Zuckerberg, Pichai signed ‘big deal’ to carve up ad market, says report

 

 

 

A SERIOUS anti-trust complaint in the US has reportedly revealed that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were allegedly involved in an ad collusion plot, a charge that both tech giants denied. Attorneys for Texas and other states alleged in newly unsealed court filings that Zuckerberg and Pichai “personally approved a secret deal that gave the social network a leg up in the search giant’s online advertising auctions”, reports Politico. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the group of state attorneys general released a new antitrust complaint against Google, giving more details into the company’s alleged collusion with Facebook in programmatic ad markets. The states originally filed the suit against Google in December 2020, and updated that with a heavily-redacted version in November last year.

 

The initial complaint alleged collusion between the two tech giants, particularly in a project codenamed “Jedi Blue”. The “Jedi Blue” deal was reviewed at the highest levels of both companies, with personal involvement from Pichai, Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Zuckerberg. In one email to Zuckerberg, Sandberg allegedly told the CEO “(t)his is a big deal strategically”. According to the report that came out on Friday, the complaint said the team that negotiated the deal sent Zuckerberg an email telling him: “We’re nearly ready to sign and need your approval to move forward.”