When you ask a business owner what they would most like in the world, they always say more customers. What frequently follows that? more visitors to their website. In fact, 61% of marketers claim that generating traffic and leads is their top difficulty. Nobody hates having organic traffic when it comes to websites. Small businesses and startups rely on free sources to spread the word about their brands because they can’t afford to pay for traffic. You still need to put in adequate work even though using free traffic sources won’t cost you any money.

What Are Online Free Traffic Sources? 

You can obtain visits to your website from a traffic source. In other words, it is the platform that drives visitors to your website, who may or may not have paid for the visit. To attract your target audience to your website, you can use internet platforms that are free of charge.

Why more website traffic?

 Many businesses wonder what the point of having a website is, let alone website traffic. A website is a necessity in today’s society, even for brick and mortar businesses. At the very least, prospective clients can learn more about your company. But ideally, it’s organized such that site visitors may access your sales funnel and ultimately become clients.

How about driving over a thousand customers to your online business every day? 

Then 2,000… 

Then 4,000… 

All for nothing. 

Sounds fantastic, yeah?

You may still increase traffic to your online store even if you’re a startup with no money to spend on promotion. How? Through the use of the fantastic free traffic sources, I’ll be sharing with you this article. The top techniques for generating steady traffic are listed below.

• Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

The major or perhaps best free traffic source is search engine optimization. Your website or blog will be heavily influenced if you are ranked for an excellent and competitive keyword. A high search engine rating will increase the number of visits to your website, which is good for your business. You must put in a lot of effort, though, if you want to be at the top. You must make sure that you stick to all of the search engine’s guidelines. For your content to rank higher on the various search engines, it must be original and of a high caliber. One perk of adopting SEO as a free traffic the source is that, in contrast to visitors through adverts, these visitors are very targeted. People that come to your website via Google, for instance, are already interested in what it has to offer.

In order to properly index your web pages and help with SERP rankings, Google uses an algorithm known as a Google Spider to crawl your web pages and understand the content. This is done in light of the thousands of new web pages that are launched every day by Google. 

Here are some actions you should take for each page to raise its position in search engine results:

• Add short and long-tail keywords to your materials, particularly in titles.
• Use both main and supplementary keywords in the title tag (up to 70 characters)
• Create a keyword-rich, concise meta description (up to 160 characters) 
• Internal links to other essential information on your website should be used.

Natural SEO is neither a precise science nor a quick fix. It can take months or even a year to see results, but it’s crucial to constantly give your website’s SEO optimization a high priority. 

• Guest Blogging

You can publish articles as a guest on another person’s blog. This initially sounds absurd. Why would you want to write quality material for someone else when it’s difficult enough to accomplish for your website? In addition to link development, which can raise your site’s rankings and search traffic, guest articles can increase direct site visitors. Most importantly links leading back directly to your business website must be attached to drive traffic to your website. If you include a compelling call to action that points back to your blog in the post, you’re essentially “borrowing” that site’s traffic. Guest posting frequently is a practice among affiliate marketers. One of their preferred link-building strategies. However, if you use this method correctly, it might serve as one of your top sources of free website traffic.

• Email Marketing 

Email marketing is the act of sending emails to a list of potential customers with the goal of directing them to your website or blog. One of the best ways to increase the number of times people visit your website is by doing this. Email marketing is a highly effective strategy that is also one of the most focused free traffic sources. Email marketing is a quick approach to drive traffic to new websites and blogs because all you have to do is send emails. Simply send an email and forward it to your list of targeted clients whenever you need traffic. One of the major players on the industry that provides such free services is Constant Contact, so you should check them out. To create your email list, you must provide a free lead magnet, which is rather simple to do. Any time is a good moment to begin informing your subscribers via email blasts about: Events and discounts coming up, educational tools that are useful, fresh goods or services. Installing a little bar or pop-up that invites website visitors to subscribe to your newsletter or download a PDF is a simple approach to gathering email addresses. To convince people to give you their email addresses, you can provide discounts on products, access to special events, or any other special reward. Once you’ve got that, you can utilize a platform like Constant Contact or Mail-chimp to create and deliver visually engaging communications that drive conversions.

