Google And Facebook Worked Together To Evade Apple Privacy: Antitrust

Google is seemingly working with Facebook to undermine user privacy offered by Apple. This, along with many other shocking details, has also come out thanks to Google’s antitrust lawsuit. Both companies allegedly worked together to circumvent Apple’s privacy and help Facebook match end-users.

Google and Facebook partnership (Jedi Blue)

Apple had previously blocked cookies on Apple devices and browsers, which prevented Facebook from collecting data on its users. The company was having a hard time matching users on Apple devices. However, Google was willing to use Javascript to help Facebook better recognize those users.

🔒"google has a secret deal with facebook called "Jedi Blue" that they knew was so illegal that it has a whole section describing how they'll cover for each other if anyone finds out
– google appears to have a team called gTrade that is wholly dedicated to ad market manipulation"
— fasterthanlime (@fasterthanlime) October 23, 2021

Both companies also had an illegal advertising deal (Jedi Blue) that allowed the social media company to appear more in Google Ads. Google did this by fixing bids in ad auctions to Facebook’s favor. They also had a fallout plan on covering for each other if this information ever came under regulatory scrutiny.

Google antitrust revelations

The Attorney generals who filed the lawsuit also claim that Facebook baited Google into the deal. However, Google has denied the claims made in the lawsuit. Thanks to the lawsuit, we also got the full, unredacted documents related to the company’s shady dealings. The documents revealed many interesting details regarding the search engine company, such as:

Google had a plan called “Project NERA” to turn the web into a walled garden. Internally it was called “Not Owned But Operated”. Remember the forced logins to the chrome browser.
Google trades insider info on its ad exchanges with major tech companies.
The search engine company manipulated bids behind advertisers’ backs so that they win on bids where they aren’t the highest bidder.
Google worked with Facebook and Microsoft to discourage them from increasing user privacy.
Google takes up to 42% of ad revenue from publishers.
In 2015, Google signed an agreement with WhatsApp to give users the option of backing up their messages. Users were led to believe the back-ups were encrypted. Google knew users were mislead.
Google has started a programme Dynamic Allocation to maximize revenue for publishers.
In 2019, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft & Google discussed stalling consumer privacy regulations.
Google was concerned that Microsoft was taking child privacy seriously and trying to rein it in.