tl/dr: email chains used as evidence in DOJ Google antitrust case show internal arguments about drops in # of searches, and how to increase them so that people see more ads. Search team wants to create better search results to keep people coming back.
Advertising team wants to find any way to make people search for as long and as often as possible (“increasing the journey length”) even if it means delivering less relevant search results.
You can actually read many of the trial documents here -
https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-and-plaintiff-states-v-google-llc-2020-trial-exhibits
this file was particularly interesting. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf
Constant minefield and multi-shift alliances.
I lead web applications.
Last year, I + legal team was in a war with ad team because they were whining about tracking during the CCPA rollout.
This year, it’s me + ad vs legal team over them wanting to slap compliance notices everywhere that affects user experience.