Google Quietly Raised Ad Prices, Court Orders More Transparency

Federal court documents show Google raised search ad prices through small adjustments that advertisers couldn’t distinguish from normal auction fluctuations.

The details are based on Judge Amit P. Mehta’s remedies opinion, which states that Google used internal “pricing knobs” to increase ad prices by 5% to 15% at a time.

Google’s own surveys confirmed advertisers noticed higher costs but didn’t realize Google was causing them.

Read More...