https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/when-googles-fancy-lawyers-screw BIG by Matt StollerBIG by Matt Stoller Subscribe * About * Archive * Help * Sign in When Google's Fancy Lawyers Screw Up and Jeopardize Sheryl Sandberg, at $1500/Hour A redacted document showed extremely sensitive information. Google's lawyer accidentally made it public. Matt Stoller 21 hr ago 6 8 Share Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you'd like to sign up to receive issues over email, you can do so here. Henry Adams, one of the most important thinkers in the 19th century and an ardent anti-monopolist, believed that corporate secrecy was the enemy of self-rule. "From whatever point of view the trust problem is considered," he wrote, "publicity stands as the first step in its solution; and there is reason to believe that the further the government is willing to go in its statutory definition of publicity the greater likelihood is there that it may be excused from the necessity of exercising direct administrative control." When Congress originally designed the corporate tax system in 1909, the goal was to make corporate tax returns public. (This actually happened for one year in the 1920s, but was quickly ended.) Today, big business in America is far too secretive, with an endless thicket of confidentiality rules, trade secrets law, and deferential judges and enforcers who think that revealing public information about big business is some sort of scandal. It's so bad that when the FDA asked pharmaceutical companies where their manufacturing plants were at the beginning of the pandemic, some firms cited trade secrets rules and refused to divulge the information. This is a consistent problem - we didn't know why the FTC refused to bring a case against Google in 2012 until a leak this year, and the information would have been incredibly useful had the FTC and Google not engaged in a decade-long cover-up. a posture is ridiculous and obnoxious, so I find it immensely pleasurable when the antitrust fancy world screws up and accidentally reveal information the public should know. And that just happened. In a response to the complaint of a group of state attorney generals, Google's lawyers - Paul Yetter at Yetter Coleman - filed a response, but accidentally forgot to redact critical information. So now we know a few important new details about the Texas adtech case. This case includes an allegation that Google's large online advertising marketplace - think stock market but instead of stocks they trade ad slots - is riddled with secret rigged auctions. The redacted details show something called "Project Bernanke," a scheme engineered by Google in which had one arm of its ad business front-running trades for ad inventory, awarding itself hundreds of millions of dollars a year by giving itself a better position in the auctions. Project Bernanke (cute name guys!) was kept secret from publishers. In addition, we now know more details about a deal between Google and Facebook to give Facebook some preferred position in those ad auctions, supposedly in return for Facebook not competing with Google in the online advertising auction space. As the Wall Street Journal notes, "The agreement was signed by, among other individuals, Philipp Schindler, Google's Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer." Zoink. Cartel deals aren't just illegal, they are criminal. So double zoink. Here's Jason Kint on the screw-up. Twitter avatar for @jason_kintJason Kint @jason_kint , Google, a company with more lawyers, lobbyists, communications people and money than anyone made a clerical error and leaked out sensitive information about its alleged collusion and bid rigging. /1 wsj.com/articles/googl... Image April 11th 2021 30 Retweets47 Likes I've asked around, and Yetter is likely to be getting $1500/hour, or more, for his legal advice. There are a couple of things to learn from this mistake. First, judges redact way too many details, often protecting what they perceive as business proprietary information but is in fact simply evidence of cheating. The court system is supposed to be a public accounting. And second, fancy lawyers aren't Gods, and we should stop acting like that the hundreds of millions (or perhaps one billion plus), that Google spends on legal services, means it can avoid obeying the law. That myth is a way of getting the public to give up before the battle even starts. I don't think there should be a problem with leaks, because I don't think there should be very much information kept secret in the first place. But to be clear, this isn't the first leak in the case. When the Texas AG sent around his proposed complaint to the other state attorney generals, someone leaked the full complaint to the press. And one of Google's lawyers - Eric Mahr from Freshfields - was outraged. "It's difficult for us not to believe that had plaintiffs not been for whatever reason rushing to file in December," he said, "that additional confidentiality measures couldn't have been taken that would have avoided the leak." Yes, don't be too hasty, biglaw, you might reveal something truthful. Six Fun Facts About Henry Adams - New England Historical SocietyHenry Adams is hard at work. He is pleased by the Google legal screw-up. 6 8 Share - Previous [https] [ ] Create your profile Set photo[ ] [ ][ ] [ ] [ ] Sign up for the newsletter Save & Post Comment Only paying subscribers can comment on this post Already a paying subscriber? Sign in Check your email For your security, we need to re-authenticate you. Click the link we sent to , or click here to log in. Sam Iam20 hr agoLiked by Matt Stoller Yeah, that is super illegal.... On attorneys, an interesting antitrust story would be the American Bar Association (and the American Medical Association for that matter). The ABA forces more education on would be lawyers than any other common law country in the world. Nearly everywhere else in the world, Canada being the exception, law is an undergrad degree. It takes three years and is basically the same curriculum as the JD degree. They also force law school to be really expensive by requiring tenured professors instead of just hiring practicing lawyers to teach the classes, among other requirements... like a law library which isn't super relevant anymore. They won't allow online law schools to become accredited... even though law school is uniquely well suited to an online format. The ABA can recommend whatever the feel like recommending, but the anti trust comes in as they have captured the law examiner boards of all 50 states [https] and have made their recommendations required by law to sit for the state bar exams. Obviously they are not unbiased. The ABA is the lawyers trade organization. Existing lawyers benefit by tapping down competition by making it really difficult and costly to produce new attorneys that will compete with their membership. Think how weird it would be if the cosmetologists trade org suddenly started requiring people to get a BA in whatever, as the ABA does, before they could go to a barber training program and had all 50 states make that the law in order to get a license... The states have a bar exam which is supposed to test all the knowledge one needs to be a competent attorney. How about prepare anyway you want to prepare and anyone can take the test? If they pass, congrats, you're an attorney. If the bar exam doesn't test everything that is required to be a competent attorney, then design a better test. It is not a small thing as it basically jacks up the price for citizens to petition the courts and use the legal system. 4Reply 4 replies Gok5 hr ago [https] It's "attorneys general" Reply 4 more comments... TopNewCommunityWhat is BIG by Matt Stoller?About Ready for more? [ ]Subscribe (c) 2021 Matt Stoller. 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