• Increase Website Load Speed

Make sure your website loads swiftly as a fourth suggestion to increase your online visibility on search engines. According to studies, if a website takes longer than three seconds to load, 57% of visitors click away. Run your website through a website auditor, such as WebsiteScore.org, to determine how quickly it loads. The report you receive will outline all the things you can do to improve your website. 

Here are some easy suggestions to increase website speed: 

• Reduce the size of the photographs on your website. 
• Redirects should be less. 
• Use external hosting services to upload and download videos.

Another industry favorite when it comes to reliable website traffic diagnostics is Google Search Console (GSC). It  enables you to keep tabs on your website’s performance and health-related statistics, including anything from URL analysis and traffic analytics to your website’s overall backlink profile. 

Examine your pages carefully, paying close attention to the customer experience and navigational flow. 

 Think about items like:

• Is my website’s layout simple or complex? 
• When users arrive on a landing page, do they know where to go? 
• Is it simple to view and comprehend my call-to-action (CTA) buttons and banners? 

Ask friends and family for their second opinions or do a fast pop-up poll for website visitors.

You can begin A/B testing different designs, solutions, and ideas once you have an understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

• Build your online presence 

A little more than half of the world’s population (about 45%) spends on average more than two hours every day on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. One of the simplest ways to contact many people at once is by far social media. Making a plan, being consistent, and devoting time to expanding your social presence are the keys to being successful on social media. Knowing your target market can help you choose the platforms that are best for your company. A professional legal company, for instance, might publish on LinkedIn or Twitter rather than Instagram or Snapchat with more success. Each network has a different audience. Using a free management tool, like Hoot-suite or Buffer, that enables you to manage all of your social media channels on one platform will help you streamline your social media planning. This makes it simpler to plan posts, monitor links and reply to comments. 

• Quora

Quora is one of the top free social traffic sources if you’re looking to receive quality visitors. In a nutshell, Quora is a platform where anyone can post questions and receive professional advice in return.

What I mean is this: 

There are a lot of casual browsers on Instagram, and they could or might not be ready to make a purchase depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey. On the other side, Quora is teeming with people looking for answers to their problems. They are better prospects as a result, and you will probably find it easier to turn Quora visitors into paying customers.

Let’s start by answering this question: 

• How do you promote your business on Quora and leverage it to draw customers into your store? 

Start by removing the less common queries and concentrating only on the ones that have the potential to increase traffic to your website. Here is a summary of the top 10 Quora topics that are most frequently followed, to guide you:

• Technology  23 million
• Science.        21 million 
• Movies.         18 million
• Music.           17.5 million
• Health.          17.2 million
• Books.          17 million
• Education.    16.7million
• Food.            16.2 million 

Imagine you run a knife-selling online store. You could respond to queries on the 30.4k-followed topic “Knives,” Why would you want to do that, though, when you might try your hand at queries about the 16.2 million-follower topic of “Food”? To locate the questions that are applicable to your products, you’ll need to read through the list of questions more thoroughly. However, with 16.2 million followers as opposed to 30.4k followers, you have a lot more potential, therefore it’s worth the extra work! Once you’ve chosen the subject you want to concentrate on, go to the “Topic FAQ,” which displays the most frequently asked questions right now. Find questions that have received a lot of responses by scrolling down the list of questions. The amount of people who have followed the query can be seen if you click through to it. These individuals will be alerted as soon as you compose and publish your response, either by email, a notification, or another method. 

Awesome stuff, right?  You can drive traffic to your website by providing answers to questions that people ask. 

• Reddit

Another excellent strategy to drive free traffic to your site is to post on Reddit. If handled wisely, Reddit can give you a ton of free website traffic.The platform is made up of a sizable community of people who are all looking for and sharing different kinds of information to help them expand their businesses.Reddit can be useful for driving visitors to your website as long as you locate a community that fits your expertise. In any case, refrain from posting links since you risk being blacklisted.

