Milestone: Publisher sues Google, Facebook for anti-competitive ad pricing
Facebook's culture is known for highly manipulative tactics. Google's is less so, which makes it surprising they allowed themselves to get entagled with Facebook on a deal for ad pricing. Had they never read "Where Are You Going, Where Are You From?" close enough to identify the false hook as a manipulation tactic?
Much more spin emanating from Facebook has been documented than from Google, for some reason. And they employ a tactic of "levelling" or spreading blame. This dilutes a target strictly on Facebook, by spreading ire to "big tech" in general. Roger MacNamee, an early investor-turned critic, author of the less-than-flattering, yet meandering book "Zucked" has oft repeated the phrase "Google is just as bad" when responding to criticisms of Facebook on Twitter.
"While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation." - NYTimes Nov 2018 Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through CrisisNobody has said who tipped off the 10 state attorneys general to evidence that the two companies had entered into a secret agreement that led to the lawsuit announced Dec. 16. That Facebook alone was hit with twin lawsuits seven days earlier by both the the FTC and 47 state attorneys general is not conclusive evidence of anything that transpired Dec. 16. That Facebook last week filed an antitrust suit against Apple on Data Privacy Day is not conclusive evidence they were engaging in operation-dilute-target in December. And Facebook's antitrust lawsuit against Apple is not evidence the company tipped any attorneys general about a secret agreement they had with Google which led to the lawsuit against Google and Facebook announced Dec. 16.
But that a news publisher is piggy backing on this joint lawsuit against Google and Facebook is bad news for both tech giants.
-----------------------------------------
Further Reading:
The antitrust case against Facebook: Here's what you need to know: cnn.com
The Times' account "contained many new details about Facebook’s use of decidedly swampy political public-relations and lobbying techniques." newyorker.com
Ten States Sue Google, Alleging Deal With Facebook to Rig Online Ad Market: wsj.com
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
