Better Offline - The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 3

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN and Arielle Garcia, Director of Intelligence at CheckMyAds, for the third episode of Better Offline's coverage of the Department of Justice's second antitrust case against Google, one that alleges that "through Serial Acquisitions and Anticompetitive Auction Manipulation, Google Subverted Competition in Internet Advertising Technologies." This is the third episode of our ongoing coverage of the trial, which Jason and Arielle have been attending in-person in Washington DC. Here's a great explainer about how this all works from the Better Offline Reddit. For more information, visit https://usvgoogleads.com/ & follow Jason at https://x.com/jason_kint LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the eye heart, radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. AllZone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zittron. Once again, we are here to talk about the Department of Justice's case against Google Ads.

Today, of course, I'm joined by Jason Kint, the CEO of DCN. We've got a special guest as well. Ariel Garcia, Director of Intelligence at Ad Transparency Nonprofit, Check My Ads. Ariel, Jason, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having it. Likewise. So, Ariel, why don't you tell me a little bit about the end of the Department of Justice's case? Anything fun, interesting, or scandalous happened in the last week?

Yeah, I will say it was definitely a markedly slower week than it was last week. A lot of the testimony that we heard was simply for the purpose of getting exhibits into evidence. But there were a couple of things that stood out. We started the week with Neil Mohan. and the big revelation there. And who is Neil Mohan, just to be clear? So he is now CEO of YouTube, but he came over with the double-click acquisition. And so one of the big focus areas of his testimony was about the Admeled yield manager acquisition.

And we saw internal decks where they were discussing whether or not to purchase a yield manager. What does that mean as well? So it basically helped publishers optimize yield. Jason, you can probably add more color to this than I can. Yeah, you hit it. That's it. Okay. Now, there is one important point. There's two kind of component functionalities that AdMeld had. One was the yield management functionality and the other was real-time bidding, right? And just so we're clear, yield management is managing the amount of money you make from your ads? Yeah, it is. Like I said, I'm not on the publisher side, so I don't know the, I've never worked in one, but I can certainly talk Google ads. But anyway, what Google did

when it ultimately did by ad meld was kill the real-time bidding bit, but we'll get to that. So we see a deck where they're debating whether a yield manager would be a good investment to make. And it says in the deck that their tech is irrelevant to Google. And then we see that they paid, I don't remember the exact number, but I think it was like a hundred million over the valuation. And before that, we see an internal exchange where Neil says something to the effect of, well, we could just buy it and park it somewhere. So they were upset that yield managers were starting to gain traction. It ran the risk of disintermediating DFP, and obviously that would cause risk to revenue through ADEX, which was very, very, very profitable for them.

So just break it down in simple terms for a simpleton, talking about myself here. So by killing off this product, this yield management company, it means that they would stop people being able to optimize how much they make. What are the ramifications of doing this? Well, remember that it came with the real-time bidding functionality as well. So what this was really about was two things. it was to, again, protect their ad-X revenue, but also to make sure that DFP,

that double-click for publishers stays critical. And so what they did was they took it in. They built in some of the core yield management functionality into DFP. They integrated that, but they got rid of real-time bidding so that they can keep, you know, restricting and setting the rules for the auction on, their side. Oh, so they deliberately kill the useful product that they owned as a means of, as a means of making the product worse so that they would make more money. And they didn't kill it. They parked it.

And then we had Neil try to explain that park didn't really mean what we all thought it meant. It just meant to continue to operate it status quo for now. That classic word park that I use to refer to operating something and using it. That's why it's called a car park and you drive on it. Exactly. So we hear something else very similar while we're on that topic. One of the other spicy things that happened was we heard from Jonathan Bellack yesterday. He's another long time now ex-Google employee that came over with the double-click acquisition. And with him, they were talking about exchange bidding, which was basically the product that Google launched to kill header bidding. And we see an email. about how their goal is to make exchange bidding slightly better than header bidding. And header bidding is the open source ad network approach. That's correct. So, well, not ad network, but like header bidding wrapper, it allows them to bid without like

Google getting first look at. It enabled a fair auction, right? Oh, Google will never have that then. So what we see is that their goal was to roll out a, uh, uh, exchange bidding so that it's slightly better than header bidding. And the DOJ asks Bellac, why slightly better? And he explains the context as his goal was for his team to roll out a product that is as much better than header bidding as possible. But the direction from leadership was to scale it back to only slightly better. And the DOJ asked him why that is, was it because

they wanted to protect addicts revenue and he said something to the effect of you're going to have to ask leadership about that. So that was another interesting one, right, about how they like intentionally, oh, and by this point, they also mentioned that header bidding innovation had continued. And so by this point, exchange bidding would be inferior. Right. So that was certainly interesting. And also told like a bit of a more nuanced story about the fact that even if the, the product organization wanted to do right by their publisher customers, they were hamstrung by leadership. That's very good.