• YouTube

 Another great and practical source of free exposure for your website or online store is YouTube. Internet marketers frequently use it, making it one of the most popular websites on the internet.If you run a blog, YouTube can be a fantastic way to get free visitors to your site.Despite the fact that YouTube may not immediately bring in visitors, it is a fantastic tool for free traffic to your website. Additionally, YouTube material may now be seen on smartphones, providing new chances for marketers and website owners.The difficulty involved in creating the video material is outweighed by the rate at which online video is expanding.Online video must therefore be a part of your brand’s marketing plan. Nowadays, an increasing number of entrepreneurs and companies use YouTube as a platform for engaging with their audience, disseminating helpful knowledge, and luring potential customers. Without a doubt, YouTube has developed into a powerful instrument for online advertising. It only takes the correct techniques for website owners like you to benefit from this video sharing platform.Speaking of tactics, the issue with the majority of website and business owners today is that they place too much emphasis on becoming a YouTube sensation without having a clear strategy on how to convert those subscribers into website traffic and paying customers. Yes, you can become very popular on YouTube, but what good is that if no one visits your website, joins your email list, or purchases your products? It is at this point that the necessity of employing techniques like YouTube SEO is made clear. You can benefit from even the most basic strategies, which are covered in the section below. 

A staggering three billion views are made on YouTube every day. It is the reason why it is the third most frequented website worldwide. Because so many searches are conducted on this video-sharing website, many people also believe that YouTube is the second-largest search engine, just behind Google. If the appropriate method is used, YouTube has enormous potential for business owners like you.Once the right plan is in place, developing brand awareness and even achieving superstar status are inevitable. The issue is that you can’t find a video bank where you can exchange your video views for money. Instead, you may carefully use the YouTube videos you already have to carry out a narrowly focused task bringing high-quality visitors to your website. Driving quality traffic in this context means ensuring that you’ll attract quality visitors. However, the issue is that when most people especially marketers think of  YouTube, they immediately think of a viral video. They think that success depends on recording amusing moments.The fact is that you don’t need millions of followers or views to succeed as a business owner. When it comes to channel visitors that you can convert to website traffic, all you need is quality, not quantity. The YouTube videos you have will help you build a crucial relationshi pwith your audience; whenever they go on your company website, they’ll be fired up and prepared to take the necessary action with you. Naturally, higher conversion rates come is important for your business.At the conclusion of every video you submit to YouTube, you must include a clear and appealing call to action. Your CTA must clearly state what people must do in order to access your website. Naturally, you must also make fun of the advantages they will gain from doing so.This stage can be finished with just one or two lines of discourse. Here is a fantastic illustration: “Thank you for watching my video, I appreciate it! Visit www.facebook.com to get this effective video series if you want to discover how to build Facebook advertisements that quadruple your monthly earnings. Limited slots only, so act quickly!The description should contain a link to your website.By placing the link directly above your video description, you can further ensure that YouTube users may access your website. Don’t forget to add the “http://,” though, so users may immediately click over without having to go elsewhere.Instead of connecting to the website’s home page, link to the page that corresponds to the shared video. You can also choose to provide a default description. Every time you upload a YouTube video, it would show up. Additionally, remember to have the link modified so that it points to the article or page you want to send people to.Utilizing YouTube’s little-known call-to-action overlay function is a good approach to turn your video viewers into high-quality and highly targeted website traffic.On the lower third of your video, the overlay is just a straightforward banner ad. The thumbnail picture and the place you want users to go can both be changed on the copy of the overlay. This feature can be set up in a matter of minutes, but failing to do so would mean losing out on important website traffic. By registering at ads.youtube.com, you can turn on the call-to-action overlay option.

• Google My Business

 As the dominant player among web search engines, Google has unsurprisingly introduced its suite of website management tools throughout time. One of these tools, My Business, allows businesses to choose how they wish to appear on Google Search and Maps. It’s a straightforward, free service that doesn’t take much setup, but it may significantly increase website traffic and page views. Simply go to My Business and follow the instructions there to connect your Google account with your company. Once you’re finished, input any business-related data that is requested, such as your company’s name, address, and industry. You’ll need to use your phone number or email address to verify all of this information, but it’s usually a quick process, and you can get set up for free in no time. There are various reasons why My Business is an excellent tool.

