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UK Closes Collusion Case Against Google & Meta

By  |  March 12, 2023

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) won’t be pursuing an anticompetition collusion case against Google and Facebook’s parent Meta, the CMA announced Friday.

The case in question relates to online display advertising, focusing on an alleged agreement between Google and Facebook dating back to 2018, dubbed “Jedi Blue.” The deal reportedly meant that Google would give Facebook preferential treatment in terms of ad rates, placements, and access to data, in exchange for Facebook distancing itself from an alternative programmatic advertising system called header bidding, which would have cut into Google’s coffers.

Read more: South Korean Watchdog Fines Google & Meta Over Data

The UK’s CMA has revealed that it is closing its case against the duo on “administrative priority grounds.” Administrative priorities constitute a fairly broad gamut of conditions under which the CMA deems either there isn’t enough evidence to determine a law breach, or that it can’t justify “continued allocation of resources” if the case “no longer fits within the CMA’s casework priorities.”