I think that's what we say here. It does feel like this, I don't think there's any open and shut case and anything like this, but it does feel like Google's egregiously taken the piss in a lot of these scenarios. It feels like there's been a lot of testimony and discovery that is just them saying, what if we made it so that no one else could do this? and we would make more money than them through Bonopolis. It feels almost too on the nose.

Yeah, no, that's fair. And then I'll save my last one big highlight that is one that not too many other people are talking about, so I'm making sure to talk about it all the time. So during Brian O'Kelly's deposition tape, he used to be CEO of UpNexus. Now he is CEO of Scope 3. During the end of his deposition tape,

He talks about how pre-bid, which is the open-source thing that we were talking about before, kind of, pre-bb was brought to IAB Tech Lab that typically will govern like open-source standards and stuff like that. They wanted Tech Lab to take over the governance of the pre-bid standards, and IAB Tech Lab rejected it. Why? Because Google vehemently objected. Obviously, they were worried about the threat it posed to them. And so that's why pre-bid became its own separate nonprofit. So we also, Brian, flags that Google at the time at least, was the biggest financial contributor to IAB. And what is IAB, just for the listeners? Interactive Advertising Bureau. The tech lab is a separate entity, to be clear. There is some, overlapping governance, but I just don't, I know that there will be a barrage of people that say

they're separate. So I'm acknowledging they are separate entities, but there is overlapping governance. The IAB Tech Lab has a lot of standards, like they have the OpenRTB standards. IAB itself has its own standards or frameworks that it oversees. But in terms of like the technical standards, that's under the IAB Tech Lab. So they're kind of like a professional association for the ads industry of digital ads? Yeah. Ads, ad tech, etc. I mean, this one, just to jump in, this one, to be fair, I was not in the courtroom when

they read this one in when they showed this deposition. So I saw the news report on it in ad exchange, I think. But, you know, this is a situation where app nexus, the largest independent ad tech company out there besides Google at the time, you know, had this open source code that they developed. with other players to open up the auctions and create a fair environment against Google. And what the report is, and what Brian O'Callie, the CEO, testified on growth is that, yeah, that they had this and they want to donate it to the industry, right? So you got this industry association that's supposed to be for the betterment of the entire industry,

and one company's interests weighed in heavier than the rest of the entire industry, which is, you know, a very clear symptom of the problem we're talking through in all these lawsuits, right? Is that that one company's interest outweigh everybody else and they just continue to gain more and more market share. So it's very, that's very concerning. I didn't shed light, good light on IEB either, frankly. It feels like we are at this point in the ads industry where things are, if Google is broken up in the way they're suggesting, it's going to have more ramifications than just for Google. It feels like there are organizational shifts that will have to happen as a result. That's right. Those who have aligned with them.

at least. That's right. And I think in moments like this, because we are getting to this moment, frankly, between the search opinion and now this trial where it seems to be headed, sometimes it's hard to think through what this means and the collateral damage and people worry about the negative, but it also creates a lot of opportunity, right? And so it unlocks and creates oxygen for everybody. And that's the fun part. Have we heard anything more about Jedi Blue? Jedi Blue, the Facebook Google deal that is a big deal. or isn't a big deal depending on who you ask? I looked at Texas in Q1 of next year.

Yeah. Is that where the suits are happening? That's where the state AG suit is, and that's where they were able to depose Sunarpa Shai and they were able to depose the Facebook witness. It's come up in a few different ways. And it continues, even today, where they are trying to bring Facebook in

as a competitor in this relevant market that this suit's all about. And you start to, it's the threat of Facebook coming into the market. But the rest of that story is that Facebook didn't really come into the market because they had this sweetheart deal with Google to not come into the market, right? And so we're not telling the rest of the story right now. And I think it's because the Just Department maybe doesn't need to tell the whole story. They already have enough.

