{"id":5416,"date":"2021-04-14T16:37:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T11:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/?page_id=5416"},"modified":"2021-04-14T17:28:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T11:58:10","slug":"google-fiduciary-duty-competitor-publishers-project-bernanke-thought-experiments","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/google-fiduciary-duty-competitor-publishers-project-bernanke-thought-experiments\/","title":{"rendered":"Google. Fiduciary Duty. Competitor. Publishers. Project Bernanke. Thought Experiments."},"content":{"rendered":"

LinkedIn Post:<\/a><\/p>\n

Google’s insider trading in digital-ads revealed… Project Bernanke. .. Project that allegedly gives its own ad-buying system an advantage over competitors on exchange…<\/p>\n

My Comments:<\/p>\n

Google is a private sector company. It’s an SOP in many pvt sector companies, if not also public sector companies, for one SBU to get preferential terms from another SBU of the same company. Google may be a dominant player in the AdTech market but it’s by no means a Monopoly. I see absolutely no reaon for this practice to attract antitrust provisions. Just goes to suggest that, of all bureaucrats, the ones in Antitrust agencies are the most jobless.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I love “Thought Experiments” but my lawyers tell me that, let alone hypotheticals, even parameterization of real world constructs is forbidden in legal contracts and arguments, so I won’t indulge myself with a thought experiment in this context. Google never said it verifies its search results, people assume they’re true. Google never said its Featured Snippet is fact, people assume that. Likewise, I’ve seen no evidence of Google committing anywhere that its ad exchange will give each ad buyer “competitive, fair and unbiased buying experience”. This is one more example of people assuming something that Google never committed. If the assumption fails to materialize, it’s the people who make the assumption that are culpable, not Google.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Called by various names like “obfuscation” and “plausible deniability”, this has been a common strategy in the world of governance and business for centuries. How I wish I were unique in my thoughts about this strategy – if it were true, I’d have been the world’s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n

It’s not a company’s responsibility to ensure that its competitors flourish or that its suppliers make money off of itself. ICYMI, under the present laws, it’s a fiduciary duty for a company’s officers to maximize profits by, among other methods, paying the least amount of money to its suppliers. When I file my company’s annual reports with the regulator, I have to specifically attest that I have not paid any more money to my suppliers than was absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n

This is the rule for every company. Just because some companies become dominant doesn’t mean these rules don’t apply to them. If antitrust regulators want to go after a platform for crushing competitors and impoverishing its members, then it should first exempt the platform from this overarching rule. Otherwise, they’re just passing their time.<\/p>\n

What may be a bad practice from the pov of publishers and competitors is good practice for shareholders. If the public strongly feels that a certain practice followed by a company is bad, they should call their lawmakers and ask them to enact a law to make it illegal. That’s how it works in a democracy. “Bad light, good light” is an opportunistic ploy often used by losers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LinkedIn Post: Google’s insider trading in digital-ads revealed… Project Bernanke. .. Project that allegedly gives its own ad-buying system an advantage over competitors on exchange… My Comments: Google is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5416","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}