Antitrust Docs Details The Considered Conspiracy Between Facebook and Google

When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton first lead a blockbuster multistate antitrust lawsuit against Google in late 2020, also included (highly modified) predictions of a secret agreement with Facebook that would allow the two to confuse rivals in advertising and control the lion’s share of digital advertising. to this day. Now, more about this agreement is open to the public: new court from a suit that was published Friday claiming the alliance, dubbed “Jedi Blue,” gave Facebook an unofficial advantage in Google’s advertising space in exchange for Facebook’s message to return its advertising plans. In addition, it is said that senior executives in both companies signed an agreement.

The technology used in online advertising is byzantine in a way that can be eliminated online advertisers companies scratching their heads, which means that more than 240 pages in recent Texas case cases may be difficult to summarize. In short, online publishers – news pages, recipes blogs, and any other sites you can name – rely on so-called “advertising” to destroy their advertising space for online advertisers. The Google advertising campaign has become one of the largest in the world, leaving websites with little choice but to work with a company if they want to earn advertising money.

All of that changed in 2017 with the development of a new technology called “head advertising”That would allow websites evade Google exchanges and still get good profits from their advertising sites. Facebook quickly announced makes itself relevant to the topic soon, which means publishers can log in to Facebook information, more (more) advertisers in exchange for providing a small portion of the advertising revenue to the company. The extra money in the Facebook wallet means less in Google, which the lawsuit says left them looking for a way to spread the threat of competition.

The alliance the two found was “Jedi Blue.” In it, Facebook agreed to limit its participation in head-to-head advertising in exchange for “information, speed, and other benefits.”Can be found through the use of Google advertising. One of the great advantages mentioned in the case is its claim forward quota of the number of ads that Facebook can compete with other competitors using ad exchanges with Google.

Although their names are listed in the documents, the suit says Facebook (now Meta) CEO and COO-Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, respectively– signed a contract in 2018, as CEO of Google Sundar Photosi. Today, all their companies control more than half of approx $ 491 billion digital marketing market.

The two companies denied any involvement in the process words in Politico, all claim that their marketing expertise is designed to benefit advertisers and publishers, rather than putting them in their own pockets. “Although Attorney General Paxton has tried three times to rewrite his appeal, it is still flawed and lawless,” Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels said. “There is a lot of competition in online advertising, which has reduced the cost of advertising, as well as more options for publishers and advertisers.”

Facebook – which was also renamed Meta – said the same thing. “The non-Meta partnership with Google and the similar alliances we have with other platforms, have helped to increase the competition for advertising,” Meta spokesman Christopher Sgro said. “These business partnerships enable Meta to make more money for advertisers while paying better for the publishers, which makes everyone more successful.”