This is not the first time that Google and Meta have faced antitrust lawsuits in Europe. Manipulating search results, user tracking, and abusing the market are some serious allegations against Google and Meta. Google recently faced a €2.1 billion lawsuit by a Swedish price comparison service. Moreover, Meta had just agreed to pay $90 million to settle a data privacy lawsuit. The European Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) from the UK have just started the investigation. They want to know if Google and Meta have blocked other companies from offering advertising services to other brands. Also, whether they have limited other companies competitive capabilities. The recently found documents prove that Google and Meta colluded in 2018 to control the ad market.
The UK & EU believe both companies tried to abuse the ad market
Regulators are concerned that Google and Meta have done so in a joint venture. When two giant companies, which control a significant share of the online advertising market, become partners, it can create a large monopoly. “Many publishers rely on online display advertising to fund online content for consumers. Via the so-called “Jedi Blue” agreement between Google and Meta, a competing technology to Google’s Open Bidding may have been targeted with the aim to weaken it and exclude it from the market for displaying ads on publisher websites and apps.” Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice-President from the EU said. “If confirmed by our investigation, this would restrict and distort competition in the already concentrated ad tech market, to the detriment of rival ad serving technologies, publishers, and ultimately consumers.” The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also wants to investigate whether the so-called “Jedi Blue” agreement broke the law. “The CMA is also scrutinising Google’s conduct in relation to header bidding services more widely to see if the firm abused a dominant position and gained an unfair advantage over competitors trying to provide a similar service.” The investigation continues, and if the EU and UK could prove the market abuse case by Google and Meta, both companies could face a fine for up to 10-percent of their global annual revenue. Of course, such cases take a long time to conclude a result.
