Mary Ford of New York-based Mary Ford & Co. has been named East Coast sales rep for HUM Music+Sound Design, Santa MonicaA.Montoya Reps, Dallas, has been signed to handle Southwest and Southeast representation for Porter Film Company, Hollywood, and Chicago-based Steve Ford Music… Julie Dey has been appointed regional marketing director for Broadcast Video Inc. (BVI), Miami, Coconut Grove and Miami Beach, and its sister companies, including convergent media production firm Visual Fire, visual effects division Deep Blue Sea and music/sound design shop Rockin’ Chair, all based in Miami. Dey will be located in Orlando, FlaA.Director Scott McCullough, who was previously handled via The Directors Network, Studio City, Calif., is lining up representation in different areas of the country, his latest link being with Paradox Films, Charlotte, N.C., for sales in the Carolinas, Virginia, Florida, Kentucky and Washington, D.C. Studio Productions, Nashville, continues to rep him in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana….
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