Google is facing another competition lawsuit from a group of states led by the Texas attorney general. The suit centres on alleged competition violations in the display advertising market, including a supposed agreement with Facebook to divide up the market.
The lawsuit accuses Google of multiple violations of federal and state antitrust and consumer protection laws, including anticompetitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentations in the online display advertising market. The company's "monopolization" of online-display advertising includes an anticompetitive agreement with Facebook, according to a statement from Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney.
Texas is also one of the states in the competition suit launched in October by the Department of Justice. That case centres on Google's monopoly in search and alleged competition violations in its distribution deals with devices makers and browser providers.
The new suit alleges that Google monopolized or attempted to monopolize products and services used by advertisers and publishers in online-display advertising. The complaint also alleges that Google engaged in false, misleading and deceptive acts while selling, buying and auctioning online-display ads. "These anticompetitive and deceptive practices demonstrably diminished publishers’ ability to monetize content, increased advertisers’ costs to advertise and directly harmed consumers," the attorney general said.
The alleged collusion with Facebook centres on a deal between the companies announced in 2018. This gave Facebook advertisers the option to place ads within Google’s network of publishing partners. Executives at the highest level of the companies signed off on the deal, according to the complaint.
Google reached similar partnerships with other advertising companies as part of an effort to maintain market share that was internally codenamed Project Jedi, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. What Google did not announce publicly is that it gave Facebook preferential treatment, the complaint alleges. Facebook agreed to back down from supporting competing software, which publishers had developed to rival Google’s position, the complaint said.
In exchange, the states said, Facebook received various benefits, including access to Google data and policy exceptions that enabled its clients to unfairly get more ads placed than clients of other Google partners could.
The ten states participating in the case are seeking court-appointed damages as well as possible structural or behavioural remedies against Google.
Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels described the states’ accusations about the ongoing partnership as inaccurate and said that Facebook does not receive special data. Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.
