{"id":2583,"date":"2022-01-26T21:05:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T20:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2022\/01\/26\/google-and-facebook-allegedly-conspired-to-rip-off-pu-daily-maverick\/"},"modified":"2022-01-26T21:05:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T20:05:44","slug":"google-and-facebook-allegedly-conspired-to-rip-off-pu-daily-maverick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2022\/01\/26\/google-and-facebook-allegedly-conspired-to-rip-off-pu-daily-maverick\/","title":{"rendered":"Google and Facebook (allegedly) conspired to rip off pu&#8230; &#8211; Daily Maverick"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Toby Shapshak is publisher of Stuff (Stuff.co.za) and Scrolla.Africa.<br \/>Both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally signed off on an \u201cillegal price-fixing agreement\u201d in 2018, according to a lawsuit filed by numerous US states.<br \/>Originally filed in December 2020, swathes of the lawsuit were blacked out but were unredacted this week with spectacular revelations. In one newly revelated email, which still obscures the names of people but not their titles, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote to Zuckerberg that \u201cwe\u2019re nearly ready to sign and need your approval to move forward\u201d. In another 2018 email to senior executives, including Zuckerberg, she says this is \u201ca big deal strategically\u201d.<br \/>Even more shocking is that Google agreed that Facebook would win a pre-arranged quantity of the auctions, no matter what the other bids were.<br \/>The lawsuit, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleges that the agreement, codenamed \u201cJedi Blue\u201d by Google, focused on what is known as programmatic advertising. This highly automated system allows advertising networks (including Google and<br \/>Facebook, as well as many others) to bid for the adverts on a publisher\u2019s website.<br \/>When an alternative to Google\u2019s own system emerged, called header bidding, which was more transparent and allowed publishers more control, Google tried to squash it.<br \/>\u201cGoogle quickly realised that this innovation substantially threatened its exchange\u2019s ability to demand a very large \u2013 19 to 22% \u2013 cut on all advertising transactions,\u201d the US states allege.<br \/>Instead, it offered its own alternative, called Open Bidding, which it (allegedly) colluded with Facebook to run. \u201cUltimately, Google and Facebook struck a deal executed at the highest levels. Following the agreement, Facebook curtailed its involvement with header bidding in return for Google giving Facebook information, speed, and other advantages,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<br \/><strong>It gets worse<\/strong><br \/>\u201cGoogle pocketed the difference between what it told publishers and advertisers that an ad cost and used the pool of money to manipulate future auctions to expand its digital monopoly.\u201d<br \/>In a draft of the lawsuit, obtained by The New York Times, the US states wrote: \u201cunbeknown to other market participants, no matter how high others might bid, the parties have agreed that the gavel will come down in Facebook\u2019s favour a set number of times\u201d.<br \/>Another internal Google email described this corrupt system as like having \u201cinsider information\u201d.<br \/>It doesn\u2019t look good for Zuckerberg \u2013 \u201cthe team sent an email addressed directly to CEO\u201d during the negotiations, according to the lawsuit; while Sandberg emailed him to say they were \u201cready to sign and need your approval to move forward\u201d. Although there is no similar email to Pichai included in the states\u2019 case, it\u2019s unlikely they would make the accusations without proof \u2013 or those details haven\u2019t been unredacted yet.<br \/>This is a huge development in the yearslong attempts by the US government to rein in the unbelievable power that the big tech firms have created for themselves. Despite claims of their own business excellence, it seems the firms \u2013 which is increasingly being revealed \u2013 achieved this illegally.<br \/>\u201cThis idea that the major tech platforms are robustly competing against each other is very much overstated. In many ways, they reinforce each other\u2019s monopoly power,\u201d Sally Hubbard from the Open Markets Institute think-tank told The New York Times.<br \/>The media industry has a right to be aggrieved at these horrendous revelations. This lawsuit demonstrates (through emails) that Google and Facebook (allegedly) conspired to rip off both publishers and advertisers with this \u201cillegal price-fixing agreement\u201d. Not only did Google (allegedly) hinder a transparent advert bidding process, but it (allegedly) structured the process so it could win and claim a disproportionately high cut of the transaction fee.<br \/>All this while (allegedly) colluding with Facebook to win a set number of auctions, giving them advantageous speed in the bidding process. On top of this, Google then (allegedly) pocketed the difference that advertisers overpaid, making even more money for itself.<br \/>This \u201cillegal price-fixing agreement\u201d has significantly reshaped the media industry \u2013 forcing advertisers to spurn a direct relationship with publishers. Google in essence \u201cillegally\u201d undercut the actual digital properties from advertising themselves with this \u201cillegal price-fixing agreement\u201d.<br \/>This kind of collusion has had massive impacts on the media industry and online publishers \u2013 firstly having denuded them of direct (native) advertising \u2013 and now revealed to be so fraught with \u201cillegal price fixing\u201d. This is going to see much more reaction, not least from publishers who are likely to launch a class action claim should this lawsuit succeed.<br \/>The media industry has a right to be aggrieved &#8230; This lawsuit demonstrates (through emails) that Google and Facebook (allegedly) conspired to rip off publishers and advertisers. <strong>DM168<\/strong><br \/><i>This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please click<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/168.dailymaverick.co.za\/available-here.html\"><i>here<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2022-01-22-study-shows-impact-of-covid-19-vaccines-on-menstrual-cycles-not-clinically-significant-society-of-obstetricians-gynaecologists\/dm-22012022-001-indd-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1156219\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1156219\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/DM-22012022-001-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"1095\" \/><\/a><br \/>Please note you must be a <a href=\"\/insider\/?utm_source=DM_Website&amp;utm_medium=Comments&amp;utm_campaign=only_insiders_can-comment\">Maverick Insider<\/a> to comment. <a href=\"\/insider\/?utm_source=DM_Website&amp;utm_medium=Comments&amp;utm_campaign=only_insiders_can-comment\">Sign up here<\/a> or <a href=\"\/sign-in\/\">sign in<\/a> if you are already an Insider.<br \/>Everybody has an opinion but not everyone has the knowledge and the experience to contribute meaningfully to a discussion. That\u2019s what we want from our members. Help us learn with your expertise and insights on articles that we publish. We encourage different, respectful viewpoints to further our understanding of the world. View our comments policy <a href=\"\/comments-policy\/\">here.<\/a> <br \/> No Comments, yet\t<br \/>Daily Maverick &copy; All rights reserved<br \/>There are many great benefits to being a Maverick Insider. Removing advertising from your browsing experience is one of them &#8211; we don&rsquo;t just block ads, we redesign our pages to look smarter and load faster. <br \/>Click here to see other benefits and to sign-up to our reader community supporting quality, independent journalism.<br \/>Select which newsletters you&rsquo;d like to receive<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/opinionista\/2022-01-26-google-and-facebook-ceos-allegedly-signed-off-on-ad-collusion-lawsuit-reveals\/\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toby Shapshak is publisher of Stuff (Stuff.co.za) and Scrolla.Africa.Both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally signed off on an \u201cillegal price-fixing agreement\u201d in 2018, according to a lawsuit filed by numerous US states.Originally filed in December 2020, swathes of the lawsuit were blacked out but were unredacted this week with spectacular [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}