In this paper, we explore how keyword ambiguity can affect search advertising performance. Consumers arrive at search engines with diverse interests, which are often unobserved and nontrivial to predict. The search interests of different consumers may vary even when they are searching using the...

Click fraud is the practice of deceptively clicking on search ads with the intention of either increasing third-party website revenues or exhausting an advertiser's budget. Search advertisers are forced to trust that search engines do everything possible to detect and prevent click fraud even...

The phenomenon of sponsored search advertising – where advertisers pay a fee to Internet search engines to be displayed alongside organic (non-sponsored) web search results – is gaining ground as the largest source of revenues for search engines. Using a unique 6 month panel dataset of...

We explore substitution patterns across advertising platforms. Using data on the advertising prices paid by lawyers for 139 Google search terms in 195 locations, we exploit a natural experiment in “ambulance-chaser” regulations across states. When lawyers cannot contact clients by mail,...

Keyword advertising, or "sponsored links" that appear alongside online search results or other online content, has grown into a multibillion-dollar market. Providers of keyword advertising, such as Google and Yahoo!, profit by auctioning keywords to advertisers. One issue of increasing...

We study the implications of delegating bids to a bidding agency for the revenues and efficiency of the Generalized Second-Price auction, the standard sales mechanism for allocating online ad space. The agency maximizes both its own profits and the advertisers' surplus and implements collusive...

Questions about search engine bias have percolated in the academic literature for over a decade. In the past few years, the issue has evolved from a quiet academic debate to a full-blown regulatory and litigation frenzy. At the center of this maelstrom is Google, the dominant market player. This...

Online advertising is what funds free online content. Since its birth in the 1990’s, it has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry. At the core of this industry lies the ability to identify and track users through various technical means, such as web cookies. Online tracking for...

In 2017, the European Commission prohibited Google from favouring its comparison shopping service within general search results pages. It imposed a fine of US $ 2.73 billion for the committed abuse and a periodic payment penalty for any future non-compliance with the decision. On 10 November...