EP125 - PPC + Anti-Trust

#ppcchat Twitter discussion that runs on Tuesdays at 5pm GMT - Led by Sam (@DigitalSamIam) Q1 Did you read the House Report on Antitrust or any coverage of it? What are your preliminary thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with the broad strokes? Q2 One big takeaway from the report: it’s pretty clear regulators think that G, Apple, Amazon + FB have outsized influence within the digital economy. Do you think that’s right? Wrong? Why? Q3 While the House report didn’t really touch PPC or Digital Advertising, plenty of previous reports have covered it (most recently, the UK’s CMA). This included a discussion that vertical integration leads to conflicts of interest. What do you think? Q4 A second PPC-related criticism leveled involves Platforms (G, FB, Amazon) withholding relevant data from advertisers + publishers that would allow them to make more informed decisions. Discuss Q5 So, one of the big things about antitrust is the idea of tradeoffs and problems. IMO, I think there are 4-5 core "issues" that various people have with "Big Tech" -- some of these are antitrust problems, and some aren't. But we lump them all together. Discuss Q6 One of the underlying drivers of the report was the idea that Social Media (i.e. FB) has outsized influence in public discussion, including in the dissemination of misinformation. Lots of complexity here. So, do you think that the social media landscape should be more regulated? Do platforms have an obligation to take down misinformation? What levels of speech does this fall to? Q7 There has been discussion previously about regulating core internet functions (i.e. Search) as a utility (i.e. under the common carrier or public utilities doctrine)? Q8 How much of our complaints with tech are a result of problems unique to tech, and how much of our complaints are things that every other big company does that tech has optimized + scaled?