Antitrust suit: Did Google and Facebook manipulate online advertising?

Antitrust suit: Did Google and Facebook manipulate online advertising?

San Francisco, 1/21/2022

Google and Facebook teamed up to manipulate online advertising in a deal approved by the CEOs of the two companies. This is according to unredacted documents from an antitrust lawsuit.

The deal guaranteed Facebook a certain percentage of Google’s online advertising auctions, the lawsuit alleges.

Google was concerned about the threat posed by Facebook’s foray into „header bidding,“ a method developed by independent ad tech companies to democratize the filling of ad slots, and sought a partnership to keep the social media giant from becoming a competitor. Facebook’s COO at the time, Sheryl Sandberg, personally emailed CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the 2018 agreement, known internally as „Jedi Blue,“ and asked for his approval.

The plaintiffs called the agreement „illegal price fixing“ and accused Google of eliminating competition. Google profited from charging advertisers inflated prices for its AdX platform, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in December. Google allegedly used bid data acquired from outside advertisers to improve its own ad system as part of its „Project Bernake“ program.