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Google is in the middle of an antitrust trial in the US. That trial has been ongoing for quite some time now, and new information keeps on coming. This trial is semi-private, though, so we have to hunt for info. The latest information reveals conflicts between search and ads teams over at Google.
Conflicts between Google search & ads teams gets highlighted during the trial
A report by Bloomberg says that this period is referred to as “Code Yellow”. It occurred back in 2019. It seems like the head of Google Search (at the time), Ben Gomes, raised some concerns about ads being too heavily entwined with search.
As a reminder, these are two completely separate divisions within the company. The company got quite concerned when it thought it wouldn’t meet the search revenue targets for that quarter. That’s why the ‘Code Yellow’ term was used.
For that reason, engineers from Google Search and Chrome browser teams were reassigned for seven weeks, to investigate what’s going on. They were supposed to figure out why queries had slowed down.
We didn’t get many details regarding this, but it sure is an important detail
This conflict between the two teams is rather important, as both of those divisions are under the microscope at this trial. Chances are we’ll hear more about this moving forward, but not much information surfaced, unfortunately.
Recently, it was revealed that Google paid Apple a staggering amount of $18 billion in 2021 to stay the default search engine on Apple devices. The company paid over $25 billion overall that year to keep its place. That sum was paid to various companies, and Apple is included in the equation.
Regardless of how this trial ends, it will shake Google. We’re past the halfway point of this trial, but there’s still plenty to go, so we’re expecting a lot more information. If you’d like to know more about the Google vs DoJ trial, check out our huge article linked here.