--- title: How Facebook and Google rigged ad markets - The Hustle description: New unredacted evidence reveals that Facebook and Google CEOs knew about the Jedi Blue ad-rigging scheme. image: https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1013313159-News-Brief_2022-01-18T005441.279Z-scaled.webp --- # How Facebook and Google rigged ad markets ![Trung T. Phan](https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Image-from-iOS-300x300.jpg?width=48&height=48&name=Image-from-iOS-300x300.jpg) [Trung T. Phan](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/author/trung-t-phan) [Trung T. Phan Twitter profile ](https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan) Published: January 19, 2022 Updated: October 11, 2023 Google and Facebook are dominant in digital ads. ![How Facebook and Google rigged ad markets](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hs-fs/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1013313159-News-Brief_2022-01-18T005441.279Z-scaled.webp?width=595&height=400&name=1013313159-News-Brief_2022-01-18T005441.279Z-scaled.webp) The internet giants — officially (but annoyingly) called Alphabet and Meta — receive 52%+ of digital ad spend, per [*eMarketer*](https://www.emarketer.com/content/duopoly-still-rules-global-digital-ad-market-alibaba-amazon-on-prowl). As if this duopoly position isn’t enough, court documents from a recent lawsuit show that the firms rigged ad markets. #### **What happened?** In December 2020, 14 state attorneys general sued Alphabet for “anticompetitive conduct” that took place in 2018. According to [*Marketwatch*](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alphabet-and-facebook-ceos-colluded-in-online-ad-sales-scheme-unredacted-antitrust-lawsuit-alleges-11642205787), the scheme was called Jedi Blue and involved Google giving Facebook a boost by providing: - **A “Google-managed” system** to bid on and manage ads - **Preferential rates **on ads - **The 1st “dibs” **on prime ad placements These details were previously known, but new unredacted evidence made a big reveal: #### **The CEOs of both companies knew** Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai broke the 1st rule of collusion: Don’t leave a paper trail! Why would Google help Facebook out? The social network planned to expand into header bidding, a type of programmatic advertising that threatened Google’s ad exchange. So, Google made “overtures” to keep Facebook at bay. The states are actually suing Google for a number of ad-rigging schemes. If regulators win one (or more) cases, the duopoly may be just a bit less dominant. 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