By Hadassa Kalatizadeh
A new report accuses Google of utilizing a secret program to track bids on its ad-buying platform — and using the info to gain an unfair market advantage.
As reported by the NY Post, the program was detailed in court filings of the ongoing Texas-led antitrust suit against Google. The tech giant reportedly admitted the existence of Project, known as “Project Bernanke” seemingly in a reference to former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. In a written response, Google said that details of its “operations are not disclosed to [ad] publishers,” but the company denied that this gave it an unfair advantage.
Litigators for the Texas antitrust case, however, insist that having such a program which tracks the amount any company would pay for an ad, gives Google an advantage comparable to insider trading. This is because the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary has a multilayered presence in the world of online advertising. It is the operator of a chief ad exchange, representing both buyers and sellers, and it simultaneously buys ads for its own use, as per the suit. By obtaining secrets on what other ad buyers were willing to pay for space, Google could learn to bid the minimum amount required to beat out competitors’ ads, obtaining the best spaces at the lowest cost possible, the state alleges in court filings. The report alleges that Project Bernanke has already helped Google rake in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Additionally, the court filing also alleges that Google made a deal to guarantee Facebook would get a fixed percentage of advertising spots that it bid on. This secret deal, known as Jedi Blue, was allegedly signed by Philipp Schindler, Google’s senior vice president and chief business officer, as well as Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, as per the Post. The arrangement seems “to allow Facebook to bid and win more often in auctions,” lawyers for Texas alleged in the filings.
Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels responded to the Wall Street Journal, commenting that the lawsuit “misrepresents many aspects of our ad tech business”. “We look forward to making our case in court,” added Schottenfels, who pointed to a UK advertising group’s study that concluded Google did not seem to have an unfair advantage.
Google is currently embroiled in three anti-trust actions, one of which is the Texas-led suit described above. Facebook is also facing an anti-trust lawsuit, being led by NY Attorney General Letitia James.
