern Google as we know it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It definitely, you know, all leads towards a very different Google,
whether it be structurally different or just being hamstrung by
the appeals of all these cases.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So, I mean, it's they. I cannot think of anyone
who got more lucky than it being good Friday than
Google right now, because it's good, we're recording this a
good Friday. And it's like they didn't like the markets
are closed, so they didn't immediately get the markets just
pummeling them as they should because they've lost both now
they don't like whatever appeals they may do, are not
(17:18):
going to really, I don't think they're going to stop everything.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Markets are complex, I would I would hesitate to wonder
and you know, to predict why the stock did what
it did yesterday, even when the announcement came out. You know,
there are some arguments that having to divest, you know,
divest parts of the business could actually create more value
back to shareholders.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
What value would that be?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Well, typically when you spin things off, you often see
it or you sell things, often the stock you know,
can go up because of that. And so you know,
are the is the some of the parts worth more
than than the whole? You know, those questions all come
into play, But that's all. Yeah, that's all to the markets.
And sometimes the markets aren't as smart as we think
(18:02):
they are, and they take time to understand and impact things.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I agree, and I've seen the same thing with
Core Weeve recently, which is a company that has driven
me insane onto more sane things. Though, So when we're
recording this, it's going to be next week, but the
beginning of the remedies for the search trial is on
the twenty first, So what can people expect there?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I don't think there's gonna be as much excitement and
drama as we saw with the actual liabilities trial. I think,
you know, for the folks that follow the industry closely,
what you should expect is all the AI companies are
involved and so either through depositions, discovery, and some testifying.
(18:58):
So you've got anthropic open AI Microsoft. So when you
think about the shaping of the AI world going forward,
you're going to have all the major players. Apple is
Apple tried to actually intervene, and but the judge didn't
allow them. So they've they've got a strong interest because
(19:19):
they've got estimated to be I think ten to fifteen
percent of their profits are tied to their Google deal.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Right, and so well, because Google pays them to use
just just for the listeners, so Google pays Apple billions
have to be the default such, right, That's right, and.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The you know, the remedies are that they can't do
that anymore. And so the reason they weren't allowed to intervene,
according to Judge Meta, was because he didn't see a
difference in Apple's interests from Google's interests. He basically said, yeah,
you have the same interest.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, well, I mean the interest being the Apple needs
Google to keep them and not police so that the
Apple can keep getting a chunk of their revenue.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That's exactly right. Yeah, so yeah, so Apple cares a lot,
Microsoft cares a lot, All the big players care. The
testimonies is going to be X, a lot of experts
and you know, unless CEO.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Who will be doing the testimonies.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
It'll be experts from both sides, like so academics that
study these issues. It will be executives from the AI companies.
I think we'll probably hear from Eddie Q again at Apple,
who's one of their top executives. We'll probably hear from
Suon Dharbashi again from Google as CEO. They're on the list.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
So and so in those two weeks, what's going to happen.
So it's basically another trial to say how they will
deal with their monopoly in search.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's right, And well, I mean, I guess one thing
that's interesting is they're still pretty far apart. So Google's
proposed remedies for itself are basically a slap on the wrist,
and you know, kind of kind of embarrassing for anybody,
and you know that studies they think.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
So when you said up on the wrist.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Is it like a fine that offering.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They're offering some restrictions on the way they do things,
but nothing that touches on structural separation in any way,
shape or form. Nothing that prevents them from doing an
Apple like deal. And so it's, you know, the bare minimum.
That the only way I can read it, and I'm
(21:26):
just you know, spitballing here, but is that they're not
giving it an inch right now because they think either
they can do some sort of transactional deal settlement with
the current administration or that they can win on appeal,
and they don't want to show their cards by moving
the line in any way because it's so far removed
(21:47):
from the decision itself.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right, because if they go defensive, then they would cut
they would kind of reveal their hand for when they
go to appeal.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You're saying that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And so is the Department of Justice. The Department of
Justice is saying they should sell off Chrome or is
that anything else they're asking for?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
They should sell off Chrome, and they're struck, you know,
divest Chrome. They may need to divest Android, but it
basically says, let's see how that goes, but we can
still do that, and then very importantly, they're requiring them
to share some data with other search engines that would
help other search engines have a more level playing field.
