The New York Times recently outlined the inner workings of a secret deal between Facebook and Google that allowed the companies to jointly dominate the online advertising market.
In an article titled “Behind a Secret Deal Between Google and Facebook,” the New York Times outlines a secret deal between Facebook and Google related to the online advertising market that the two companies largely dominate.
Facebook revealed in 2017 that it was testing a new way of selling ads online that could threaten Google’s control of the online advertising market, but just two years later Facebook announced that it would be joining an alliance of companies backing a similar effort by Google, seemingly abandoning its own plans that would have allowed the company to better compete with Google.
Facebook never clarified why it seemed to abandon its own project, but an antitrust lawsuit filed by ten state attorneys general last month implies that Google had extended to Facebook a sweetheart deal to be a partner.
Executives at six of the partners in the alliance told the NYT that their agreements with Google did not contain many of the generous benefits that Facebook received and that Google had given Facebook a significant advantage over the other partners in the alliance.
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