A federal judge in New York has ruled that that multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Google spearheaded by the Texas Attorney General can move forward. That said, Judge P. Kevin Castel also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim that Google’s online ad deal with Meta, codenamed Jedi Blue, was an unlawful restraint of trade. The judge said there is “nothing inexplicable or suspicious” about the two companies entering into the deal.
If you recall, the states that filed the lawsuit accused Google of entering into a deal with Meta that gave the latter certain advantages in the ad exchange that the tech giant runs. What Bloomberg Notes, Meta reportedly had to abandon plans to embrace new technology that would have damaged Google’s monopoly and endorse the tech giant’s open-bid approach when it comes to selling ads in return.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he was filing a “multistate lawsuit against Google for anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices, and deceptive misrepresentations” in 2020. The lawsuit focused on Google’s ad tech practices and how, Paxton said. , the company uses its “monopoly power to control the prices” of advertisements and “engage in market collusion.”
Google tried to dismiss the lawsuit earlier this year. Although he was unable to convince Judge Castel to dismiss the lawsuit entirely, the company still posted a note of celebration about the decision. “Importantly, the Court dismissed the allegations regarding our open tender agreement with Meta, the centerpiece of the AG Paxton case,” the company wrote in a blog post. The tech giant added that the deal had never been a secret and that it was pro-competitive. He also called Paxton’s case “deeply flawed.”
Although the judge in this case dismissed the claim that Jedi Blue was illegal, the deal and Google’s ad tech practices as a whole are still under scrutiny by authorities. The European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority launched an antitrust investigation into the companies’ deal in March. And just last month, Bloomberg had reported that the US Department of Justice was preparing to sue Google for its dominance of the advertising market sometime in September.
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