(22:27):
And as it relates to publishers, who again I do
a lot of work for the work for the publishers,
it requires Google to allow publishers to narrowly define what
Google can crawl and use data for. And so the
(22:47):
publisher can say, hey, you can crawl my website for
the purpose of search, but you cannot then use it
to train your your AI engines.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So yeah, and so that the DO is pushing to
make sure that's the case.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The DJ is very smartly understanding that if they don't
put real constraints on Google round AI, then they're only
addressing past behavior, but they're not actually making sure that
there's a level playing you field going forward in which
people won't be able to just abuse and run over
the AI marketplace too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It really feels like we're kind of on the precipice
of something changing in the next few years with the web,
because if Google has to even share data from search,
that will change, like we will get competition in search
for the first time really meaningfully in decade, like decades.
I guess it's like since the lycost and old Tavista
days because these two cases are so inherently intertwined.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Absolutely, yeah, and don't and don't shot change Gopher or
web crawler in that Yeah, but yeah, there hasn't been
other search engine since the late nineties.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Oh yeah, Oh no, I said, I think I said excite, like, yeah, okay,
changing changing gis before we wrap up. You've been at
the FTC case with Meta. How's that going? And also
what is that about?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So that is about whether or not when Meta and
Facebook at the time acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, that they
were doing that to maintain their monopoly power in a
market for personal social networking services. And so that's that
is actually explicitly to break up Meta, so force them
(24:35):
to divest WhatsApp and Instagram. And the testimony I saw
was Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, who was on the stand
for roughly seven or eight hours, which is a lot
for any CEO. He's he's the key witness, and so
now they're rolling into the other witnesses. I think it's
going well to answer your question, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
So what are some of the highlights of things that
Marcky Mack said.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He you know, he confirmed there's a lot of emails
in that case, and unlike the Google case, where there
was real problems with preservation of evidence and there were
emails that were in messaging that were deleted and all
sorts of things that by the way, Google's Kent Walker
got slammed by the judge for for not preserving evidence
for like the third or fourth time.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Now, and you mentioned that Jurigar interviews as well, that
the judge pissed about this.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
The judge was pissed and it came out in her opinion. Yeah,
that's abuse of attorney client privilege. She basically said. The
only the way I read it was the only reason
I'm not sanctioning you is because I found you liable
of breaking the Sherman Act. So and that's kind of
what happened in the Search case too, and it's kind
of in the app Store case they did get sanctioned.
So there's the third anti trust uh loss that Google
(25:50):
has in which they've been you know, nailed by the
judge and they've got more trials coming, so it's it's
a problem for them. And so the difference the flip
side of that is that Facebook and Meta. You know,
there's a wealth of emails, and you know, Mark clearly
ran the company very tightly and drove the product decisions
very tightly, and he documented a lot of that in emails,
(26:13):
and some of them are pretty damning, you know. I
think the one that has always gotten the most attention
is emails where he discussed why would we buy Instagram
and focused in on the reasons of neutralizing a competitor
and buying time. So neutralizing Instagram and buying time, and
(26:33):
a lot of the contemporary contemporaneous evidence shows that they
were very, very concerned over one year to eighteen month
period where Facebook was behind and moving to mobile, Instagram
was growing very very quickly, and they had screwed up
by building the Facebook app for HTML five that's a
(26:53):
technical thing, instead of their own native app, and they
were freaking out. And there's a lot of emails about that.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So really kind of returning to what I was saying
previously as well, it feels like the results of these
trials could just fundamentally rebuild the web because if Instagram
was competitive with Facebook, by which I mean they had
to spin it off and make it its own company,
and Google could no longer monopolize all the parts of
the ads. It's going to change the economics of everything
(27:23):
underlying the Internet because the Internet is mostly paidful by ads.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
That's right. That last parts really really important that you're
making is Yeah, we're talking about a lot of the
user behaviors and stuff. But there's one hundred and whatever
forty billion dollars of US digital advertising that goes to
those two companies I would get estimating. And so most
of the growth in digital advertising over the last decade
has gone to Google and Facebook in some way, shape
(27:49):
or form. And so, how does it affect the advertising business?
Becomes really really important to all.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Us, and the way it would affect it is it
could be cheaper for advertising, but it could also be
more chaotic because especially with metas advertising products. From what
I understand, it's like almost the equivalent of Google MACS
in that you put you give meta money and it
goes into the greater metaverse. I don't mean I mean
(28:15):
that with a cap Yeah, damn, I can't say that shit,
but goes into the data meta series of products in
the same way that Google MACS. You put money in
and it goes across all of Google's stuff. That being
broken up would be like Google like ninety something percent
of metas revenue is ads as well, Like this was
right destroy the company potentially.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, they you know, they're ninety six ninety seven percent
of their business is advertising, and so you imagine a
world where advertisers are buying through a different buy platform
or a neutral one. Let's call it a neutral one
that actually can buy ads on Instagram versus the Facebook
app and actually make decisions on that in real time
(28:56):
of what's best for the advertiser.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I feel like they're also have to compete for business
in the way they've never had to, like justify their
business and provide analytics that they don't already.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I've always asked a question of like when Facebook started
to you know, really getscribed as a toxic waste jump
in like put like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, where they
started to just run into some real difficulties like Instagram.
