Toni Saarinen and Brook Durham of Saarinen, Los Angeles, have been named to handle the West Coast and Texas for Superior Assembly Editing Company, Santa Monica….Open Frame Productions, New York, has signed Connie Mellors of Connie Mellors & Company, Toluca Lake, Calif., to handle West Coast representation; Cathi Connor, Jim Waldron and Wendy Hanson of The Connor Group, Chicago, for the Midwest; and Fran Montoya of Montoya Reps, Dallas, to cover Texas. Maggie Klein of New York-based Maggie Klein & Co. remains Open Frame’s New York rep….Lee Pisarski of Lee+Lou Productions, a Los Angeles-based independent rep firm, is now handling national sales for director Scott Miller of Scott Miller & Company, Malibu, Calif….Steve Lewis, president/directors agent of Studio City, Calif.-based The Directors Network, has signed several helmers for exclusive freelance representation: Milan-based director/cameramen Alberto Dell’Orto; Yas, a Japanese spotmaker who resides in Los Angeles and is known for his stylized work; New York-based monologue and real-people specialist Conrad Fink; Les Luxford, whose reputation is in complex live action/visual effects design combo jobs; and director/cameraman Michael Dali, a Midwest artisan whose reel combines strong visuals with real people and monologue….Production designer Lauryn LeClere has joined The Skouras Agency, Santa Monica, for exclusive representation….Cinematographer John Toll has wrapped the feature Vanilla Sky and is now available for spots through the Judy Marks Agency, Los Angeles….Rick Lee has been appointed senior account executive of sales and marketing for Picture Pipeline, a West Los Angeles-based secure broadband solutions company launched by TRW (SHOOT, 1/26, p. 7). Picture Pipeline offers digital dailies, postproduction collaboration and file transfer services to the film, TV, spot and music video communities. Lee formerly was a senior account exec at post house Hollywood Digital….
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More