But I don't know if you have a different readerial. No, I think that's right. I mean, you're exactly right that it came up like once. but I also agree that's part of the contortion that they're doing. And the other part of the contortion is still like the market definition contortion. Like just today at the very end, they were going through. We started to hear from a Microsoft employee Benezer. I think it was, is it Ben John?

That's it. It was Ben John. And they were talking about how Xander had helped. Microsoft gain a foothold in ad tech. But if you actually read the documents, Google was pointing us to, it was talking about how Xander invested in video. So we're still ignoring the display market and they're like systematic control of it. They're just kind of pointing to all of the other areas that, uh,

that they, that they haven't yet taken completely over just yet. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter.

The worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right? That's the name.

The Harvard Yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcast.

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I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream a chicken suit.

This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura podcast network available on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, that kind of leads us to the next part. So it sounds like today we're recording Friday, September 20th. My iPhone is still not arrived. So Google is now on the stand. So walk me through it. Jason, why don't you start?

Sure. So they bring up their first witness, who we don't know a lot about. because he seems to have disappeared off the internet. But he's been there for nearly two decades, and he's one of the few people that didn't leave when the lawsuit was filed. And most of the Google-led defense, the Google attorneys were focused on, I think, two things.

One was having him draw out on a visual, the entire ad tech supply chain and all of Google's components of it, which at first seemed to, seemed like a good strategy to kind of confuse the room and the judge. But I think at the end of day, it was more annoying. And it actually, it just showed that they were all over the entire marketplace, right? And so it was just a lot of smoking mirrors. And then the other piece was to try to bring in this element of all these different products,

serve other types of advertising, be it video, be it app advertising, be it native advertising and stream. And so all these different things that are not actually part of this case to try to make advertising a larger market than it really is to make Google look less of a major player, right? So if you can actually bring in Facebook and TikTok or you can bring in Netflix advertising for video, then suddenly Google's not such a big player, right?

But it just, it didn't work. And when the Justice Department followed up, they actually just pulled up an email from this witness where he actually went through and talked about their business in those exact ways and it really negated everything he had testified and and you know there were a couple uh kind of elements of the judge also seeming to get a little bit annoyed and kind of ready to move on so um but yeah yeah um it also doesn't seem like their defense is any good it's really it's just very weird because the search trial, they were all pissing vinegar. They were like ready to rumble. This one, they're coming in. They're like, well, look.

This is what we got. Our first witness, who you will see has emailed literally what we're going to claim he isn't saying. It's just weird. Like, they just seem almost discombobulated. Yeah. It did. It felt, this is their first witness, right? So they needed to start strong. And it was not, it was not, it wasn't strong. And then, I mean, towards the end, just to kind of give the highlights, the, um, two things. things happened. One, and this is when Google's attorney was up, but she wanted to bring up some more recent things, right? Like the trade desk, one of the companies they compete with, their earnings from last month. She wanted to bring up something from the earnings last month, which is, you know, a year after discovery had closed. Like, it's not, you know, it was like a very clear objection for the just. And that's, yeah, that's like something you can't just kind of just cannot bring up.

Like it's not exhibit. It's never been, you know, asked about. It wasn't part of the deposition. It's literally from a month ago. And they wanted to bring up a deal that they'd done with Twitter from the last few months, right? And so the judge was like, you know, this stuff is not, you know, it's too early. She said something like, plus it's tainted. Like once all the lawsuits started being filed, like all this stuff is tainted, you're giving me. And so that was interesting. And then she said, and you're also talking about this entire ad tech ecosystem. And that feels more like something for remedies rather than liability. So she was saying like, Let's talk about this when we start to break you up. Yeah, when I'm punishing you, we will come back to this. We'll come back to this. So everybody in the courtroom kind of looked at each other and made their notes. But, you know, at the same time, you know, I don't know if that's definitely a leading in care of where she's going, but it got our attention. Ariel, have you seen anything solid from Google?

Like, have they had any wins so far? No. It sounds like I am saying that because I want to believe it and not because I don't know. I truly don't think you like that. I wouldn't bring anyone on who is just like I may want them to lose, but I want them to lose properly. Yeah. No.

