United Kingdom: CMA opens investigation into Google and Meta “Jedi Blue” agreement over alleged anticompetitive conduct in online advertising market

On 11 March 2022, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an investigation into Google and Meta, previously Facebook, to determine if the companies entered into an illegal agreement to exclude Google’s competitors from the advertising market. The service “open bidding programme”, owned by Google, intermediates auctions for online display advertising space on web pages and applications. Meta offers online display advertising services and partakes in auctions through its “Meta audience network” using the advertising technology services offered by Google and Google’s competitors. The CMA investigation aims to determine if the participation of Meta's Audience Network in Google's “open bidding programme” was due to an agreement from 2018, coded “Jedi Blue”, to exclude Google’s competitors from the online display advertising market and prevent the expansion of header bidding services. Header bidding represents a service that enables sellers to offer advertising space to various buyers at the same time and compare the offers more efficiently. The CMA will determine if the “Jedi Blue” agreement violates the law and assess if Google’s actions regarding header bidding services represent an abuse of its dominant position.