Google Caught Doing More ‘Evil’

If you google “does Google manipulate the digital ad market,” you know what you won’t find in the crucial first page of results? A new Wall Street Journal report showing that the tech behemoth does just that.

That’s right: Not content with having eaten the sell-side of the online ad market whole, Google also has been screwing ad buyers: people and firms who want to reach through video ads the vast audiences it commands via YouTube.

Per the Journal, a study from media firm Adalytics suggess that around 80% of the tech giant’s video ad placements on thirdparty sites violate the company’s own purported standards and marketing promises (though Google denies this claim).

That is: Companies paying a huge premium to put ads on higher-quality sites, with top placement and audio on, actually ended up shunted off to lower-end sites, with bad placement and no sound. The buyers paid roughly 20 times what they should’ve for such results.

Buy a Cadillac from Google and get a Ford Pinto. And it’s not just little guys getting screwed, but outfits like American Express, Samsung and Johnson & Johnson — plus the federal government, including the US Army.

That’s right: Google feels comfy shortchanging a global superpower’s armed forces. It’s long past time to bring the hammer down.

All the more so because a larger issue lurks behind the ugly nickel-and-diming. Google has decimated the ad market that once sustained journalism in the United States; it’s also been hoovering up and remonetizing for itself the content we create, grubbing up billions while throttling media and never paying a red cent.

That’s why we cheered when Australia won its big battle with Big Tech to force sites to pay for the content — our content — they use to drive their traffic. America needs laws like that to staunch the bleeding.

Until the feds get smart (again, they’re allegedly getting shafted, too!), expect the bleeding and cheating to continue.