It’s been a while since I’ve read about it, but come on— isn’t the actual problematic monopoly Google has entirely on the ad tech side of their business? We need better laws or better regulators or something.
@jsonbecker I'd say search monopoly is not without problems as it makes Google into the sole gatekeeper between publishers and audiences
@jsonbecker which gives them a lot of power of information dissemination, and also incentivises SEO ("Google optimisation") crap from publishers while leaving Google little incentive for improve the results
@samjc I mean that may be true, but low incentives to improve their own product is not really what US anti-trust is about, because someone else can compete on quality product. The issue is their total market control and abuse by being essentially all sides of the ad market. I guess that Facebook has eaten into that a little, but that's where they seemingly flex an absurd level of pricing power and market control.
@jsonbecker I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t really come up because this is exactly it. Splitting Chrome off, or even killing Google’s payments to Apple/Mozilla, aren’t real remedies. Cleave search from DoubleClick and you’ll go a long way towards solving the problem.