Facebook and Google they allegedly agreed to "cooperate and assist each other" in case they faced charges over their online advertising pact. It reveals the Wall Street Journal, in an article about the lawsuit filed by 10 US states against Google last week.
Going into detail, the agreements signed by the two big technologies starting in 2018 ended up in the sights. Google and Facebook would in fact have signed agreements to hijack advertisements, favoring Mark Zuckerberg's social network to the detriment of competitors. Google reportedly used 'Star Wars' language codenamed for 'Jedi Blue' deal.
These agreements are at the center of the lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Texas and nine other US states who accused the Menlo Park company of "abuse its monopoly power” to undermine competition in the online advertising market.
“I am proud to announce that Texas has filed a multi-state action against Google for anti-competitive conduct“, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said last week, according to which Google used “its power to manipulate the market, destroy the competition and harm you, the consumer. It is unacceptable that Google has in fact neutralized the competition, and has crowned itself responsible for online advertising”.
According to the Wall Street Journal the two giants knew that their agreement on advertising could have faced investigations by the US Antitrust and they discussed how to behave (tackling the issue together) in the event that the investigation really started. A Google spokesperson commented that such antitrust risk deals are extremely common.
