Biscuit Filmworks, the Los Angeles shop founded a year ago by director Noam Murro and executive producer Shawn Lacy Tessaro, has entered into an affiliation with bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander. Per the association, Biscuit can remain a boutique operation while accessing and being able to offer major company resources via MJZ….Chuck Pfeifer, head of sales at New York-based Pfeifer Van Dusen, has amicably parted ways with director Bruce Van Dusen. The two had been partnered in the company since its inception nearly three years ago. Van Dusen is continuing to maintain Pfeifer Van Dusen, and will likely come up with a new moniker for the production house in the coming weeks. He has brought on Mark Kovacs as his executive producer, succeeding the recently retired Marty Gillen. The company’s sales team consists of East Coast sales director Steve Torrisi and independent reps Yvette Lubinsky on the West Coast and Tim Harwood in the Midwest….Director Larry Frey, formerly of bicoastal/international @radical.media, has come aboard bicoastal Villains. A noted former agency creative at such shops as Amsterdam-based 180, and prior to that Wieden+Kennedy’s Tokyo and Portland offices, Frey jumped over to the production house side to focus on his directorial career last year when he joined @radical.media….Director Lenny Bass has signed with bicoastal HSI Productions….Director Jean-Marc Piche, formerly of Conspiracy, bicoastal and Austin, Texas, has joined Blind Spot Media, Santa Monica….Bicoastal production shop Cohn+Company has signed the directing team the Poiraud Brothers—Thierry and Didier—for commercial representation….Director Scott Gillen, perhaps best known for his prowess in automotive advertising, has returned to Cognito Films, the Culver City, Calif.-based shop that was his first formal spot roost. Between his stays at Cognito, Gillen worked out of bicoastal Coppos Films and, more recently, Venice, Calif.-based Cucoloris….Director Eric Goldstein is moving his Minneapolis shop Giraffe Film Company to Chicago….Director Barry Kimm, best known as a documentary filmmaker, has joined Minneapolis-based Twist for national spot representation…. Animation director Mike Jones has retired, closing his long-running Minneapolis-based shop Mike Jones Film Corp. Jones will be moving to his native Australia in the middle of 2002….
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