Continuations

We have met with a number of companies in the online ad market recently. Every time I ask the entrepreneurs to chart how what they offer fits in with the networks, exchanges, data providers, ad servers, optimizers, agencies, etc. Inevitably, every one draws themselves in the center with the other players revolving around them. Also inevitably, the picture gets complicated rather quickly. Then this morning, I had a conversation with a friend who is on the publisher side. She was telling me abo...

The Department of Justice earlier this week sued several large publishers and Apple over alleged collusion surrounding the agency arrangement for the sale of ebooks. The legal situation here is quite complicated as should be evident from the fact that Random House which does have agency agreements with both Apple and Amazon was *not* sued. This suggests that agency agreements in and of themselves are not the issue. Rather it would seem to be the combination of agency agreements together with ...