The Googs wants to do no harm. But monopolies, by definition, do harm. And when it comes to delivering news to your digital doorstep, the Mountain View-based technology company has no equal.
Last year, Google made $4.7 billion from its news products. The journalists who create that content deserve a cut of that $4.7 billion, said David Chavern, the president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, which represents more than 2,000 newspapers across the country, including The New York Times.
The Goog’s $4.7 billion is nearly as much as the $5.1 billion brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year.
“They make money off this arrangement,” Mr. Chavern said, “and there needs to be a better outcome for news publishers.”
Will A Legislative Remedy Work?
Two giant companies — Alphabet, which is Google’s parent, and Facebook — are major distributors for news publishers. The two of them ferry more than 80 percent of external traffic to various sites.
“We have called for legislation that would provide a limited safe harbor for news publishers to be able to collectively negotiate for better terms with platforms such as Google and Facebook,” Chavern said. “This is the only solution to correcting the current marketplace imbalance, which allows the platforms to dominate the web and related advertising infrastructure, as well as control who sees publishers’ content and when.”
The Best Influence Money Can Buy
Google spent $21.7 million on lobbying in 2018, up 38% from two years earlier.
For two straight years, it’ been the top corporate spender, outranking traditional front-runners like Boeing and AT&T. Amazon and Facebook also reached record levels of lobbying expenditures in 2018.
The U.S. is well behind Europe in enforcement. In March, Google was slapped with a $1.7 billion fine, which it’s appealing, from the European Commission for stifling competition in online advertising. Since 2017, the EU has charged the company with two other fines totaling close to $8 billion for anti-competitive practices.
How Did You Get Here?
Adpulp.com doesn’t get much Google juice. We’re not against it, but we do rely on direct traffic to keep the site alive.
Here’s a breakdown of Adpulp.com traffic sources from May.
Advertising and marketing are broad topics. In a field that’s well-traveled, “owning keywords” is a pursuit for the well-endowed.
I understand that writing for the machines has a positive end in mind. Nevertheless, I have never been interested in gaming the system. My interest here is reaching real people with the kind of consistent inside-the-industry analysis that is unavailable elsewhere.
Google knows how much quality advertising-related content I’ve put up since 2004 on this site. Google knows that Adpulp.com is a legitimate source, but if you look at who ranks for which advertising terms, you can see how messy the search business is.
Search for the term “Ad blog” or “Advertising blog” and you’ll see that Adpulp.com is nowhere to be found on page one, or page two, or page three. I’m not complaining about it, but I do think there’s something wrong with the results.