The service’s main function is to provide you control over how your company shows up in local business search results. But My Business is much more than that: Along with all of your contact information, you can exactly display the location of your business on Google Maps.  You can use the Insight tool to gain a deeper understanding of your audience. It presents information on things like reader reactions to your writing or the volume of clicks your website gets. It resembles a little form of Google Analytics. You can learn more about what needs to be fixed and what people love by reading the feedback that visitors can leave. To stay in touch with your clients and inform them of any updates, forthcoming events, or other information, utilize Google Posts. My Business is a great way to get more free traffic to your website and increase local clientele if you want to make your company more noticeable.

• Link building 

A more direct way to increase free traffic to your website is through link building. This tactic essentially entails exchanging links that direct people from one website to another and vice versa. As an example, let’s say someone likes one of your blog entries and links to it in another piece of writing. If the material on your website is engaging enough, these visitors from other websites might return. If you acquire backlinks from reputable websites or are frequently quoted in other publications, search engines will recognize that your work is respectable and deserving of their attention. Having a solid backlink profile is an incredibly effective way to drive free traffic to your website. It also helps in developing and creating a powerful and prominent domain.

However, back linking is more than just a way to increase traffic.You can get in touch with and establish relationships with other websites that are pertinent to your niche but aren’t your competitors by using backlinks.Getting a backlink from your competitors is particularly helpful, but it doesn’t happen very often because it’s simpler to concentrate on more websites with the same target audience.Additionally, back-linking  increases customer trust in you.Other websites will cite your website as a reputable source of information if your material is educational. You may leverage it to your benefit as well: if your content is regarded as credible and reliable, you can begin establishing promotional connections through guest posting.

The simplest way to get started is to individually approach other comparable sites and propose a collaboration, unless you’ve already been contacted by others.A specified target demographic can visit your website in large numbers using this content marketing method, which is quite trustworthy.Naturally, you need high-quality material if you want to accomplish this. If your website is not valuable, you won’t be able to get any useful backlinks. Using landing pages to direct traffic to your website is another free option. These are specific pages for your promos, like the ones for redeeming a coupon code, requesting a free report, or starting a trial. They give users the details they need to go forward, convert, and focus on a specific call to action, increasing the likelihood that it will be followed. Because landing pages have a specific goal in mind, you can be very targeted with your messaging, which increases traffic (and conversions) to those pages.

• Webinars

People enjoy learning, and a webinar is a great way to share your knowledge with an eager audience. A excellent technique to get more people to your website is through webinars. A week or so beforehand, send out an email, then the day before the webinar, send out a reminder with the subject line “Last Chance to Register.” Make sure to save the presentation for subsequent viewing, and make sure to heavily publicize your webinars on social media. If you’re unsure how to conduct a webinar, the internet offers simple instructions.

 The newest trend on this list, webinars are a terrific method to communicate with your audience directly, bring in new clients, and increase website While some planning is necessary for a successful webinar, the idea has a great deal of potential. Webinars are essentially online presentations for customers who want a closer relationship with your company. Consider them as promotional and educational events for your clients. Planning a webinar is a terrific method to interact with your audience in a professional setting when you are releasing a new product or just want to chat more about it. Inside a blue seminar room, you may discuss the future of your company in detail, share your ideas with the rest of your neighborhood, and explore each of the goods you’ll be releasing soon.

If running a webinar doesn’t sound enticing, think about running a live Q&A session instead.

Since customers can ask questions in person rather than online, it’s a more personal method to engage your audience. If your webinar is a success, it will not only enhance website traffic but also people’s perceptions of your company’s authenticity and honesty. Although it may seem frightening at first, many people are already using webinars to great effect in their marketing plans.

