Google

The decision to block YouTube is retaliation for Amazon’s refusal to sell some Google products that compete with Amazon gadgets.

The decision to block YouTube is retaliation for Amazon’s refusal to sell some Google products that compete with Amazon gadgets.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s attorney general announced Monday that his office is investigating Google for potential violations of the state’s consumer-protection and antitrust laws. Republican Attorney General Josh […]

Facebook, Twitter and Google acknowledged that their platforms were used by Russia to try to  create division over such disparate issues as immigration, gun control and politics.

Facebook, Google and Twitter are on Capitol Hill for marathon hearings over the next two days. All three already admitted that Russia’s use of their platforms to sway the American electorate was bigger than previously acknowledged.

How Facebook and Google became mercenaries — and now casualties — in the information war. Before the election threw a harsh spotlight on the politicization of digital media platforms, tech companies themselves were chasing profit from politics with abandon

The platform, integrated into DoubleClick for Publishers, eliminates the need for ad slots to be sold as fixed lengths in the advertising break. The technology automatically optimizes the ad buy by determining the best combination of personalized and relevant ads for each viewer.

Analyst Michael Nathanson says broadcasters’ biggest weapon against SVODs is their live sports and news content. That gives them a key edge against cable, which can no longer compete with the aggressive scripted content investments coming from the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

The likes of Facebook, Google and Apple are increasingly facing an uncomfortable truth: it is Europe’s culture of tougher oversight of companies, not America’s laissez-faire attitude, which could soon rule their industry as governments seek to combat fake news and prevent extremists from using the internet to fan the flames of hatred.

Facebook, Google and others positioned themselves as bettering the world. But their systems and tools have also been used to undermine democracy and now they are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Alphabet and other tech giants are pushing deeper into cultural industries — and stumbling in ways that suggest a certain cluelessness

Google has discovered Russian operatives spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads on its YouTube, Gmail and Google Search products in an effort to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a person briefed on the company’s probe says. The ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated entity that bought ads on Facebook, but may indicate a broader Russian online disinformation effort, according to the source, who was not authorized to discuss details of the confidential investigation by Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

While tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple have already stepped up their lobbying efforts, some say the companies will have to pay even more attention to policy in the coming years as regulators across the globe increase scrutiny.

Google’s super-fast fiber internet service, Fiber, is moving away from offering the traditional pay TV bundle. With cord cutting at an all-time high, Google said it would not bundle cable TV service with fast Internet in new cities, instead emphasizing just the Internet and the new ways to watch TV online.

The world’s most powerful information gatekeepers neglected their duties in Las Vegas. Again.

Google is working on new tools that could help news organizations bolster their subscription businesses. The tools are part of a broader effort to preserve the kind of journalism that Google’s dominance, and that of other web giants like Facebook, has threatened.

Google said Thursday it will issue refunds for ads purchased through its networks that ran on sites with fake traffic. After initially conceding only to pay 7-10% of the total ad spend (its “platform fee”) the company has now agreed to reimburse affected advertisers 100%. WSJ subscribers can read more. 

David McCabe says regulating those platforms like utilities is more difficult than it sounds. Among the reasons are such “regulation of online platforms isn’t possible without an act of Congress designating the service as a common carrier — and lawmakers don’t appear interested in going down that path.”

A new Google survey of over 900 journalists in North America and Europe found 42% of journalists use data to tell stories twice or more per week; 51% of all news organizations now have dedicated data journalists; and 33% of journalists use data for political stories. 

The idea is to simplify ad rotation into two settings. With the change, two options become available in September — Optimize, which prioritizes the best-performing ads; and Rotate Indefinitely, which gives ads equal preference. The Optimize setting will optimize ads for clicks in each individual auction using signals such as keyword, search term, device, and location.

We are in the midst of a technological revolution that has altered the flow of information. Just a few companies have taken control, and this concentration of power—which Americans have acquiesced to without ever really intending to, simply by clicking away—is subverting our democracy.

The arrival of Apple, Facebook and Google means that the world of scripted TV is going to become even more competitive.

Google plans to change the options it gives advertisers for excluding site categories for the Display Network in AdWords. Several site categories are being eliminated, while a few are being added. Others are rolling up into a more concise name. To streamline the AdWords interface and improve serving, Google says it is merging some site category options and removing others.

YouTube, on an aggressive push to expand its footprint in online video, is said to be offering publishers more control over their own ad inventory in order to win their business. The site is offering major publishers who choose its backend video player the ability to control ad sales both on their sites and on YouTube, according to people familiar with the new offering. Additionally, YouTube is offering the player and its services for free, they said.

European antitrust regulators hit Google with a record €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) fine on Tuesday for systematically favoring its own search results above those of its competitors. The European Commission found that the U.S. tech giant used its search results to unfairly steer customers to its own shopping platform in a case that dates to 2010.

Like search and advertising before it, Google is setting the stage to dominate VR and AR by going all-in on mobile.

Among other things, Google unveiled new ways for its massive network of computers to identify images, as well as recommend, share, and organize photos. It also is launching an attempt to make its voice-controlled digital assistant more proactive and visual while expanding its audience to Apple’s iPhone, where it will try to outwit an older peer, Siri.

Looking to curtail Facebook and Google’s competitive advantage in people-based marketing, global ad-tech companies have set up a consortium to make targeting technologies available through a wide range of channels. The initial group of companies in the consortium include AppNexus, LiveRamp, MediaMath, Index Exchange, LiveIntent, OpenX and Rocket Fuel.

Publicis Groupe’s Zenith has just issued the latest installment of its Top 30 Global Media Owners report and Google remains the big kahuna of the bunch with three times more ad revenue than runner-up Facebook.

Google’s pain may be Rupert Murdoch’s gain. Murdoch’s News Corp. is introducing a new service to ensure online ads don’t appear next to fake news or offensive videos, marking the latest salvo in the billionaire media mogul’s long battle with the world’s biggest search engine. News Corp.’s Storyful unit, which filters through the firehose of social media for publishers and brands, will track websites known as purveyors of fake news or extremist content and share that list with advertisers, who can use it to keep ads from appearing in controversial places.

As more brands integrate television and video media buys, Google is making traditional TV inventory available to buy programmatically in DoubleClick Bid Manager in the U.S.

Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon and Facebook each dominates its corner of the industry: Google has an 88% market share in search advertising, Facebook (and its subsidiaries Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) owns 77% of mobile social traffic and Amazon has a 74% share of the e-book market. In classic economic terms, all three are monopolies.

Nielsen touted its relationship with Google Wednesday, reminding marketers that the data metrics and measurement company has been named to Google’s Marketing Mix Model Partner program. The program based on the MMM statistical analysis lets partners collect Google advertising impression and spend data directly from Google’s network of sites with standard practices.