Google grilled on ad business dominance by U.S. Senate panel
Senate Judiciary Committees antitrust panel, pressed Googles Don Harrison, who testified remotely, on the companys dominance of the interlocking businesses which connectadvertisers with newspapers, websites and other firms looking to host them.
As that business has grown, so too have complaints that Google - which both operates the ad selling and buying platforms, and sells its own inventory through those platforms -has conflicts of interest and has manipulated or rigged online ad technologies and auctions to favor its own interest, Lee said.
He and others pressed Harrison on advertiser complaints that Google was opaque about where ad dollars went, specifically how much went to publishers and how much to Google.
The hearing was held as President Donald Trumps Justice Department is expected to file a lawsuit against Google within weeks, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Blumenthal called the task of defending Google thankless because of the many roles it plays between buyer and sellers in online advertising.
Klobuchar, whose father was a journalist, expressed concern that newspapers did not receive adequate revenues from advertisements placed on their websites because of Googles dominance.
While conservative bias is not covered by antitrust law, Senator Lee, backed by Hawley, questioned Harrison about Googles threat to drop a conservative publication from its advertising and bar some conservative commentators from making money on Googles YouTube.
Googles Harrison said the companies involved had violated policies, such as those against placing advertising next to racist or similar content.
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