Jedi Blue is an agreement between

Alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

and

Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads ...

that allegedly gave

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

an illegal advantage in Google's ad auctions in exchange for Facebook's word that it would end its own ad service plans.

History

In 2007 Google purchased

DoubleClick DoubleClick Inc. was an American advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primaril ...

and its DoubleClickForPublishers advertising system. Header bidding emerged in 2017 as a new way for purchasers to buy ad space. It allowed advertisers to participate in auctions across multiple ad platforms (such as Google's). Facebook announced plans to become header bidding-compatible. This would allow Facebook advertisers to bypass Google's platform, adding to Facebook's revenues and subtracting from Google's. In 2018, Facebook and Google came to an agreement, leading Facebook to retreat from header bidding that became a focus in the suit. Multiple U.S. states sued Google in 2020. Details about the agreement were obtained in the course of the lawsuit. In September 2022, a ruling in the case dismissed claims there was

collusion Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...

between Google and Facebook regarding the matters covered in the agreement. On March 11, 2022, antitrust regulators opened an investigation into the agreement in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, with claims that it undermined competition in the advertising market.

Agreement

According to the draft lawsuit, Facebook agreed to reduce its participation in header bidding in return for "information, speed, and other advantages" that would come from staying with Google. Facebook allegedly would receive a guarantee of 90% of auctions regardless of the bids; 300 ms to bid (vs 160 offered to others), along with the ability to identify 80% of smartphone users and 60% of web users.

Defendant responses

Google

Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said, "Despite Attorney General Paxton's three attempts to re-write his complaint, it is still full of inaccuracies and lacks legal merit ... There is vigorous competition in online advertising, which has reduced ad tech fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers."

Facebook

Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said, "Meta's non-exclusive bidding agreement with Google and the similar agreements we have with other bidding platforms, have helped to increase competition for ad placements ... These business relationships enable Meta to deliver more value to advertisers while fairly compensating publishers, resulting in better outcomes for all."

References

{{Google litigation Facebook litigation Google litigation Online advertising