London-based Four Hundred Films has been consolidated into the U.K. operation of bicoastal/international @radical.media. Coming under the @radical.media London banner are Four Hundred Films’ co-founder/managing director Caspar Delaney, and directors Stuart Douglas, Jon Hollis, Sharon Maguire and Gerald McMorrow….Word is that director Chris Hooper has departed bicoastal Tool of North America, and has joined bicoastal Bob Industries….Director Allen Martinez is set to join Hollywood-based Scream effective July 1. He comes over from Tate & Partners, Santa Monica….Director Kim Dempster and executive producer Meg Sudlik have launched Greenwich Films, New York….DDB New York has promoted executive producer Celia Williams to head of broadcast production.…Harley’s House, Santa Monica, has purchased Click 3X Los Angeles, also based in Santa Monica….Director/animator Stig Bergqvist has left Class-Key Chew-Po Commercials, a division of Hollywood-based animation house Klasky Csupo, and returned to Filmtecknarna Animation, Stockholm. Bergqvist, who is based in Los Angeles, co-founded Filmtecknarna (with director Jonas Odell and producer/CEO Lars Ohlson) and is part owner of the studio. Filmtecknarna is repped in North America by Curious Pictures, New York….Editor Jun Diaz has joined MacKenzie Cutler, New York.…Animation studio Wild Brain, San Francisco, has launched a Munich, Germany-based subsidiary: Wild Trixx Media GmbH, headed by managing director Curtis Briggs. The new venture will work on television and feature projects, as well as commercials…. Design director Vanessa Marzaroli has come aboard Blind Visual Propaganda, Santa Monica. She had been with Fuel, Santa Monica….
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