If I were Instagram, I would act differently if I
wasn't part of the of the larger corporation, right, and
(29:26):
they probably Instagram would have put the screws to Facebook
at that time and vice versa, you know, and so
it really changes the dynamic of those two platforms where
they're actually having to compete with each other, both for
users and for ads. The parent company, the brand is
you know, one of the least you know, according to
like the Axios Reputation survey, it's like number ninety nine
(29:49):
or something like that in the hundred brands. So like,
the brand is significantly challenged despite the success of the company.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So so as we wrap up it almost I know
that we like this show is not necessarily the most optimistic,
but I kind of feel a little optimistic seeing all
of this stuff. It feels like there could be a
better Internet that comes out of it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I agree with that, and I also, you know, make
a broader point that it does make me optimistic to
see courts doing what they're supposed to be doing, judges
actually understanding the complexity of technology, having you know, attorneys
that can describe it to the courts in a way
that that you know, can be applied to anti trust
(30:33):
law that's been around for more than a century. And
by the way, it should be said too that these
cases were brought by the Trump administration through a Biden
administration administration. Now they're being enforced and we're getting decisions
under a Trump administration again. So they're incredibly bipartisan. And
I had a chance to testify a few weeks ago
in front of the Anti Trust Committee and that was
(30:53):
incredibly bipartisan too. And so these are these are issues
that stretch across the parties, that are pretty unique in
this in this current moment, and it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Kind of feels like that the Dumerists out there are saying, oh,
he'll they'll just pay off Trump. But and it doesn't
even feel it feels like the administrations, both of them
kind of have the same willingness to.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Do this, that's right. I mean the Wall Street Journal
report basically we don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Well, yeah, but the Wall Street General reported that that
Mark Zuckerberg met with the Trump with Trump administration or
Trump himself I think three times in the last few
months and offered to settle for four hundred and fifty
million dollars and the FCC wanted thirty billion dollars. And
so you can see that there's a pretty pretty big
(31:39):
delta between the two. And I think the Trump administration
understands why these issues are issues regardless of party in
politics and too much power in the hands of you know,
too little people is always.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
A problem, so can the greenlaw. All right, Jason, where
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
They could buy me on Twitter, Jason Underscore kids on
Blue Sky. They can always email me at dcn's website.
I'm around, I'm always looking to engage, so.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Such a pleasure to have you, sir. And you can
of course find me on the internet at Google the
man who killed Google Search. That's how you find me.
This has been Better Offline. I'm at Zitron.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
You're going to hear a very similar message to follow.
Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
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(32:51):
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Speaker 2 (33:00):
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For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia
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Also media, I get on their ass. Somebody's got to
do it. This is better offly and I'm d Zetron.
Today I'm joined by the wonderful Jason Kint, who has
(00:24):
been at the Google ads trial and multiple other FDC
and DOJ related trials as well. Now, last week we
have wonderful news the Department of Justice won their ant
trust trial against Google saying they have a monopoly of
our ad tech. This is a wonderful time. And Jason,
of course last year was here for multiple episodes with
us to walk us through the trial. He was there
in person. Jason, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm good, thank you. It's good to see decisions starting
to come in from the courts on what we've been
talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And just to be clear, Jason as the CEO of
Digital Content Next, I did not say that The Top
the professional podcast run by a professional, but soll us
through what the verdict was.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This is the ad tech case against Google that was
in Virginia, to remind the listeners, and it was around
Google having market power and monopoly power on the buy side,
the cell side and in the exchange and then illegally
using that monopoly power. The decision from the judge was
(01:22):
that mostly in agreement with the plaintiffs, and it was
a big win for the Justice Department, who worked really
hard on this case. That they have monopoly power in
the exchange, so where the auctions actually happen, and then
on the publisher side with the ads server marketplace that
determines what ads land on the page, and that they
illegally tied those two products together. So the only part
(01:46):
of the decision, which I think Google's trying to make
to be a bigger deal than it probably is, is
that they the judge did not agree that there was
this market on the buy side the way it was defined.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And so what does that mean in simple in.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Simpler terms, it could affect where remedies go because there
is not a finding that they illegally use monopoly power
on the buy side with advertisers buying ads, and so.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Just they owned the technology to sell the ads and
the ways in which it was like, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, they still it's true that they have significant influence
because they have they're the largest player on the buy
side of ads, so where advertisers are actually buying the ads,
but not that they She didn't find that they that
there was a form legal market there that they abused,
and so as we go through remedies discussions, I think
(02:44):
it's probably it might be less likely that there's some
sort of structural separation where they need to divest the
buy side too, although all this stuff's frankly going to
get tangled together and it will be a whole new
ball game with remedies, especially with search meedies going on
this week too.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So go ahead.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I was going to say, so, what are the remedies
that the Department of Justice is actually seeking.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Here on the ad tech case? On this case, it's
a structural separation of their roles in the ad tech marketplace,
and so that was very clear coming into the into
the trial.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So just break it down for me, though, what they
How would they break up Google in its current form?