• Community

Building a community on your website is a great way to get people talking and increase free traffic since people love to share their ideas and weigh in on issues that are important to them. Establish a robust commenting system using third-party applications like Facebook comments or Disqus, or create a dedicated forum for users to post queries. But don’t forget to keep an eye on your community to make sure that basic standards of decency are being met. Join social media groups and forums on Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn to share your knowledge. Only publish links if it is allowed and suitable to do so; refrain from posting only links or links in every post. Additionally, make sure the link leads to a specific blog post about a relevant topic. The main goal here is not to increase website visitors. in order to boost brand recognition and value. Any interested parties will search on their own for your website or visit your profile, where they can find it. Additionally, conferences are essential. Regardless of the sector, you operate in, there are one or two major conventions and conferences that are relevant to your business. Attending these events is a great idea, but speaking at them is even better.

• Send your work to content aggregators

If you have a blog, it probably has an RSS feed that aggregator websites can use to show the most recent posts on a certain subject. People use these sites to subscribe to their preferred blogs, news websites, and other websites, and frequently choose to receive emails with these links. The majority of aggregators will discover your feed on their own.

• E-book

The only resources needed to read an ebook are your brain and your time. An e-book is a smart approach to get free traffic to your blog if you are confident in your ability to create worthwhile material and are competent at what you do. Writing an e-book is free, but if done well, it could be a long-term answer to your website’s problems.The traffic that e-books draw can be readily converted because the majority of readers are already interested in what you have to offer.

• The Press Release

 Press releases are defined as written communications that provide succinct yet accurate information about specific events. These news releases not only drive visitors to your website but also give it high-quality backlinks. As a result, this is a fantastic and cost-free method of directing people to your website. A press release from your company or shop could be anything distinctive and interesting. It might be about the introduction of a new product, marketing promotions, exclusive discounts, and more.

Over time, you can draw a lot of free visitors to your website by developing a systematic plan to put the above tips into practice. Keep in mind that creating free traffic is a marathon, not a sprint, so have patience while you wait to see tangible results!

In what could be considered one of the quickest rises and falls of a new artist, rapper FN Meka was both signed to and dropped by major music label, Capitol Records, within just a week. It turns out, robots can be cancelled too, because the racially insensitive behaviour from FN Meka is how he managed to have his deal cancelled within mere days.

For those who are not on the pulse of the music industry, you may have missed a historical announcement for the music industry and artificial intelligence. Music Business Worldwide (MBW) reports that on the 12th of August 2022, Capitol Records announced that they were signing FN Meka. What makes this artist so unique is they are the first artist powered by artificial intelligence to sign a deal with a major record label.

On the same day, FN Meka released his first single for Capitol Records called ‘Florida Water’ and there were some big names that contributed to this. The single featured real-life rapper, Gunna, and gaming streamer Clix. Turbo, who has previously worked with Travis Scott, Young Thug, and Lil Baby, was the producer whilst DJ Holiday, who has worked with the likes of Nicki Minaj and Gucci Mane, came in as the executive producer.

Capitol Records views working with FN Meka as the advancement of music and technology working together. Executive Vice President of Experimental Marketing & Business Development for Capital Music Group, Ryan Ruben, told MBW that this decision “[it] meets at the intersection of music, technology, and gaming culture. It’s just a preview of what is to come.” Under the leadership of newly appointed Chair & CEO, Michelle Jubelirer, this decision is one of Capitol Records’ boldest and most controversial.

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Who is FN Meka?

FN Meka is a robot rapper developed by the co-founders of the virtual and digital talent company Factory New, Anthony Martini and Brandon Le. In what could be assumed to be a derivative of dated PlayStation characters, FN Meka is cyborg-like sporting punk green hair, face tattoos, and extravagant streetwear. In the year since his creation, he has amassed an astounding 10 million Tik Tok followers and over one billion views for his videos posted on the platform. In his content, FN Meka displays his unique virtual world, including Bugatti jets, Maybach helicopters, and limo’s with teppanyaki grills. His social media influence saw the release of his first two rap songs in 2019.

