Lawmaker Touts Bill To Break Up Google's And Meta's Ad Businesses
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, May 3, 2023
Utah Senator Mike Lee on Wednesday touted his proposed bill to break up the ad businesses of Google and Meta, saying the measure would mark the first step toward “reining in the power and predation" of large tech companies.
The proposed Advertising Middlemen Endangering Rigorous Internet Competition Accountability (AMERICA) Act would bring “transparency and competition” into the digital advertising market, the Republican lawmaker said at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.
The bill, similar to last year's proposed Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act, would prohibit ad exchange owners with more than $20 billion in ad transactions from owning supply-side platforms or demand-side platforms.
advertisement
advertisement
The proposed law also would prohibit the biggest supply-side platform owners from owning demand-side platforms, and vice versa.
Digital ad companies that process more than $5 billion in digital ad transactions would be required to act in their customers' best interests, provide transparency, and prevent conflicts of interest.
“We worry about large trillion dollar corporations that control our phones, our watches ... even baby monitors, fitness routines,” Lee said at the hearing. “All of this technological and financial hegemony rests on one thing -- digital advertising, because digital ads are how you turn data into money.”
Lee's office said when the bill was introduced that it would “most likely require Google and Facebook to divest significant portions of their advertising businesses,” and could affect Amazon, Apple and other companies.
Interactive Advertising Bureau executive vice president for public policy Lartease Tiffith blasted the proposed law, stating that it “has the potential to destroy one of the most powerful growth engines of the economy -- digital advertising and media.”
The bill “will also hurt the millions of small businesses that rely on digital advertising to thrive, by creating a more inefficient, costly and fragmented advertising ecosystem,” Tiffith added.
Mr. Lartease Tiffith, IAB allowed Google to place my business in the "Gambling" category and created in my opinion a blacklist. I have nothing to do with Class 3 or Class 4 gaming. IAB refused to listen to my pleads to change this. Deft ears, censorship or however it is defined it has happened for years.
Even Facebook took down and wouldnt say a word to me or my attorney as to why. Facebook returned the law firm letter (2 in total) saying that they were "undeliverable". Funny, but the attorney sent the letter to the Facebook addess given to the SEC. Did Facebook make a mistake in their SEC quarterly filing?
The real issue behind the mistreatment Mr. Tiffith, is IAB allowed conduct that was not fair or unbecoming of your agency. My publisher/target marketing advertising platform is and has been a far superior programming marketing design to either what Google or Facebook has to offer. For Google, this will come out in court.
For IAB, your organization is depentent on the funds by both. Your values are in question by not supporting the small and mid-size publishers.