Is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I mean yes, absolutely in the in the simplest way
would be forcing Google to divest, which probably would mean
spinning off to its shareholders rather than selling because it's
going to be such a valuable asset.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
But actually a separate company.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
A separate company that is the ad server marketplace. Yeah,
and in the exchange itself too.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So so dumb guy question for you, what is an
AD server in this case? Like, how how does this
actually break down?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's the you know, it's the technology that sits on
the web pages or on the public sure side, that
actually makes the decision on what ad to serve on
the page. So when you're browsing a web page or
on an app, it's what's deciding to serve the ad.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And so Google ran that themselves. They like, they ran
that themselves, So they ended up prioritizing their own ads.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm guessing yes, that's that's the case. And so and
you know, in the findings, what's really interesting is that
the judge very much agreed with and understood that Google's
illegal conduct in terms of how they were able to
manipulate auctions in ways that probably favored them and certainly
(04:39):
harmed the publishers was a part of the finding.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, yeah, when they when you say they harmed the publishers,
is it just the it wasn't possible to compete with
Google on ads because Google both made ads and then
had the platform that showed the ads to people.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
You know, she she hit on a number of things
that I think are gonna be super interesting in the remedies.
She hit on that Google was able to keep charging
twenty percent of the exchange market, so they could take
twenty percent of every single transaction, and that that price
never moved from twenty percent for the most part because
of their monopoly power. But she also hit on all
the ways that they could manipulate the auctions, which could
(05:17):
end up being that's a bigger issue when you start
thinking about the private lawsuits they're out there too. You
get into, you know, literally tens of tens of billions
of dollars of potential harm to publishers from auction manipulations.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And how were they manipulating your auctions?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Just so we understand, well, the allegations were that and
this in what she addressed in the opinion were things
like first look and last look where they actually were
able to see the prices ahead of time or at
(05:55):
the end of the auction and make decisions based on
the bids that they uniquely were able to.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Do, which is.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Which is so insane that they were able to like
they basically set prices like get to everyone to bid
and then just immediately beat them. Like it's it's shocking,
that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
It's kind of flagrant.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So with last Look, I think, you know, I think
I've hit on two things here. One of the last look,
which I think the judge very much understood because I
can remember her, you know, who was completely new to
this marketplace. She totally got why that was an issue
when she you know, last look. If you take to
like a silent auction where you put your little bids
(06:37):
down in an envelope and everybody has kind of their
secret bid, this would be like Google. Then at the
end was able to look at everybody's bid, see what
the highest bid was, and then bid higher if they wanted.
That was last Look, And there were a bunch of
other things that stemmed from that, and she really seemed
to understand it, which is what is it's you know,
it's nice to.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
See so kind of impressive to see a judge just
pick up an entire subject.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Matt to like that.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, I totally agree. You know what, who I'd be
should be most scared, frankly by this opinion, is if
I'm Facebook or Meta, who is like counting on this
idea that the judge in their case doesn't know or
use social media and TikTok and Instagram, et cetera. It
tells you once again that a judge that understands the
law and sits there for four weeks plus all the
(07:23):
pre trial stuff and listens to the evidence can understand
these issues. And the most important greening I think was
the Justice Department who really understood the case in a
way that they could dive deep and then explain it
to the judge. And they succeeded to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So it kind of reminds me so during some of
the Google ads trial things you talked about the spaghetti thing,
when they are trying to do this kind of slight
of hand thing and like, ah, it's too impossible to understand,
it's too complex, and they turned it into that ridiculous thing.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's right, they did, And yeah, and that tells you
that that is not going to be a successful defense.
Is trying to confuse a judge who has never used it,
we would understand add tech, that's not going to work.
