TMW #187 | Wednesday Martech Briefing

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Google is a monopolist, trusting the black boxes, programmatic influencer marketing

Here’s the week in Martech: 

• Google is a monopolist: A US judge ruled that it violated antitrust laws with Search.
• Trusting the black boxes: The lack of trust in algorithmically-driven ads.
• Programmatic influencer marketing: Big agencies are buying influencer marketplaces.
• Everything else: AI’s Black Friday, hashing isn’t anonymizing, the increasing CX maturity of SMBs, e-commerce retailers struggle to identify website visitors, and more.

 👇 Here’s everything you’ve missed in marketing and tech this week.

📰 Latest Developments

Google is a monopolist. Judge Amit Mehta – the federal judge overseeing the Google Search antitrust case – has ruled in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), pronouncing that the company has maintained an illegal monopoly in the general search and text advertising markets. In issuing his verdict, Judge Mehta cited a range of different manifestations of Google’s monopoly in search: Exclusionary contracts with phone manufacturers and web browsers that make Google the default; Search’s “remarkably durable” market share; the fact that even the largest Fortune 500 companies have no feasible alternative; and that Google has been able to raise prices on search ads without constraint. The next phase of the trial will focus on remedies, which could range from mandating certain business practices – like implementing choice screens or stopping Google’s default deals – to breaking up its Search business entirely. Given the growing concern over Big Tech’s dominance of modern business and life, drastic measures like company breakups could be a real possibility – if not in this case, then in any of the upcoming monopoly cases against Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google again in the upcoming case against its Adtech business. Judge Mehta’s ruling sets the stage for the latter trial: Google is now officially a monopolist. Link

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Stay Curious,

Keanu Taylor

Make sense of marketing technology.

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Want to share something interesting or be featured in The Martech Weekly? Drop me a line at juan@themartechweekly.com.