Upping the ante

When publishers take on Big Tech it’s been like ants fighting elephants, but when the news industry combines, it’s the bigger elephant.

I’ve been making this argument for years.

Finally, we have proof as Canada’s publishers, government, regulators, and lawmakers have joined forces to break up Big Tech, and demand tens of billions in damages.

The country has become the epicentre of an emerging model which may coalesce into a model that can sustain publishing for years. It’s heady stuff, and I’ve just got back.

First, I revealed a class action brought by a feisty local news owner in Alberta and a top legal firm that’s on target to win billions in damages for local publishers.

Then, this weekend, I reported how Canada’s largest publishers are suing OpenAI demanding $14,7000 for every article stolen to train Chat-GPT. That’s billions more.

Today I’m pulling the wraps off another gangster move, this time from the Canadian competition bureau.

It just ordered Google to sell its ad server DFP and ad exchange AdX, which are the backbone of the Mountain View monopolist’s $238 billion-a-year ad machine.

The bureau also wants the country’s publishers compensated for the “200 billion times a month” Google required them to use its anticompetitive ad tech.

They want multi-billion-dollar damages and if the search giant blocks access to its data, the bureau says it will fine Google “three per cent of its global revenue”.

Put your calculators away. I’ve already done the numbers:

Three per cent of its 2023 revenue of US$307 billion is US$9.2 billion.

Heavy messing

The Canadian competition bureau’s demands follow a three-year investigation which concluded that Google coerced publishers to use its anticompetitive ad products.

If this rings a bell, that’s because it echoes evidence in US courts from the DoJ and publishers who found themselves victims of Google’s monopoly power.

The Canadian competition bureau said Google didn’t do this once or twice, but “200 billion times a month”.

It said Google “abuses its dominant position to ensure that it would maintain and entrench its market power.

“Google’s conduct locks market participants into using its ad tech tools, prevents rivals being able to compete, and distorts the competitive process.

“The bureau found Google unlawfully tied ad tech tools together to maintain its dominance and leveraged its position to distort auction dynamics by:

• Giving its own tools preferential access to ad inventory.
• Taking negative margins in certain circumstances to disadvantage rivals, and
• Dictating terms which publishers could transact with rival ad tech tools.

“By implementing this anticompetitive conduct, Google has been able to inhibit innovation, inflate advertising costs, and reduce publishers’ revenues.”

Google has a 90 per cent share of the ad server market in Canada meaning almost every publisher in the country is in line for damages if successful.

The findings have been sent to the country’s Competition Tribunal for a final decision.

It's a twister

Ordering Google to sell its golden ad tech, and going after billions in its vault, is ballsy. It puts Canada neck-and-neck with the US, which has led the Google backlash.

It also adds to Google’s international legal woes, which include an imminent verdict on whether it has a third monopoly in ad tech, and a class action in Australia.

The US Department of Justice has already asked courts to force Google to:

1. Sell its market-leading browser Chrome.
2. Stop paying rivals, including Apple, tens of billions to be the search default.
3. Sell off investments in Anthropic and stop buying rivals.
4. Place Android under the purview of a Government-appointed committee.
5. Expose ad data that’s been hidden to disable publishers and hike prices, and
6. Allow publishers to deny content being used to train AIs, while remaining in search.

As we near the end of 2024, one thing we can be sure of: We ain’t in Kansas any more.

Bigger stick

Google responded to Canada’s latest attack saying it will fight.

The Financial Post quoted it saying the ruling “ignores the intense competition” and “ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choice”.

But that defence looks toothless and perilously shaky now those same claims have been comprehensively debunked by US judges over months of trials.

It was a bad look when News Corp and the Daily Mail told the court they were forced to use Google ad tech because they were “held hostage” or would “lose millions”.

See, mom was right. Telling the truth is worth it. And crime doesn’t pay.

What’s also fascinating is Canada’s timing.

Because in just 24 days’ time, Google is required to hand $100 million to Canadian publishers under a Government law called C18 that’s designed to re-fund news.

Google’s now being asked to pay up just days after the same Government ordered its break-up, and weeks after the publishers it’s paying also launched class actions.

The friend, frenemy, enemy days have finally, finally, arrived.