Federal regulators who say Google holds an illegal monopoly over the technology that matches online advertisers to publishers are vastly underestimating the competition the tech giant faces, an expert hired by Google testified Thursday.

Mark Israel, an economist who prepared an expert report on Google’s behalf, said the government’s claims that Google holds a monopoly over advertising technology are improperly focused on a narrow market the government defines as “open web display advertising,” essentially the rectangular ads that appear on the top and along the right hand side of a web page when a consumer browses the web on a desktop computer.

But the government’s case fails to account for a variety of competition that occurs beyond those rectangular boxes, Israel said. In the real world, advertisers have dramatically shifted where they spend money to social media companies like Facebook and TikTok, and online retailers like Amazon.

When you account for all online display advertising, not just the narrow segment defined by the government’s case, Google gets just 10% of the U.S. market share as of 2022, he said. That’s down from roughly 15% a decade ago.

In addition, advertisers have moved away from placing their ads on the screens of desktop and laptop computers where Google is alleged to control the market, with money migrating to ads placed on apps and mobile device screens. Israel cited marketing data showing display ad spending on desktop and laptop devices has decreased from 71% in 2013 to 17% in 2022.

The government’s case “seems to miss where the competition is today,” Israel said.

His testimony comes as Google wraps up its defense in the third week of an antitrust trial that began earlier this month in Alexandria, Virginia. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has said she expects the government will put on a short rebuttal case Friday. Then the trial will go on hiatus, with both sides submitting proposed findings of fact in November and returning to court to make closing arguments in December. She said she expects to make a ruling by the end of the year.

The government’s case alleges Google has built and maintained an illegal monopoly that restricts choices and inflates costs for online publishers and advertisers. Its control of the market has allowed Google to keep 36 cents on the dollar for every ad bought and sold through its ad tech stack, the government claims.

The government says Google controls advertising tech at every step of the process, including the predominant technology used by publishers to sell their ad space, the predominant technology used by advertisers looking to purchase ad space, and the ad exchanges in the middle that conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to match advertiser to publisher.

The government’s case contends that Google illegally ties those markets together, forcing publishers to use Google’s technology if they want access to Google’s large cache of advertisers.

The government, using more narrow market definitions than those used by Israel, has claimed that Google controls 91% of the market for publisher ad servers and 87% of the market for advertising ad networks.

Google says the government’s case also fails to account for the billions the company has invested to ensure its products, working together, generate better value for publishers and advertisers by matching the right advertisers to the right consumers.

Israel cited data showing publishers working with Google are generating more revenue for each bit of ad space they make available, while advertisers are paying less for each click their ads generate.

That only occurs, Israel said, because Google’s technology is continually improving the quality of the ads by matching advertisers to consumers based on their interests and purchase history.

Israel also disputed the government’s claims that Google gets 36 cents on the dollar for the ad sales it facilitates. He said data shows that percentage has dropped to 31% or 32% in recent years. More importantly, he said, competitors have even higher take rates, with an industry average of 42 cents on the dollar.

The Virginia trial is separate from another case brought by the government alleging that Google’s ubiquitous search engine constitutes an illegal monopoly. In that case, a judge in the district of Columbia ruled in favor of the government and declared the search engine a monopoly, but no decision has yet been made on any potential remedies. The government is scheduled to offer suggestions of proposed remedies next month. those could include restricting Google from paying tech companies to lock in Google as the default search engine for gadgets like cellphones, or even seeking to force google to sell off parts of its business.

© 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday issued “urgent safety recommendations” regarding the rudder systems on certain Boeing 737 aircraft, highlighting a risk of jamming.

It came after a February 6 incident involving a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by United Airlines, whose rudder pedals were “stuck” in the neutral position while on the tarmac after landing at Newark airport in New Jersey.

None of the 155 passengers and six crew members were hurt, the NTSB said, with the captain using the nose landing gear controls to steer the plane.

Boeing has come under increasing pressure following a number of safety incidents involving its aircraft. It did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

The cause of the February incident was found to be the rollout guidance actuator, one of the rudder control components, with tests revealing it was susceptible to moisture which could “freeze and limit rudder system movement,” the NTSB said.

The faulty actuator was manufactured by US company Collins Aerospace, it added.

