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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks.

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Speaker 2: That be Man, it's been a tough week. If it

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Speaker 2: is a really a tough week, I don't know we

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Speaker 2: can say that for the likes of Google and Meta,

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Speaker 2: but at the very least, both of those tech companies

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Speaker 2: have been raped over the coals in the US. Tech

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Speaker 2: commentator Oscar Howell is here with the details this morning.

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Speaker 3: Hey Oscar, Hey Jack, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, great to be chatting with you. Thanks for being here.

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Speaker 2: So tell us all about Google. Google has been accused

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Speaker 2: of running an illegal monopoly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So Google has just lost quite a lot of

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Speaker 3: antitrust case in the United States a federal judgment Virginia,

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Speaker 3: although it was backed up by a number of judges

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Speaker 3: across the any country. Rule that had maintained an illegal

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Speaker 3: monopoly in the online advertising market, and it seems like

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Speaker 3: Google's strategy was to insulate the entire online advertising process

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Speaker 3: to squash competition.

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Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So what's it going to mean now that

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Speaker 2: they've lost it?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think the things like the US Justice Department

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Speaker 3: are kind of weighing up where to push things. They

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Speaker 3: there's the talk of Google being made to spin off

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Speaker 3: Google Chrome, it's browser, and then yeah, hopefully kind of

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Speaker 3: create a bit more space in the market for alternative

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Speaker 3: advertisers to pop up, which I mean, as we all know,

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Speaker 3: more competition can mean more competitive alternatives for small people

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Speaker 3: looking to add, well people looking to advertise.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating when you think about how integrated

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Speaker 2: all of those Google services are. The things that kind

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Speaker 2: of make them very convenient at times from a consumer's perspective,

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Speaker 2: also means that they absolutely dominate the digital ad you know,

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Speaker 2: digital ad market or much of the digital ad market.

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Speaker 2: A lot of the data that they can offer advertisers,

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Speaker 2: you know, far exceeds anything that other advertisers can do.

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Speaker 2: But obviously another big digital player and the advertising market

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Speaker 2: is Meta, the owner of Facebook, and Facebook's been in

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Speaker 2: front of the FTC for anti trust behavior. Tell us

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Speaker 2: about that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah enough, similar story. It seems as though in the past,

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Speaker 3: probably before it was called Meta, it was just no

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Speaker 3: known as Facebook. Their previous growth strategy was to buy

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Speaker 3: or bearing and that's a direct quote competitors in the

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Speaker 3: social media industry, which may have led to them acquiring

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Speaker 3: platforms people know such as Instagram and WhatsApp, and Yeah,

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Speaker 3: basically the more real estate they to buy up in

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Speaker 3: that space, the less opportunities there were the competitives to grow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I remember when you know they purchased

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Speaker 2: both of those operations. What's happened Instagram and I remember

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Speaker 2: at the time everyone was saying, Oh my gosh, they're

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Speaker 2: paying way too much money for this. They're paying way

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Speaker 2: too much money. But I think over time, given how

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Speaker 2: popular Instagram and WhatsApp have become, you know, Facebook strategy,

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Speaker 2: at least from a market dominance kind of perspective, has

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Speaker 2: certainly played out. You know, it has proved to be

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Speaker 2: pretty good. But whether or not it's actually anti trust behavior,

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Speaker 2: I uppose there's another question. It's also been revealed this

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Speaker 2: week Askar that Steam has made teams of millions of

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Speaker 2: dollars in gaming loot crates. For anyone who doesn't know

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Speaker 2: what a gaming loot crate x is, can you explain

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Speaker 2: this to us?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, luke crate is effectively a form of online

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Speaker 3: gambling in its purest form. So that may sound a

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Speaker 3: little bit silly to people who aren't kind of in

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Speaker 3: the gaming space, but effectively you can buy skins or

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Speaker 3: aesthetic items for your character in a video game, and

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Speaker 3: seen as one of the largest publishers in the world

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Speaker 3: and also the largest online gaming games marketplace. Yeah, so

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Speaker 3: you basically you want to juge up your character a

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Speaker 3: little bit, and one of the mechanisms by which you

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Speaker 3: can do that is you effectively roll in these kind

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Speaker 3: of roulette style cases where you know you might spend

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Speaker 3: three or four dollars, you spin the wheel and you

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Speaker 3: get a certain skin, and obviously some are more desirable

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Speaker 3: than others, and that's the kind of thing that can

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Speaker 3: create gambling addictions, especially for young people because especially in

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Speaker 3: a space like gaming, you know, everything's bright, it's colorful

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Speaker 3: as part of it, kind of pop cultures like guys,

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Speaker 3: it's really attractive and seeing like you said, has made

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Speaker 3: eighty two million dollars in March at the UFD. By

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Speaker 3: the way, a lot of them just one of their

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Speaker 3: video games. So yeah, I think it'd be a good

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Speaker 3: time to take a look at that and see whether

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Speaker 3: that's creating harmful behavior, whether that's harmful behavior, especially towards

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Speaker 3: New Zealand young people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. It's a vast amount of money. So

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Speaker 2: basically it's almost like a lucky depth bay. So if

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Speaker 2: you're really into gaming, you can give some money and

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Speaker 2: it kind of you know, it's like it's like a

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Speaker 2: roulette or you know, like a pokey or something. Basically,

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Speaker 2: you give some money and then hope that you get

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Speaker 2: a skin that you like. But there's no guarantee that

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Speaker 2: you're going to get there. And people people say, oh,

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Speaker 2: I didn't get at this time. I just pay a

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Speaker 2: bit more. I'll just have it more. I'll just have

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Speaker 2: bit more. It's going to come through sometime soon and

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Speaker 2: you can see how comparable it is to the more

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Speaker 2: traditional forms of gambling.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I think probably the key problem with it

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Speaker 3: is that because it's such a new frontier, it's nearly

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Speaker 3: entirely unregulated. Yeah, is on and across the world, right,

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Speaker 3: and I mean, I think especially as gaming kind of

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Speaker 3: grows to be I mean, it already is the largest

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Speaker 3: form of entertainment in the world by the amount of

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Speaker 3: money it raises every year. But I think it's it's

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Speaker 3: time that maybe regulators begin to look at how gambling

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Speaker 3: and gaming can be brought brought to heal.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, all very good, Hey, thanks so much for

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Speaker 2: your time, Oscar and your expertise, that's Tick commentator Oscar

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Speaker 1: How For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks that'd be from nine am Saturday,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio