APRIL 14, 2000
Big Deahl Productions, a Chicago-based production house featuring partner/tabletop specialist David Deahl, has expanded with the addition of tabletop director Mark Klein….Bicoastal new media and commercial production house Cylo has signed director Mark Valentine for exclusive representation….Swedish director Joakim Sandstrom has joined bicoastal/international The Artists Company for representation in the U.S. and out of its London office….Director Marty Weiss has signed for worldwide spot representation with Cucoloris Films, the Venice, Calif.-based production company headed by partners/executive producers Linda Stewart and Bernie Wesson, and partner/director Danny Ducovny….
APRIL 14, 1995
Sound designer Reinhard Denke and executive producer Nicole Dionne have become partners in Primal Scream, West Hollywood, a new sound design shop slated to open April 17….Silent Partner Films, Chicago, featuring the co-directing team of George Grigus and Todd Klein, has added director Ed Italo to the roster. Italo had most recently been freelancing….Headquarters, a three-year-old bicoastal production company, has started a new division called HQ and added two directors, Keva Rosenfeld and Antony Easton….Executive producer Alan Siegel, who closed eight-year-old Siegel/Nelson Films, Pacific Palisades, Calif., has launched November Films, also in Pacific Palisades….Editor Bob Mori has joined Red Car, a post shop with bases of operation in Hollywood, Santa Monica, Chicago and 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