AUGUST 18, 1995/Executive producer Stelio Kitrilakis and head of production Arthur Lang, who left San Francisco-based (Colossal) Pictures in May, have announced that their new production company, Complete Pandemonium, also San Francisco, will open later this month…. Composer Robert Miller has left bicoastal JSM to join Sacred Noise, the New York-based music shop founded last month by former JSM rep Jeff Rosner and composer Michael Montes….
AUGUST 17, 1990/Malcolm MacDougall will leave his position as executive producer/head of sales at New York-based animation house Charlex to head production and new business at agency The MacDougall Company, also New York….Deborah Timmons has been named executive producer at Dick James Inc., a Torrance, Calif.-based production company. For the past five years, she freelance line produced almost exclusively for director/ cameraman Dick James….Mike Bige-low, formerly feature film visual effects supervisor at Dream Quest Images, Simi Valley, Calif., has become a staff director at the studio’s spot division….
Answer the "Flashback Trivia" question under "Feedback."
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