elsewhen - 5:00 am on Jan 31, 2010 (gmt 0)

in my opinion this news is much more important for the industry than it is for individual publishers.

it might cause other industry players to increase their revshare percentages.

but, i think that the biggest benefit, is that it will make google less likely to decrease the payout in the future. it would be much more difficult to lower the revshare percentage when that information is public than it would if they just turn a dial on their black box (which is how it operates now).

the transparency also may serve to stave off regulators from stepping in which could slow down future innovation and/or create additional expenses which could be passed on to publishers in the form of lower revshare.

although an individual publisher might not directly benefit from such disclosures, i think we should promote and applaud these moves that google is making toward furthering their openness.