The just departments succeeded and explaining it. They kept it simple.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
So what happens next? What are the next moves with
this pub Well.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
A reminder, this is what's called the rocket docket. The
Virginia District Eastern District of Virginia. And so the judge
moved really really fast. That's why they have that name.
This case was filed in January of twenty twenty three,
and so we got to a trial, you know, eighteen
months later, in a decision that took you know, frankly,
the decision took a lot longer than anyone thought it
(08:51):
was going to take to come out. People are starting
to get nervous, but you know, it just took time.
And she clearly wrote a really clear opinion and it's
very it's very easy to read through. So that keeping
in mind, I think she'll probably move fast. They have
a meeting. I think it'll be tomorrow in terms of
(09:12):
what's the schedule going forward for remedies, and so I
would expect the dates to all be in the next
few months.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
But what would the remedies be?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So they would have to break off the three parts,
like the AD side, they would have to break off
the cell side, Like.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
What are they going to have to do in theory?
I realize you're just guessing.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm just guessing. You know that the findings are clear
enough that there's going to be structural separation that they're
going to be pushing for you know, how the buyside
gets handled, it's going to be really important because a reminder,
and this doesn't come out really in the proceedings as much,
but the ad tech case is downstream from the Search case,
(09:54):
and the arguments were that the reason Google was able
to dominate the buy side, the cell side, and ad
tech was because of the monopoly power in search, which
we also have remedies now that started on Monday, and
so these things are going to start to swirl together.
And when you think about Google having to divest Chrome
and some of the other remedies within the search case,
(10:17):
it's you know, it's quite possible that there will be
some larger settlement that will be proposed, or a larger
structural separation that needs to play out between the two decisions.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So as as you've been hinting at, there was the
there was the verdict last year that Google did have
a monopoly over search. How do you think that these
two things are going to play together? You kind of
got it there, But what are the ways in which
this could go?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Well, the search decision was not There were two monopolies
that they were found of abused. One was searched. The
other was search text ads. So it's the ads that
we see in search, which is Google's largest business, right
And so.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Just so I'm clear, you're saying that there's the monopoly
over a search engine and then the advertising onset search.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Engine exactly, and so and that advertising on said sir,
that advertising on said search engine is is what allowed them,
according to the JUST Department, to then dominate in the
ad tech stack. And so I think that's the connection
point between the cases and will also start to be
a part of the discussion in the remedies. Both cases
(11:28):
involve network effects. Both cases involve using data to to
maintain market power and to abuse it.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Right, So the potential remedies, it sounds like, could be
almost breaking up Google into multiple different companies.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
With this case, the the baby bells, you know, idea
of what happened to AT and T should be much.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
More happily than to several listeners.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
They divided AT and T up into into pieces and
so so you know, not just forcing them to vest
one piece of their business. And so you know, with
the ad tech case, again there's you know, there's settlements
that can happen, there's appeals that will happen. But the
argument for you know, should Google have to divest not
(12:18):
just its advertising ad tech business, but also you know,
other areas of its business, I think becomes much stronger.
You can imagine Chrome, you can imagine Android, you can
imagine YouTube.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah. Actually, here's a good question for you.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I I know Chrome, and I'm sure many listeners know
Chrome as a free browser, not really a business entity.
How does selling off Chrome meaningfully help with the monopoly
situation Chrome?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know, Google's entire advertising business is based on targeting
ads based on signals that it in, data that it
gathers from the various ways that it can touch the user.
And so Chrome as a web browser is an incredible
way to harvest data about how you're browsing the web
(13:10):
and where you are location, search, et cetera. And so
you know where Google believes it has permission to use
that data to target ads and train its into its
machine learning and AI training. That is very valuable.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I did so, wait, so this is perhaps I'm very stupid.
So Chrome collects data on your browsing habits for every user.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Now, for every user, there's there's privacy, you know, settings
and all sorts of things you can do. You can
go into incognito mode. But if Google is acting as
your browser, it has access to your browsing history and
what you're doing on the web, and they can, where
they believe they have the rights, they can use that data.