Sincerely, they do not have a strong argument. The fact that their first witness landed with the judge as though they were trying to basically say, well, wouldn't it be like super complicated to blow it? us up. If that's your best argument, like, you know, and then the fact that, that, that, again, first witness, and it felt a little bit like they were resorting to tricks and bringing in documents that weren't part of discovery and that, that haven't been asked about, it's not, it just wasn't, it was not a strong way to start. They also, their, their ad tech spaghetti football situation, the DOJ went up there and they're like, okay, can you explain what that?

That is. Okay. So it was. By the way, that was the judge's description. So cool. So we are getting the point where she even is trying to make humor. So they bring up a gray oval on the screen, like a ball-shaped oval. And then they ask him to start mapping out the ecosystem.

And he puts, they put ad tech ecosystem at the top. They put like by side on the right, cell side on the left. And then he starts populating it with. with Google products first. Cool. And it's all Google products. So it's like, okay, like let's start with search in O and O and then like they go all the ad sense for content, add sense for search.

They go in order and explain the history of why they're absolutely everywhere. And then like there's so now by this point and they draw lines connecting everything. So at this point, it's a mangled mess of Google logos and unnamed alleged competitors. So it was, yeah, it was like a big bowl of ad tech spaghetti where Google is the meatballs absolutely everywhere. And some competitor flex are in there as seasoning. It was, and then the DOJ gets up and they're like, first of all, we need to preserve this because we're going to come back to it. So they preserve that. Thank you for this, by the way.

The DOJ gets up and they're like, okay, so if I'm a publisher, if I'm Wall Street Journal and I want to sell added, inventory on my website and not and I'm not on my app right will search help me do that will ad center search help me do that and they go down the list one by one removing the things that do not help them monetize um display ad space on their website and we get to basically exactly where the doj's complaint started um with the exception of because he was on the cell side they didn't touch the DSP, like they left DV3, or they got exhausted with this, but we got to exactly why, like, to me, it actually would, this was the best way to explain to the judge why their complaint outlined the markets that it did. So in my view, it kind of completely, uh, horribly backfired.

Is this kind of published anywhere, the spaghetti box? Not yet. It will be demonstrative football. I shouldn't say food was a, was a theme today because. Even with the first witness this morning who was the expert, the last expert for the DOJ. Dr. Robin Sly, it looks like. Yeah, and Google was really trying to confuse the judge and confuse him. He was really sharp and did not fall for a lot of things that they tried to get him to bite on.

But, well, bad pun, sorry. But Google's attorney was bringing up, trying to bring up product differentiation, I think. And I think at the time was trying to explain why they charged 20. 20% further ad exchange for the last decade while everyone else charges a lower rate and why they could justify this higher price. And it wasn't just because of monopoly maintenance. And so he was talking about differentiating higher value from lower value, I think. So he brought up like, well, first he brought up, I think, chips and gasoline at gas stations, but then he brought up the Whopper versus the Big Mac. And then he brought up Coke versus Pepsi and the judge at some point

interrupted and said, you must be really hungry this morning. You don't need the judge saying stuff like that. It's not. I think she was amused. She was trying to bring fun to ad tech after 10 days of watching Google get tortured. We also did Chiquita Bananas versus. And I'm like, nice. Well, at least today, instead of comparing apples to oranges, they're going to do bananas to bananas.

So it's progress. Jesus. So what is Google's argument? What is their actual? They've lost on market definition. They've lost on, you know, they lost on confusing the judge, I think. I think they're down to the maybe the two-sept. It's this MX case of two-sided market versus if it's one market, the whole thing,

versus individual markets. But I don't, everybody I talk to doesn't think they have a prayer there. Can you walk me through it despite its flimsiness? Well, one, I'm not an expert on the MX Supreme Court case. But if you think about a credit card transaction where on both sides it happens all at once, then there is a case that went to Supreme Court. I think it was Ohio versus I'm not positive. I think it's Ohio MX.

I'm now outside my boundary. But this idea that it's a single market and both parties are transacting together at the same moment versus, you know, this is a market. there's clearly a buy side, clearly a sell side. There's different actors on both sides. And there are companies that, you know, a couple of companies that participate in multiple places, just they can't really compete. So it's very different than a single credit card transaction. Also, not, not, I'm pretty stupid, but something obvious here seems to be that doesn't Google bid at the beginning and the end of the auction. That's right.

