FEBRUARY 18, 2000 Spike Jonze has decided to stay put at bicoastal/international Satellite for spots and music videos; official confirmation came last week that his contract extension is for three years….Executive producers Luke Thornton and Liz Silver, former principals at bicoastal/international The End, have launched production house Believe Media, and teamed with director David van Eyssen to form sister interactive shop, I Believe Media, both bicoastal ventures….Director/cameraman Lionel Coleman, formerly of now defunct 1/33 Productions, has joined Santa Monica-based production house Visitor….Director Walter Pawluk has signed for commercial representation with Dublin Productions, the Hollywood-headquartered company headed by principal/director Rick Dublin and executive producer Jonathan Miller….
FEBRUARY 17, 1995
Pi Edit, the offline house that recently moved into a new space in New York, has added Stu Eisenberg as a staff editor and plans on adding a third Avid soon. Eisenberg comes over to Pi Edit after more than 10 years as a senior editor at Dennis Hayes & Associates, New York….Director/cameraman Michael Givens has signed with TexasStory, Dallas, for commercial representation in the Southwest and Southeast regions only….Edit Sweet, Chicago, has announced the addition of Jan Maitland to its staff. Most recently, Maitland served as an editor at postproduction facility Optimus, Chicago….Director Billy Kent has signed with Crash Films, the Santa Monica company headed by producers Gary Ward and Bill Fortney….Michael Pollock has left edit house Dennis Hayes & Associates, New York, to take a job as executive producer at Vito DeSario Editing, New York….
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