(13:55):
Two help you know, provide further information on both both
for search but also for you know, what content to
serve up and what adds to serve up. What they're
actually doing becomes a bigger question.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right, So was that established a whole trial not.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was in the search in the search case that
but it was more specifically focused on the default settings
for search from the browser, right. And so within Chrome,
if you type in your location bar, you're always going
to be doing a Google search. That's it's pretty clear
that how that le then gets passed from the browser
(14:35):
to the search engine.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, and if they have billions of users, then they
can think everyone is searching using Google because they have
because it's the default. That's so crazy. But the thing
with Chrome as well, isn't a revenue driver? Is that
like a direct source of revenue for Google?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know, it's if you if you think about the
search case again, I mean Google is paying Apple, you know,
twenty five billion dollars. Let's say I'm estimating twenty It
was twenty billion a few years ago, but let's say
twenty five billion dollars. They were paying to Apple to
be the default search on Safari and all of the
access points on iOS. So Chrome technically is making revenue
(15:16):
off of those search queries. It's just Google's pain itself, right,
And so that's the that's the issue.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Well, the reason I bring that up is one of
the remedies the idea of selling Chrome off. Why would
you like, what value would that be in Chrome? If
the whole value of it is to just be kind
of a flume towards Google, like a like a kind
like a way to like almost like a marketing arm
of Google. If you sold off Chrome, surely it wouldn't
have as much business value.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It wouldn't have as much business value to Google. The
whole point would be it be an independent business that
would be making decisions. I mean, technically a browser is
supposed to be a user agent. It's supposed to be
making decisions for the user. And what would they.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Value right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
As an autonomous business? Like yeah, because right now is
it's not like people pay for creat It just doesn't
feel like that is a practical thing to do, because
if the whole value proposition of it is that it's
a free product that makes Google money and it doesn't
make any money for anyone else, or like it isn't
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, so it could make a decision to point to
you know, a new Amazon search site or sure that
gets into search, right and so and get paid.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
For it, right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I mean it almost feels like this could lead to
I don't want I'm not going to say the death
of Google in the sense that Google will cease to be,
but the death of modern Google as we know it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It definitely, you know, all leads towards a very different Google,
whether it be structurally different or just being hamstrung by
the appeals of all these cases.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So, I mean, it's they. I cannot think of anyone
who got more lucky than it being good Friday than
Google right now, because it's good, we're recording this a
good Friday. And it's like they didn't like the markets
are closed, so they didn't immediately get the markets just
pummeling them as they should because they've lost both now
they don't like whatever appeals they may do, are not
(17:18):
going to really, I don't think they're going to stop everything.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Markets are complex, I would I would hesitate to wonder
and you know, to predict why the stock did what
it did yesterday, even when the announcement came out. You know,
there are some arguments that having to divest, you know,
divest parts of the business could actually create more value
back to shareholders.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
What value would that be?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Well, typically when you spin things off, you often see
it or you sell things, often the stock you know,
can go up because of that. And so you know,
are the is the some of the parts worth more
than than the whole? You know, those questions all come
into play, But that's all. Yeah, that's all to the markets.
And sometimes the markets aren't as smart as we think
(18:02):
they are, and they take time to understand and impact things.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I agree, and I've seen the same thing with
Core Weeve recently, which is a company that has driven
me insane onto more sane things. Though, So when we're
recording this, it's going to be next week, but the
beginning of the remedies for the search trial is on
the twenty first, So what can people expect there?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I don't think there's gonna be as much excitement and
drama as we saw with the actual liabilities trial. I think,
you know, for the folks that follow the industry closely,
what you should expect is all the AI companies are
involved and so either through depositions, discovery, and some testifying.
(18:58):
So you've got anthropic open AI Microsoft. So when you
think about the shaping of the AI world going forward,
you're going to have all the major players. Apple is
Apple tried to actually intervene, and but the judge didn't
allow them. So they've they've got a strong interest because
(19:19):
they've got estimated to be I think ten to fifteen
percent of their profits are tied to their Google deal.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Right, and so well, because Google pays them to use
just just for the listeners, so Google pays Apple billions
have to be the default such, right, That's right, and.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The you know, the remedies are that they can't do
that anymore. And so the reason they weren't allowed to intervene,
according to Judge Meta, was because he didn't see a
difference in Apple's interests from Google's interests. He basically said, yeah,
you have the same interest.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, well, I mean the interest being the Apple needs
Google to keep them and not police so that the
Apple can keep getting a chunk of their revenue.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That's exactly right. Yeah, so yeah, so Apple cares a lot,
Microsoft cares a lot, All the big players care. The
testimonies is going to be X, a lot of experts
and you know, unless CEO.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Who will be doing the testimonies.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
It'll be experts from both sides, like so academics that
study these issues. It will be executives from the AI companies.
I think we'll probably hear from Eddie Q again at Apple,
who's one of their top executives. We'll probably hear from
Suon Dharbashi again from Google as CEO. They're on the list.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
So and so in those two weeks, what's going to happen.