Then that really isn't one thing happening in an instant. Right. That's several things. There's multiple places where it comes to. together then into a, yeah, yeah. And there's a bunch of different things, right? There's prices, you know, when you buy from MX, it's a single transaction. You don't have an auction.

There's lots of different things here that I think just fall apart. And they also try and make it sound like inherently in order to serve one side. You have to also serve the other side. That is simply not the case. Like, yes, there are a few companies that have or had before they got driven out of the market, at a DSP and SSP and an ad server, right? But there are also standalone DSPs. There are standalone ad servers, a handful of them left, right?

There are standalone exchanges. So it kind of falls apart in that way as well. But I agree that that is the only, I think, unfortunately, for them, they've put all of their eggs in that basket. The other arguments that they're making about pro-competitive rationales are just very flimsy. I actually... What are they? I mean, it's... So I made buzzword bingo this week. I made bingo

card and I passed them out to the press box. But it's every day we hear they're trying to convince the court that the fees for their products and their growth is justified by the better quality of their product. So they talk a big game about inventory quality and inventory curation via

ad-ex that they vet They vet the advertisers that are allowed to advertise there. They vet the publishers that are allowed to monetize. And it just has no basis in reality. They talk about spam. Really good if you don't use the internet. They talk about spam, malware, ad fraud, brand safety. So they're trying to hold out their product as like the pinnacle of these things.

The interesting thing is from the economist's perspective, quality is the way that they described that Robin Lee described quality is for publishers that would be yield revenue money like that that would be quality and for advertisers it would be ROI so it's a lot of like chickens talking at ducks and using words to describe different things the other thing I would say that they're doing is they jump from perspective to perspective depending on one it's convenient, right? So if something is harming publishers, they'll talk about how it benefited advertisers, but the question here is about the impact of publishers. They do that all day, right? So that's the other kind of little bit of a game that they're playing.

They're trying to show that where something was bad for publishers, it was good for someone else. And I think that the DOJ has done a good job of also deconstructing that largely through their expert witness testimonies. Yeah, the one of the thing I'd add on the pro competition, because I felt like I got a taste of it at the end of today, is, and there was the Google, the first witness. They were talking about the mission of Google to fund the information of the world, and where that probably will go, and I saw this with a search trial, and I saw the App Store trial, the Google, remember they lost both of those, but they tried to make an argument

that all of this conduct and all of this way. that we're creating through this Android operating system and through this ad marketplace that we create actually helps fund this entire ecosystem. So if you can argue that the way that they're running their conduct to create a bigger ad market actually ends up driving more revenue through to publishers, then they would argue that that's competitive, even though they're taking more and more of the money over time and and they're the one that's worth, you know, two and a half trillion. And again, through the debt thing that we talked about last time,

the publisher debt, that kind of very severely undermines their argument. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk, to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriters, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst?

Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard.

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on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape. my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery, and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier.

We're not becoming. social and connected. We're becoming more individualized, but we actually meet people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Jason, you were at the search trial, you said. Yes. How has Google felt different? between them? Is it the same attorneys? Is it different attorneys? Their argument sounds much weaker at the very least? Totally different set of attorneys. And I would say that this case is more

complicated. So there's a bigger opportunity to try to confuse things where the search case really came down to, you know, would the judge understand and would they be able to prove the network effects and the importance of scale with data. And then, you know, is buying out the exclusive search slot, is that truly exclusive or is that just a preference, et cetera? So like there's this definition of exclusionary conduct. Anyway, so that one was more, I think, a matter if you had to play it out and you got to see some of the bad conduct, but it was ultimately going to be based on some legal analysis where this one, you know, the actual storytelling is really, really important on both sides. And to be fair, we're only a half a day into Google's defense,

but it looks like the just departments got a lot better material. There is one thing I was reminded of as you were talking that I'm actually curious to get your take on while we're here. I think if there were one argument that seems to be landing somewhat with the judge, it is this idea that in order to they're being asked to provide access to their customers or they're being asked to allow things that would require them to build new functionality for their tools. I don't understand how that would land even if we buy that they would have to build these things. Like how many millions do they make in a minute?

So I don't really understand. I just, I say that because I know, I think today the judge did ask the expert witness or she allowed a line of questioning to continue that seemed to indicate that this is an area that she is thinking about. So I was curious about your take. I mean, at risk of asking me to explain another Supreme Court decision, I think that that's trying to get at the other defense that Google has tried to lay out there walking in, which is this Trinko case that, basically it's a refusal to deal, a duty to deal. And does a company have to actually enable its rivals or provide APIs or allow its rivals to use its products?

