NOVEMBER 17, 2000
After nearly eight years as a mainstay in the Chicago community, NuWorld Editorial has announced it will effectively close on Dec. 1….Lesley Robson-Foster has signed with Manhattan Transfer, New York, as a designer/director. Robson-Foster was most recently represented for spots through New York-based Zero 2 Sixty Productions, which she joined in September 1998….Post Logic Studios, the postproduction house with operations in Hollywood and Santa Monica, has appointed Barry Snyder as its president….Composer/executive producer Georg Bissen and composer/business director Shahin Motia have opened New York-based music house MetaTechnik. Victoria Gross is the new venture’s composer/sales rep….Gerry Stoll, an editor/graphic designer for 15 years, has joined Napoleon’s in-house division Code FX, New York….
NOVEMBER 17, 1995
Computer animation director/designer Henry Anderson, formerly of now defunct interactive house Fab Lab, Melo Park, Calif., is making his return to commercialmaking and Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles….Director Hank Benson has joined bicoastal Atherton & Associates for exclusive commercial representation….Bicoastal Fahrenheit Films has signed new director Craig Gillespie, who joins the production side after working the past eight years as an agency art director and creative in New York. His most recent agency position was a creative director/VP slot at Ammirati & Puris/Lintas, New York….Steve Cox, formerly an editor at Vuja De, Atlanta, has opened Outback Editorial, Atlanta, a boutique dedicated to commercial production….
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