Google Ad Tech
Yaletap University Thurman Arnold Project Digital Platform Theories of Harm Paper Series: 4 Report on Google’s Conduct in Advertising Technology May 2020 Lissa Kryska Patrick Monaghan I. Introduction Traditional advertisements appear in newspapers and magazines, on television and the radio, and on daily commutes through highway billboards and public transportation signage. Digital ads, while similar, are powerful because they are tailored to suit individual interests and go with us everywhere: the bookshelf you thought about buying two days ago can follow you through your favorite newspaper, social media feed, and your cousin’s recipe blog. Digital ads also display in internet search results, email inboxes, and video content, making them truly ubiquitous. Just as with a full-page magazine ad, publishers rely on the revenues generated by selling this ad space, and the advertiser relies on a portion of prospective customers clicking through to finally buy that bookshelf. Like any market, digital advertising requires the matching of buyers (advertisers) and sellers (publishers), and the intermediaries facilitating such matches have more to gain every year: A PwC report estimated that revenues for internet advertising totaled $57.9 billion for 2019 Q1 and Q2, up 17% over the same half-year period in 2018.1 Google is the dominant player among these intermediaries, estimated to have netted 73% of US search ad spending2 and 37% of total US digital ad spending3 in 2019. Such market concentration prompts reasonable questions about whether customers are losing out on some combination of price, quality, and innovation. This report will review the significant 1 PricewaterhouseCoopers for IAB (October 2019), Internet Advertising Revenue Report: 2019 First Six Months Results, p.2.
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