LOS ANGELES-The Directors Guild of America has promoted western executive director Warren Adler to the newly created post of associate national executive director, the Guild’s second-highest ranking executive. It has also promoted Bryan Unger from assistant executive director to the newly created position of associate western executive director. He will oversee the DGA’s services for the organization’s western region members.
Adler joined the DGA in 1975 as associate general counsel and became assistant western executive director in ’81 and western executive director in ’90. In that most recent capacity, he was responsible for contract enforcement and special agreements. Adler has also handled grievances and arbitrations, negotiated agreements, and currently serves as a trustee of the DGA pension and health plan.
Unger will oversee the DGA’s services for the organization’s western region members. Prior to joining the Los Angeles-based organization in 1994, Unger spent five years as an international representative with IATSE in New York.
The DGA represents more than 10,000 members whose creative work is featured in live theater, industrial, educational, documentary and theatrical films, as well as live, filmed and taped television, radio, videos and commercials.
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 โ 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