According to Anthony Martini, FN Meka’s voice is a human, however, everything else about him and his songs is based on AI. Martini told MBW that FN Meka was created through“ using thousands of data points compiled from video games and social media.” In 2021, Martini told MBW that through analysing popular rap songs and databases of rap tropes, the AI technology was able to build different parts of the songs, including the “lyrical content, chords and tempo” which came together to make the final track. Although a human voice was used, Factory New is working on technology to perform the lyrics too.

Factory New aims to create more of a roster of artists who are solely AI, utilising the widespread influence of social media to catapult more AI artists into the public eye. Martini told MBW  ”if fans only ever see their favourite artists on screens anyway, then what difference does it make if those artists are real people or avatars?” He [Martini] goes on to discuss most music nowadays is written by teams of people based on what will sell well, which is then performed by the most popular artists who are “vessels for commercial endeavours.” With the use of AI technology, this process can be more efficient and reliable unlike the traditional method of writing songs which requires an abundance of resources in search of the next superstar.

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Online Controversy Over FN Meka’s Deal

The announcement of Capitol Records and FN Meka’s relationship has sparked quite a bit of controversy within the music industry. The main cause for concern is the accusation that the robot rapper’s creator, Anthony Martini, who is white, is perpetuating harmful stereotypes of black people through the rapper’s music and social media content.

One Twitter user wrote on the 22nd of August 2022 “FN Meka is an AI generated rapper, it already has a record deal with a major label and 500k monthly Spotify listeners, also uses the n word in its song.” FN Meka has used the n-word in previous songs, including his 2019 hit, ‘Moonwalkin’, as well as in post-sensitive Instagram content. He also posted a computer-generated graphic of fabricated police brutality, displaying Meka being beaten by a police officer because he “won’t snitch.” “An AI rapper that says the n-word fabricating police brutality… literally every single thing about this is so off-key,” another Twitter user writes.

Many also believe that this record deal will lead to the downfall of good music and the music industry. One Twitter user said “FN Meka already got 500k monthly Spotify listeners and a song with Gunna. The system is broken.” It is argued that the record deal could have been offered to a real life, budding musician instead of giving the robot rapper a quick rise to fame.

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FN Meka Dropped from Capitol Records

On the 23rd of August 2022, Capitol Records announced that they had ended their partnership with FN Meka after negative reactions to the AI rapper’s harmful representation of Black and hip-hop culture. Capitol Group released the following statement to Rolling Stone:

“CMG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately. We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it. We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days-your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.”

Mere hours before the statement was released from Capitol Group, the online activist group, Industry Blackout, calling out Capitol Records on Instagram. Established in 2020, Industry Black is an online association focused on civil rights causes involving Black causes and the music industry. The statement from Industry Black called for Capitol Records to terminate the deal with FN Meka, issue a formal apology, remove all Meka’s content from all platforms and donate funds meant for FN Meka to black youth charities and black artists.

TMZ reported that sources from the music label described some employees blame Capitol Record’s lack of diversity for the deal getting the green light in the first place.” They go on to say that one source even mentions that there are very few Black executives in leadership positions within the company.

On Tuesday, Factory New founder, Anthony Martini, spoke with The New York Times, describing how he was expecting Capitol Records to cancel the deal within the week. Martini attributed that “blogs that have latched onto a clickbait headline and created this narrative” are the reason for the mass cancellation of FN Meka. “Some of the early content, now if you take it out of context, it obviously looks worse or different than it was intended,” Martini stated, going on to add that “the team behind FN Meka was actually one of the most diverse teams you can get — I’m the only white person involved.”

Capitol Records confirmed that FN Meka did not receive an advanced payment at the signing of the deal. FN Meka’s music has been removed from all platforms. As of the 30th of August, 2022, Meka’s Instagram profile has been placed on private and all Tik Tok content has been removed aside from one video of a cockroach listening to music through AirPods.

This is not the first incident of AI and AR characters being called out for racially insensitive behaviour. It highlights how racist stereotypes are excused as “parrot learning” and provides another case of Black culture being appropriated for financial gain by white individuals. There is no stopping the integration of technological advancements within the music industry, but there is obviously a need to consult specific individuals or subgroups to ensure that cultural issues, such as racism, do not seep into this space.

