DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
A landmark lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department against Alphabet's Google over its dominance of advertising technology could help rivals and websites that sell ad space, but leaves an uncertain future for the advertisers themselves, experts told Reuters.
The Justice Department's complaint against Google on Tuesday called for the company to divest Google Ad Manager, a suite of tools including one that lets websites put ad space up for a sale and another that served as an ad marketplace that automatically matched advertisers with those publishers.
If the Justice Department lawsuit succeeds, "advertisers and publishers could have more leverage with more options with expanding players – and consequently more competition," said Neil Begley of Moody's Investors Service.
Apple Inc., which is steadily growing its nascent advertising business and promoting it as privacy-focused, could be a winner if Google ads become less effective, said Brian Mandelbaum, chief executive of ad tech company Attain.
Ad industry executives say Google's business in placing ads on websites it does not own gives Google valuable information on an ad's effectiveness.
Apple has "an ability to be a new dominant force," in advertising because Apple has data through its ownership of phones, its Safari web browser and the distribution of apps through the App Store, he said.
Google's competitors in ad tech are increasingly creating products that serve both the publishers like news websites, which sell ad space, and advertisers who buy ads, like Google currently does, said Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer at CafeMedia, which helps small and medium-sized publishers sell ad space.
If Google is forced to divest the tools that serve publishers, it would benefit competitors like Xandr, which is owned by Microsoft, that will still work with both sides of the ad-buying ecosystem, Bannister said.
With more options besides Google, publishers will have more transparency over how much they can sell ad space for, and could end up paying less in fees, Mandelbaum said.
If successful, the lawsuit could be "the beginning of serious business model changes for Google," said Paul Gallant, managing director at Cowen Washington Research Group.
The divested assets could result in Google losing key data that helps target ads to relevant consumers, he said.
If Google loses access to data signals, advertisers could see their Google ads become less effective, said Nikhil Lai, senior analyst at research firm Forrester.
At least twice before, the government has filed lawsuits against dominant companies with far-reaching results. A lawsuit breaking up AT&T, filed in 1974, resulted in an agreement in 1982 to break up the company. That breakup has been credited with a host of innovations in telephony.
The Justice Department's lawsuit against Microsoft, filed in 1998, reined in the company at a time when it was seeking to extend its dominant operating system to the internet browser. While the lawsuit settled, the fight is credited with opening the way for other internet innovators, like Google itself.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang and Diane BartzEditing by Nick Zieminski)
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Body Shop Canada is exploring a sale as it struggles to get its hands on enough inventory to keep up with "robust" sales after announcing it would file for creditor protection and close 33 stores.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
The U.S.’s Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a video that appears to show unauthorized personnel in the cockpit of a charted Colorado Rockies flight to Toronto.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.