Matt Factor has exited the New York office of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films. Staffer Tara Ford, who had teamed with Factor to cover the East Coast, now solely handles the territory for the company. Philip Fox Mills remains East Coast rep for bicoastal/international Satellite, a sister shop to Propaganda. Ford and Mills continue to work closely with Dana Balkin, head of sales for the Propaganda group of companies….Richard Fink of Fink Tank, New York, has taken on East Coast representation for Los Angeles-based Original Film….Tombo, the Hollywood-based shop headed by executive producer Fred Porter, has secured Gabrielle Giebels and Catherine De Angelis—a.k.a. Hot Betty—for Midwest representation. Terri Montgomery continues to rep Tombo in such central Midwest states as Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa….Highway 61, New York, has signed Adam Fine of LittleRedHen Entertainment, Santa Monica, for West Coast representation….Wow+Flutter Music+Sound, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, has named Los Angeles-based independent rep Jennifer Cohen to head up West Coast sales….Lankford Films, Houston, has signed Perry Schaffer and Corey Rogers of Schaffer & Co., New York, for East Coast sales, and Doug Stieber and Lynn Mutchler of Doug Stieber & Company, Chicago, to handle the Midwest….
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