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| Google's secret Bernanke Plan increased profit margins |
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has run a covert project called Project Bernanke for many years, in which advertisers use auction data collected through ad exchanges to power their ad buying system. It distinguishes itself from the competition.
The project name was first discovered by MLex, an antitrust news agency, and the project name was mistakenly displayed in documents Google filed in connection with the Texas antitrust lawsuit.
Since then, a federal judge has allowed Google to rewrite the document. However, according to the newspaper, Bernanke's plan did not give it to external advertisers who sold ads through Google's ad buying system.
Documents show that this brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the company each year.
Much of the beta content includes interaction between Google's role as the operator of the ad platform and representatives of buyers and sellers, as well as the role of ad buyer by selling them through the same system on its platform.
Texas filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in December. The search giant uses anti-competitive strategies and Bernanke's plan is an important part of that.
Texas said: Google is using data from publisher ad servers. More than 90% of the major publishers use Google to sell ad space and guide advertisers to the prices they need to ensure their ad is ranked.
Google wrote in an unedited document that data from the Bernanke Project could be compared to data from other purchasing tools.
The company's ability to access past auction data provided through Google Ads to change its customers' bids and increase a customer's chances of winning a display ad auction puts competitive advertising tools at a disadvantage.
Texas cited an internal quote from 2013 in court documents in which Google said Bernanke's plan would generate $ 230 million in revenue that year.
A Google spokesperson said: The lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton distorted many aspects of our advertising technology business and we look forward to taking this case to court.