So it's basically another trial to say how they will
deal with their monopoly in search.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's right, And well, I mean, I guess one thing
that's interesting is they're still pretty far apart. So Google's
proposed remedies for itself are basically a slap on the wrist,
and you know, kind of kind of embarrassing for anybody,
and you know that studies they think.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
So when you said up on the wrist.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Is it like a fine that offering.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They're offering some restrictions on the way they do things,
but nothing that touches on structural separation in any way,
shape or form. Nothing that prevents them from doing an
Apple like deal. And so it's, you know, the bare minimum.
That the only way I can read it, and I'm
(21:26):
just you know, spitballing here, but is that they're not
giving it an inch right now because they think either
they can do some sort of transactional deal settlement with
the current administration or that they can win on appeal,
and they don't want to show their cards by moving
the line in any way because it's so far removed
(21:47):
from the decision itself.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right, because if they go defensive, then they would cut
they would kind of reveal their hand for when they
go to appeal.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You're saying that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And so is the Department of Justice. The Department of
Justice is saying they should sell off Chrome or is
that anything else they're asking for?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
They should sell off Chrome, and they're struck, you know,
divest Chrome. They may need to divest Android, but it
basically says, let's see how that goes, but we can
still do that, and then very importantly, they're requiring them
to share some data with other search engines that would
help other search engines have a more level playing field.
(22:27):
And as it relates to publishers, who again I do
a lot of work for the work for the publishers,
it requires Google to allow publishers to narrowly define what
Google can crawl and use data for. And so the
(22:47):
publisher can say, hey, you can crawl my website for
the purpose of search, but you cannot then use it
to train your your AI engines.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So yeah, and so that the DO is pushing to
make sure that's the case.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The DJ is very smartly understanding that if they don't
put real constraints on Google round AI, then they're only
addressing past behavior, but they're not actually making sure that
there's a level playing you field going forward in which
people won't be able to just abuse and run over
the AI marketplace too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It really feels like we're kind of on the precipice
of something changing in the next few years with the web,
because if Google has to even share data from search,
that will change, like we will get competition in search
for the first time really meaningfully in decade, like decades.
I guess it's like since the lycost and old Tavista
days because these two cases are so inherently intertwined.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Absolutely, yeah, and don't and don't shot change Gopher or
web crawler in that Yeah, but yeah, there hasn't been
other search engine since the late nineties.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Oh yeah, Oh no, I said, I think I said excite, like, yeah, okay,
changing changing gis before we wrap up. You've been at
the FTC case with Meta. How's that going? And also
what is that about?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So that is about whether or not when Meta and
Facebook at the time acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, that they
were doing that to maintain their monopoly power in a
market for personal social networking services. And so that's that
is actually explicitly to break up Meta, so force them
(24:35):
to divest WhatsApp and Instagram. And the testimony I saw
was Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, who was on the stand
for roughly seven or eight hours, which is a lot
for any CEO. He's he's the key witness, and so
now they're rolling into the other witnesses. I think it's
going well to answer your question, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
So what are some of the highlights of things that
Marcky Mack said.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He you know, he confirmed there's a lot of emails
in that case, and unlike the Google case, where there
was real problems with preservation of evidence and there were
emails that were in messaging that were deleted and all
sorts of things that by the way, Google's Kent Walker
got slammed by the judge for for not preserving evidence
for like the third or fourth time.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Now, and you mentioned that Jurigar interviews as well, that
the judge pissed about this.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
The judge was pissed and it came out in her opinion. Yeah,
that's abuse of attorney client privilege. She basically said. The
only the way I read it was the only reason
I'm not sanctioning you is because I found you liable
of breaking the Sherman Act. So and that's kind of
what happened in the Search case too, and it's kind
of in the app Store case they did get sanctioned.
So there's the third anti trust uh loss that Google
(25:50):
has in which they've been you know, nailed by the
judge and they've got more trials coming, so it's it's
a problem for them. And so the difference the flip
side of that is that Facebook and Meta. You know,
there's a wealth of emails, and you know, Mark clearly
ran the company very tightly and drove the product decisions
very tightly, and he documented a lot of that in emails,
(26:13):
and some of them are pretty damning, you know. I
think the one that has always gotten the most attention
is emails where he discussed why would we buy Instagram
and focused in on the reasons of neutralizing a competitor
and buying time. So neutralizing Instagram and buying time, and
(26:33):
a lot of the contemporary contemporaneous evidence shows that they
were very, very concerned over one year to eighteen month
period where Facebook was behind and moving to mobile, Instagram
was growing very very quickly, and they had screwed up
by building the Facebook app for HTML five that's a
(26:53):
technical thing, instead of their own native app, and they
were freaking out. And there's a lot of emails about that.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So really kind of returning to what I was saying
previously as well, it feels like the results of these
trials could just fundamentally rebuild the web because if Instagram
was competitive with Facebook, by which I mean they had
to spin it off and make it its own company,
and Google could no longer monopolize all the parts of
the ads. It's going to change the economics of everything
(27:23):
underlying the Internet because the Internet is mostly paidful by ads.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
That's right. That last parts really really important that you're
making is Yeah, we're talking about a lot of the
user behaviors and stuff. But there's one hundred and whatever
forty billion dollars of US digital advertising that goes to
those two companies I would get estimating. And so most
of the growth in digital advertising over the last decade
has gone to Google and Facebook in some way, shape
(27:49):
or form. And so, how does it affect the advertising business?
