Complaint in the United States against the bosses of Google and Meta

The two giants of "tech" are accused of abuse of dominant position by a growing number of authorities in the United States.

DENIS CHARLET AFP/File

Text by: RFI Follow

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In the United States, the continuation of the lawsuits against Google and Meta (the parent company of Facebook) for anti-competitive practices: a coalition of states led by Texas filed in a New York court a new version of a text in which these two Internet giants are accused of having entered into an illegal agreement in 2018 to establish their domination of the online advertising market

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According to these accusations, launched as early as December 2020 against Google, the online search giant sought to oust all competition by manipulating advertising auctions, it is an ultra-sophisticated system that determines which advertisements are displayed on web pages according to the user's profile.

A “ 

strategically very important

 ” project

The legal documents revealed during this new complaint clearly refer to an agreement between the bosses of Google, and the director of operations of Facebook even if her name is not mentioned.

The complaint also cites an email she sent to Mark Zuckerberg, in which she describes the project as " 

strategically very important 

."

According to the prosecution, Google was concerned that an alternative system for allocating advertising space was being adopted too widely, allowing site publishers to circumvent its commissions.

The Californian group would then have convinced Facebook to form an alliance.

Abuse of dominant position

The two giants of “tech”, like Apple and Amazon, are accused of abuse of a dominant position by a growing number of authorities in the United States.

Google holds 28.6% of the global digital advertising market in 2021, just ahead of its neighbor Facebook and its 23.7% share of the pie.

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To read also: United States: the American competition authority will be able to sue Facebook

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