Zuckerberg and Pichai Allegedly Signed Off On Illegal Facebook-Google Ad Deal

BuzzFeed News reports: Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally signed off on a secret advertising deal that allegedly gave Facebook special privileges on Google's ad platform, according to newly unredacted court documents filed on Friday.

The allegation is from a complaint first filed in December 2020 by Texas and several other states against Google for engaging in "false, deceptive, or misleading acts" while operating its buy-and-sell auction system for digital ads. In the complaint, state attorneys general claim Google illegally teamed up with Facebook, its fiercest competitor in the digital advertising market, for a 2018 deal Google dubbed "Jedi Blue" in a reference to Star Wars. Prior to the alleged deal, Facebook appeared to threaten Google's dominance in the market by backing an ad-buying technique called "header bidding." "Google understood the severity of the threat to its position if Facebook were to enter the market and support header bidding," the complaint reads. "To diffuse this threat, Google made overtures to Facebook."

In the end, Facebook backed off after Google agreed to give the social network "information, speed, and other advantages" in auctions run by Google, the complaint says.

The newly unredacted version of the complaint shows that the deal was allegedly struck at the highest levels of the companies, a noteworthy level of cooperation from two of the most powerful companies in the world.

Punishble for up to 10 years in prison

[JoeyRox]

The penalties for violating the Sherman Act can be severe. Although most enforcement actions are civil, the Sherman Act is also a criminal law, and individuals and businesses that violate it may be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Criminal prosecutions are typically limited to intentional and clear violations such as when competitors fix prices or rig bids. The Sherman Act imposes criminal penalties of up to $100 million for a corporation and $1 million for an individual, along with up to 10 years in prison. Under federal law, the maximum fine may be increased to twice the amount the conspirators gained from the illegal acts or twice the money lost by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is over $100 million.

Source: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advic... [ftc.gov]

Why is this illegal?

[goombah99]

Not seeing why. Secret or something you don't tell your other customers does not mean illegal

Re:Why is this illegal?

[JoeyRox]

The Sherman Act outlaws "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize." Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are "per se" violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.

Source: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advic... [ftc.gov]

Re:

[rotorbudd]

So, the 2 largest ad sellers on the internet agree to a secret deal and you think it's fine?
Thanks for your opinion. Shill

Re: Why is this illegal?

[WindBourne]

That is not what he said. Legal and fine are very different.

Found the other shill

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the other shill.

Re:

[shanen]

Largely replying to propagate your Subject, which seems quite appropriate to me, but I wonder about the replies of the google and Facebook defenders. In particular, I wonder if they have any financial motivations, or if they are just in love without money. (At least not their own money. All the money would belong to the google and Facebook if they had their druthers.)

Also I think this recent comment from a related story is relevant, though the story itself was probably bugged or hidden in some way. (It coul

No problem here,

[oldgraybeard]

they have not greased(paid off) the right government officials, judges and politicians lately. Once that is taken care of, we won't hear about this until next time. Regulate Big Tech yea sure they will!

This is disturbing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

This is almost as if two of the largest, most prevalent tech companies in the world to whom billions entrust their most personal information - voluntarily, involuntarily or entirely against their will - are fundamentally immoral...

Re:

[rotorbudd]

This!
Wish I had a few Mod Points for you.

Re:

[BenBoy]

Not to be a Gloomy Gus, but Cohen's "Everybody Knows" was my 2021 'earworm of the year', and nothing in 2022 so far has made me expect that to change ...

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Re:

[evanh]

What's disturbing is they collect and sell any personal info. Take that away and the backroom deals just become noise.

Is this the Lance Armstrong moment?

[FeltLion]

This is the moment when a certain somebody takes all of the heat for an entire industry/nation/world that is corrupted with secret agreements between powerful and privileged parties ? I doubt it.

money

[0vi_king]

And when the wealthy commit crimes....seems like no one cares.

Golden rule! :)

He who has all the gold, makes the rules.

Evil

[WindBourne]

Been saying for a long time that pichai is evil.

Re:Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, he's an absolute shit stain on the tech industry. People still harp on about Bill Gates but at least Gates never let people die for profits, at least Bill's indiscretions were all related to anti-competitiveness. Pichai literally handed over the details of Chinese dissidents just to make money in China.

Him and Zuckerberg both have real actual blood on their hands, that's a marked difference to people like Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Ballmer, Bezos, etc. who are all largely just arseholes.

As such frankly I do hope Zuckerberg and Pichai end up in jail, as they really are next level evil, and it's the right place for them.

Re:

[JThundley]

I'm sure Microsoft software and services have lead to a healthy number of suicides in the years.

Nobody's going to jail

[presearch]

Laws, and the Constitution are now (and perhaps always) just imaginary constructs.
Save your outrage, it's meaningless. Somebody simply didn't get their cut.
Maybe a sacrificial lamb might get fired, and a hearing or two will be held as theater,
and a "fine" will get paid as a payoff disbursement, but that's it.

The person that let this leak? Their life is over.

Re:Nobody's going to jail

[hdyoung]

Actually, if thats true it could be REALLY bad. Facebook and Google forming an illegal cartel might actually step over the line into the area where lawmakers actually take action. Thats the sort of crap that makes EVERYBODY angry. Conservatives, liberals, republicans, democrats, libertarians, whatever Bernie Sanders is, everyone.

It all depends on whether it can truly be proven. If it can, we might actually see some real action. That’s pretty bad. Big companies dont get to cut secret deals to divide up the market like that. Extremely illegal.

Monopoly Collusion: Break them up

[schwit1]

aka nuke the sites from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.