But that's not really central to the case. And it's really a matter of they tied their markets together and forced the customer bases to use them. And so, but I think that's the line of defense they're trying to go down. Has there also been discovery throughout this case where people just talk about AdEx sucking? There's that too. Being a shitty product that sucks. It's caused twice as much and it's not as good because, yeah, I mean, it's the definition of monopoly, right?

Yeah. It's, it really feels like we're watching an empire crumble. It's so strange because you look at these companies for years as these kind of immovable beasts, these titans that will never be broken. But when they're in front of the Department of Justice, like, I don't know, man. Like, it's actually good. We do this. Like, look at my.

my, look at my annoying drawing I did. Like, what do you think? Like, it's just strange. Like, how it was always this flimsy? Really interesting to watch them have to draw it out in that spaghetti football on a screen and not be able to use any other fancy video and storytelling beyond, you know, the attorney at the lectern and a single visual on the wall. And, you know, everybody in the courtroom is watching Google past posted notes back and forth from its attorneys to its comms people to run the door and try to tell their story outside the courtroom because there's no TVs or, you know, audio, et cetera. That was one thing that you tweeted out that I'd love to talk about, though.

Some of the pre-briefs that Google had been doing around Google ads. I would love to talk about that, primarily fiend of the show, Casey Newton, who had Google's lawyer's hand up his asshole, not literally, but he was doing ventriloquist bullshit. So there was a story towards the end of October 2020. believe, where Casey Newton on platformer, I apologize, was suggesting anyone's hands was anywhere near anyone's unmentionables there. It's not true. However, Casey clearly, he, and as per of the discovery, which we'll link in the episode notes, Jason, you posted this. It's, they briefed a bunch of journalists, including Casey Newton, and then Casey Newton put out this piece,

which is like, yeah, here's why I think the Google, the Google's argument against the DOJ over, it's actually good. But also it could be bad. He put out that piece. Wow. Yes, he did. I went and chased that bad boy down. Oh, really?

Tell me a little bit about these briefs because. So I didn't want to call any individual because. That's my job. Yeah. So, you know, what we saw, what we saw was when the Justice Department filed its search complaints, again, which is the one they just won in August. So I like, I tried to remind everybody of that when I, when I shared that thread is, This is a complaint that was filed and then they lost. Google lost this, right?

It's a winning complaint by the Justice Department. And what we saw was Google's systematic reaction to when that complaint was filed and all of the people that they briefed, the friends of theirs that went on air on television to defend them, the editorial boards that they pitched that wrote pieces. And most of those pieces were all, here's why the Justice Department has filed a lousy case. Here's why Google's going to win.

Here's why, you know, people don't understand how important Google is to our world. And it turns out all those people were wrong. And, you know, when you're writing a piece like that with a hot take, the day the complaints filed, and I guarantee most of them never read the complaint and never saw the, you know, the discovery that then came afterward, you know, you're bound to be wrong if you're just listening to Google. And so, yeah, yeah, it's their spin machine. And I will just not put any words in anyone's mouth other than my own case. in October 20th, 2020.

This piece is quite long, I'd say it's about 1,500, 2,000 words. And it talks about where the DOJ's case is weak for quite some time, but then at the end says he spoke with a spokesperson. But it is word for word basically what they wanted him to say. It's just shame. It's such shameful shit. Not talking specifically about Casey anymore so that you guys can say something. It just sucks because, look, this case is, as we are finding over these episodes,

deep and weird to pull apart, and the same as with search as well, and there's nothing wrong with showing both sides of it. But at the same time, I feel like being briefed by Google's lawyer is not actually showing both sides. That's right. I mean, I think that's why I'm so happy to be here throughout, even though it's obviously massively disruptive to my regularly scheduled life. The bloggers curse. But that's exactly why I told me. important. Google has so many resources at their disposal. They have such a well-oiled spin machine. And it's very difficult to cut through the noise to give perspective on actual reality, right? So, like, yes, I absolutely have my opinions, but it's been equally as important with this

trial to give people resources to develop their own conclusions and to do their own analysis. So like we've been pulling the exhibits into a way that's more organized to just try and empower people to USV Google Ads.com. We've been hyping it every episode. It's banging work. But like, yes. So I absolutely love weaving in my commentary into my updates, right? But the reality is a lot of the resources on that website are just to that. They're resources so that others have things to look at that aren't coming just from Google's comms team, you know? And I think the problem with Casey's piece, I am going to bang on him a little bit because he deserves it, is that I actually don't mind even if someone agreed with Google.