“Collins notified Boeing that more than 353 actuators that Collins had delivered to Boeing since February 2017 were affected by this condition,” the NTSB said.

The part is installed in the tail of some Boeing 737 NG and 737 MAX airplanes.

The Federal Aviation Authority said it would convene a corrective action review board on Friday based on the NTSB’s recommendations to determine next steps.

Boeing has been under close regulator scrutiny since an in-flight incident involving an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft in early January.

That event saw a door plug blow out mid-flight, leaving a hole in the side of the aircraft.

Boeing’s quality control and production processes had already been called into question after the crashes of two 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.

In March, the US aviation giant reshuffled its leadership, with new boss Kelly Ortberg taking over on August 8.

Ortberg had headed Rockwell Collins, the company which later became Collins Aerospace, from 2013 to 2018.

© 2024 AFP

Daring to prefix a company or even a pop group’s name with “easy” could land you with legal action, as the founder of British airline easyJet relentlessly tackles alleged trademark breaches.

Greek-Cypriot tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou, whose easyGroup still has links with the carrier, has set out to protect the “easy” brand by threatening court action against anyone deemed to be profiting from the name.

A formal complaint made by the man simply known as Stelios recently forced British indie pop band Easy Life, which also adorned posters with an aircraft showing a likeness to an easyJet plane, into changing its name. It chose Hard Life.

‘Easy come, easy go’

“The problem with small brand thieves if they are left unchecked is that they become profitable and they grow,” an easyGroup spokesman told AFP in relation to numerous ongoing lawsuits.

“Most of these cases never come to open court as the brand thieves realize that they are in the wrong and make changes to the satisfaction of easyGroup,” he added.

Hard Life still gives a nod to its past, with the band’s account on X carrying the title message “easy come, easy go”.

Ahead of releasing a new song in June it wrote on the social platform: “Safe to say the last nine months haven’t been easy.”

EasyGroup and Stelios, who lives in Monaco, insist that their actions are in the interest of the consumer, to avoid confusion and preserve the company’s image.

The spokesman added that “most of easyGroup’s profits” go into the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation.

The easyGroup model sees it receive royalties from licensing its brand to third parties. It receives, for example, 0.25 percent of easyJet’s revenue, while the Haji-Ioannou family still owns 15 percent of the carrier.

Around 1,200 official “easy” brands exist, from gambling business easyBet to easyGym, easyHotel and dating site easyWoo—many of which exhibit the same typeface and orange/white color scheme.

‘David and Goliath’

Unofficial “easy” companies contacted by AFP cited colossal legal fees as the reason for backing down and changing their names when pursued by easyGroup.

“As a small business it was incredibly hard to keep up financially with solicitor fees so for me I am happy to leave this behind me,” said Jozsef Spekker, owner of Stoke Jetwash.

The driveway-cleaning business was known as Easy Jetwash until August.

The new name takes the name of the city where his small business is based in central England.

An intellectual property law specialist at the London School of Economics, Luke McDonagh, described such cases as “David and Goliath battles”.

“Some people call this trademark bullying, where essentially Goliath takes a case against a David, a small company that really has no resources and cannot fight back,” he told AFP.

“It’s not just easyGroup, it would be wrong to single them out, a lot of big companies do this,” he added, citing Apple, L’Oreal and television broadcaster Sky as prime examples.

McDonagh believes easyGroup, whose branding extends to cruise company easyBoat and household-products firm easyCleaning, “has been going too far in taking so many cases against these small entities”.

“The purpose of trademark law is not to give an unlimited monopoly on a word. It might be different if it was an entirely made-up word, but ‘easy’ is such a common word in the English language that other companies need to be able to use it in a reasonable way.”

‘War of attrition’

EasyGroup has enjoyed “many legal (trademark) victories over the years”, the spokesman said, but setbacks have arisen, including one this month.

The High Court in London ruled in favor of online platform easyfundraising, which is hoping to recover around £1.0 million ($1.3 million) in legal fees, despite an appeal hanging over the company.

“It’s like a war of attrition, and they just hope that ultimately companies give in, because it’s too long, it’s too much hassle, it’s too expensive,” easyfundraising chief executive James Moir told AFP.

© 2024 AFP