CEO of Google and Facebook colluded with online advertising sales plan, unedited antitrust lawsuit

unedited antitrust lawsuit accusation Chief executives of the parent companies of Google and Facebook colluded to manipulate online advertising sales under a 2018 scheme nicknamed Jedi Blue and signed off on it the lawsuit says. Sandberg and a Google senior vice president signed the agreement Google’s advertising exchange AdX — which publishers and advertisers were told would crown the top bid the winner of the ad space while charging them the price of the second highest bid — would sometimes remove the second-highest ad bid CEO of Google and Facebook colluded with online advertising sales plan the suit adds. Jedi Blue has been variously described as a plan to rig the online ad market by its two biggest players in order to squeeze out competition. One assertion by the AGs is that in 2018 Google and Facebook quietly agreed to use a Google-managed system for bidding on and managing online ads. Google would give Facebook preferential rates and first dibs on prime ad placement. Facebook  The states allege that program involved Google hoodwinking advertisers and publishers for years in its ad auctions state attorneys general allege in newly unredacted filings. The filings are part of a lawsuit filed in December 2020 by 14 state attorneys general led by Texas AG Ken Paxton the AGs content. Both companies on Friday denied their arrangement was illegal. The unredacted details also provide more information about a series of Google programs Sections of the complaint that focused on interactions with Facebook parent Meta Inc. FB a Google spokesman told MarketWatch in an email. we have been running a first price auction Meta’s nonexclusive bidding agreement with Google and the similar agreements we have with other bidding platforms