If someone was just like, I actually think this case is weak, like Nilai Patel, who have my problems with, he said it was a vacation. I don't know if I agree, but that came off as Nilay given an opinion, which is fine. Yeah, good PR, whatever, but still his opinion. What Casey did here was presented as if this was some sort of objective analysis. And I think what frustrates me about a lot of this is you. Also, I don't believe objective analysis really exists. I think everything's subjective.

But also, if you're going to talk to Google's lawyer, talk to the Department of Justice lawyer, if they'll even talk to you. And if they won't, don't talk to Google's lawyer. Because you are being influenced. And Google has so much money. It's not like you are helping a pop star. It's not like you're helping your favorite author. You're helping a multi-trillion dollar juggernaut that controls chunks of the world's economy and knowledge.

Like launder their reputation. It's just, it's frustrating. Also, the thing we saw them celebrate at the top of their summary, which is definitely a peeve of mine that everybody on Twitter knows. And I feel like I've made a little bit of a dent there is Google, and Facebook does this too. puts a blog post up that's labeled often as like news and then they put down basically a press release and their whole goal is to get people to share that right and so reporters as soon as they post will then share that blog post and and google noted that half of the stories out there had links to their blog post right which is basically just doing their press for them um and so yeah yeah i mean

But to be fair, and flip this around and the positive, it's where we kind of talked to the very end last episode, Ed, is that, because I reflected on this today, I'm sitting there in the courtroom and I'm looking and I've got two full rows in front of me of Google comms people. Two full rows. But over on the left, there were also three rows of press, which we did not have in the search case. They're in the room, Bloomberg, New York Times, you know, Emlex, et cetera. they're all sitting there and they're hearing the exact same thing because they have to be in the room, which is kind of interesting. You know, they can't be off walking the halls. They have to be in the room or they're going to miss it.

And then REL's back in the corner too, just nailing everything down. And like so it does feel like we've got actual eyes and ears in the room and getting the facts out there in a better way than the search case. And it also feels like the ad press, I feel like the digital ad press has been like after honestly a few years where I was kind of worried they were going away. they've come back quite aggressively here. And I don't think it's anything, if it's personal, it's just because Google's been fucking around, they're finally finding out. I don't think it's any particular agenda.

But also, I do challenge you, listeners, if you think any of this is reporters coming in with an agenda, look at the other side. Look at what the tech industry has done using the media and look at this. We should be proud as members of the media of the ad tech press and how they have gone about this. and how Ariel and Jason are ruining their weeks going to this courtroom.

But it's great because this is an empire, in my opinion, this is his opinion, that needs to fall. That it needs to be fair. Why do you and I and normal people have to compete like regular people and these rich bastards get to do more? It's just frustrating. I like seeing them burn. I'm completely subjective, by the way. I do not pretend otherwise. All good. All good. So yeah, so Google will have probably about a week left of defending itself,

and then it'll be back to, you know, maybe some rebuttals and stuff, but then it'll be to the judges. So about a week left? I think. Yeah, I think by next Friday. Hell yeah. Well, I think we can call it there. Jason, where can people find you? Jason underscore Kint, K-I-N-T, or you can always check out digital contentnext.org, who I work for, and all of our resources and our accounts there, too. And Ariel? Ariel S. Garcia or check my ads.org or USB google ads.com. I'm everywhere right now. But also, genuinely, USB Google Ads is so good. It is one of the best things out there.

And you can read all of those wonderful emails where they're just like, yeah, we love doing monopolies. Being a little bit dramatic there. But thank you so much, everyone for listening. I'm, of course, Ed Zittron. And yeah, we'll have probably another, at least one more episode on this. we can wrap it up. Thank you so much. Thanks for having. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattosowski.

You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's Your Ed dot at to visit the Discord. and go to our slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, guests, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the time. challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything.

I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on to Ernie Stewart. The chip. I'm Tab Ramos.

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Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS.

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