As of June 2022, the EU and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have come out with their second probe into Google’s bad practices with its advertising technology.

In November of 2021, the European Union started its first investigation into whether or not Google was giving unfair advantages to its affiliate companies. The EU suggested that Google was providing them with greater access to use its digital advertising services.

These aren’t the first times Google has come under fire though. 

In hopes of amping up security, Google put out new rules for its Play Store to require developers to use its own payment system for the sale of app services. App developers criticized these measures in the past months. This step comes from Google’s efforts to remove outdated apps that no longer support its latest features. Google had previously stated that any apps that hadn’t jumped onto the train by June 1st would be pushed out of the Play Store entirely. Now, Google is giving Android apps some time to get their updates in by November 2022.

Prior to this, in January of 2021, the CMA blocked Google from implementing its tool-building alternative to replace third-party cookies called Privacy Sandbox. The CMA had opened a probe under Chapter II in the U.K.’s Competition Act of 1998 in “suspected breaches of competition law by Google”.

Google commented on the matter stating, “Creating a more private web, while also enabling the publishers and advertisers who support the free and open internet, requires the industry to make major changes to the way digital advertising works. The Privacy Sandbox has been an open initiative since the beginning and we welcome the CMA’s involvement as we work to develop new proposals to underpin a healthy, ad-supported web without third-party cookies.”

Now, Google is under fire again, this time for how it divies its platform to ad users.

Google’s lead in 3 major parts of the ad tech intermediation, aka the adtech stack, has been a huge factor in how this investigation began. 

One of the three major parts that the CMA and EU are looking into is how Google offers its services to marketers and publishers. In this so-called “digital stock market”, an ad exchange takes place. This ad exchange uses automated trading where both sides compete in making transactions. Competitors have issued that Google illegally leverages certain criteria in these exchanges to benefit some and anchor others.

CEO of the CMA, Andrea Coscelli stated, “Google might have even taken extra steps to exclude rivals’ use of its services”.

The other two major parts of this investigation are Google’s use of demand-side platforms (or DSPs) which give marketers and publishers the access to buy the advertising and publisher ad servers. These servers decide which of these ads it will show on its sites.

And this is only the short of numerous governments’ lawsuits attempting to regulate several of the U.S.’s tech giants and their partners. These tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Meta have grown vastly in the last two years – just after the start of the pandemic.

The United States Department of Justice, plus 11 states’ Attorneys General, started their antitrust lawsuit in the fall of 2020 for the same issue of concern now, in 2022. 

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission projected a statutory inquiry into Google’s processing of location data back in May of 2019. The investigation commenced to confirm whether Google meets the requirements to have usage as a “data controller” – to which Google then took all the steps for a swift recovery.

A statement put out by Google said, “Our advertising technologies help websites and apps fund their content, enable small businesses to grow, and protect users from exploitative privacy practices and bad ad experiences”.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is one of the world’s largest tech empires. With 32% growth in revenue reported for quarter one – Alphabet comes in at $1.75 trillion as of March 2022. Google comes in with $147 billion of revenue alone to the parent company. Ever since Google’s 20-for-1 stock split that was announced on February 1st of this year, you can now purchase 1 stock share of GOOGL (Class A) for $2,274.83 as of July 5, 2022 and $2,291.94 for GOOG (Class C). 

It makes its large by continued ads from apps like YouTube and Google services like Gmail and Google Cloud. Google bought the video sharing platform, YouTube, in October of 2006 for a reported $1.65 billion. At that time, it was Google’s second-largest acquisition to date. Bringing in $6.9 billion in revenue in just the first quarter of 2022 alone, YouTube is now one of Google’s top producers. Google, now hopes that by offering its rivals (like Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo), ads on one of its largest revenue contributors, it may repeal these fines.

On the other hand, organizations have the need for integrating in IT departments new technologies often using cloud services and other ways of direct access to the web. This pressure for IT departments to give…