Becomes really really important to all.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Us, and the way it would affect it is it
could be cheaper for advertising, but it could also be
more chaotic because especially with metas advertising products. From what
I understand, it's like almost the equivalent of Google MACS
in that you put you give meta money and it
goes into the greater metaverse. I don't mean I mean
(28:15):
that with a cap Yeah, damn, I can't say that shit,
but goes into the data meta series of products in
the same way that Google MACS. You put money in
and it goes across all of Google's stuff. That being
broken up would be like Google like ninety something percent
of metas revenue is ads as well, Like this was
right destroy the company potentially.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, they you know, they're ninety six ninety seven percent
of their business is advertising, and so you imagine a
world where advertisers are buying through a different buy platform
or a neutral one. Let's call it a neutral one
that actually can buy ads on Instagram versus the Facebook
app and actually make decisions on that in real time
(28:56):
of what's best for the advertiser.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I feel like they're also have to compete for business
in the way they've never had to, like justify their
business and provide analytics that they don't already.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I've always asked a question of like when Facebook started
to you know, really getscribed as a toxic waste jump
in like put like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, where they
started to just run into some real difficulties like Instagram.
If I were Instagram, I would act differently if I
wasn't part of the of the larger corporation, right, and
(29:26):
they probably Instagram would have put the screws to Facebook
at that time and vice versa, you know, and so
it really changes the dynamic of those two platforms where
they're actually having to compete with each other, both for
users and for ads. The parent company, the brand is
you know, one of the least you know, according to
like the Axios Reputation survey, it's like number ninety nine
(29:49):
or something like that in the hundred brands. So like,
the brand is significantly challenged despite the success of the company.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So so as we wrap up it almost I know
that we like this show is not necessarily the most optimistic,
but I kind of feel a little optimistic seeing all
of this stuff. It feels like there could be a
better Internet that comes out of it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I agree with that, and I also, you know, make
a broader point that it does make me optimistic to
see courts doing what they're supposed to be doing, judges
actually understanding the complexity of technology, having you know, attorneys
that can describe it to the courts in a way
that that you know, can be applied to anti trust
(30:33):
law that's been around for more than a century. And
by the way, it should be said too that these
cases were brought by the Trump administration through a Biden
administration administration. Now they're being enforced and we're getting decisions
under a Trump administration again. So they're incredibly bipartisan. And
I had a chance to testify a few weeks ago
in front of the Anti Trust Committee and that was
(30:53):
incredibly bipartisan too. And so these are these are issues
that stretch across the parties, that are pretty unique in
this in this current moment, and it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Kind of feels like that the Dumerists out there are saying, oh,
he'll they'll just pay off Trump. But and it doesn't
even feel it feels like the administrations, both of them
kind of have the same willingness to.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Do this, that's right. I mean the Wall Street Journal
report basically we don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Well, yeah, but the Wall Street General reported that that
Mark Zuckerberg met with the Trump with Trump administration or
Trump himself I think three times in the last few
months and offered to settle for four hundred and fifty
million dollars and the FCC wanted thirty billion dollars. And
so you can see that there's a pretty pretty big
(31:39):
delta between the two. And I think the Trump administration
understands why these issues are issues regardless of party in
politics and too much power in the hands of you know,
too little people is always.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
A problem, so can the greenlaw. All right, Jason, where
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
They could buy me on Twitter, Jason Underscore kids on
Blue Sky. They can always email me at dcn's website.
I'm around, I'm always looking to engage, so.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Such a pleasure to have you, sir. And you can
of course find me on the internet at Google the
man who killed Google Search. That's how you find me.
This has been Better Offline. I'm at Zitron.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
You're going to hear a very similar message to follow.
Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
T O S O W s ki dot com. You
can email me at easy at Better offline dot com,
or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast
links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend
(32:51):
you go to chat dot Where's youreed dot at to
visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline
to check out our Reddit, Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Ed Zitron
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