Google Loses Huge Antitrust Case; John Lewis Launches Retail Media Platform; Temu Enters Thailand

On today’s news digest: Judge Rules Against Google's 'monopolistic' practices; John Lewis Launches Retail Media Platform; Temu Enters Thailand 

Google has lost its recent antitrust case against the DoJ. Ruling against Google over issues regarding payments for exclusive contracts to provide search on smartphones, US District Judge Amit Mehta Mehta wrote: “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” Could this hasten the break-up of Google? Our panel at ATS London will discuss.

Last week, a Google Ads outage impacted the service’s ad serving and reporting features. The incident report describes that a small number of advertisers “started serving ads for products from other Google Merchant Center accounts and were able to see those products in their Ads reporting.” This raises significant privacy concerns for advertisers. As a result of the glitch, access to certain reports was temporarily paused while Google worked to restore reporting accuracy, also affecting advertisers' ability to manage campaigns and access performance data. 

In the realm of retail, John Lewis has unveiled a retail media platform to connect shoppers with brands on its website. The platform will enable brands to create and manage their own campaigns on the retailer’s website, which can easily be adapted to seasonal trends, for example (ads will be reviewed by the John Lewis in-house team to ensure suitability). The platform will provide advertisers with a dashboard displaying performance, engagement and sales figures. 

In the APAC retail landscape, Chinese online marketplace Temu has entered Thailand. The app will be available in Thai language, accepting Thai currency. It will also offer users free shipping and money-back guarantee. Although the move is likely to benefit Thai consumers in the short-term, e-commerce expert Pawoot Pongvitayapanu comments that Temu’s entrance to the market will challenge small retailers who cannot compete in the price war. Larger companies may also see a decline in profits as their costs are higher than those in China. Having focused on unbranded items so far, Temu has plans to introduce branded products in the near future. 

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