Thread by @thezedwards

And now we know what Google has been actually doing to slow down ePrivacy..

The unredacted documents between Google & Facebook @ storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… are outrageous. There are going to dozens of important ad tech, digital privacy stories from all the details we can now see.

Facebook had minimum spends & quotas via Facebook's header bidding. Google considered a "nuclear option" of reducing Google's exchange fees down to zero to kill header bidding.

Google documented it could not avoid "competing with [Facebook's Audience Network"

"An internal Facebook communication at the highest level reveals that Facebook's header bidding announcement was part of a pre-planned long-term strategy -- an "18 [month] header bidding strategy" - to draw Google in. Facebook decided to dangle the threat of competition..."

"Facebook decided to dangle the threat of competition in Google's face so it could then cut a deal to manipulate publishers' auctions in its favor."

- just released court documents @ storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

"..Google employed a number of other anticompetitive tactics to shut down competition from header bidding. Google deceived non-Google exchanges into bidding through Google instead of header bidding, telling them it would stop front running their orders when in fact it would not."

"Google employees also deceived publishers, telling one major online publisher that it should cut off a rival exchange in header bidding because of a strain on its servers...." 1/2

"...Google employees discussed playing a trick—a “jedi mind trick”—on the industry to nonetheless get publishers to cut off exchanges in header bidding. Google wanted to “get publishers to come up with the idea to remove exchanges … on their own.” ..." 2/2

"Having reached its monopoly position, Google now uses its immense market power to extract a very high tax of 22 to 42 percent of the ad dollars otherwise flowing to the countless online publishers and content producers such as online newspapers, cooking websites, and blogs..."

"...ad impressions are considered 'high value,' which refers to impressions targeted to users likely to make a purchase. Indeed, publishers generally make almost all (~80 percent) of their revenue from just a small portion (~20 percent) of their impressions..."

wild new stat!⛈️

"Google’s exchange charges publishers 19 to 22 percent of exchange clearing prices, which is double to quadruple the prices of some of its nearest exchange competitors.... if Google’s exchange sells $100,000 worth of a publisher’s inventory, Google will extract at least $19,000."

Google gave Facebook an NDA, and Facebook obviously agreed to it because it saved them 5-10% on all off-Facebook advertising through Google's ad server. Anyplace Google could advertiser, Facebook had a 5-10% discount over all other market DSP/SSP/ad buyers. Huge for FAN.

We also now know that Facebook had a 300 millisecond timeout for Google return bids, compared to all other Google partners having a 160 millisecond timeout. This number was redacted previously, Google basically gave Facebook 2x the time to respond to ad bids, a huge advantage.⛈️

"Google further induced Facebook to help Google 'kill HB' by letting Facebook have direct billing and contractual relationships with publishers."

"One advertising competitor compared Google's business terms to a 'gag order.'"

🚨🤖⚖️Google + Facebook have been sharing bot data, this was redacted previously. The gstatic.)com data collection across the federal government has been shared with Facebook. Now we know.

Nearly every federal government website has been secretly sharing bot data to Facebook.

Facebook + Google have been secretly collaborating to optimize their match rates on Safari, sharing exploits and data between their SDKs/on-site code.

Google promised Facebook an 80% match rate for mobile (!!!!!) & "only 60%" for desktop (excluding safari)

A very important document on markets -- we now have complete clarity that Facebook figured out that Google was using real-time data to advantage their own demand. Google was banned in Jedi Blue from ~doing this to Facebook~, but this is an ongoing revenue-channel for Google..⛈️⚖️

You should PROBABLY not sign documents between you and your core competitor that colludes to hide antitrust activity from antitrust investigators. Google and Facebook clearly stretch "to the extent permitted by applicable law" ..to..

"cooperate and assist each other..." 🤨🤪🗑️📴

How it started:
"Last Look also ....⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️..., protecting Google’s market power in both."

Now:
"According to a confidential Google study, Last Look significantly re-routed trading to Google’s exchange and Google’s ad buying tools, protecting Google’s market power in both."

And now we publicly know that Google has been telling publishers to remove OpenX.

"Google employees agreed that, in the future, they should find ways to convince publishers to act against their interest and remove competing exchanges in header bidding on their own."

Here's the Jedi Mind Trick email, an engineer at Google says they need to get the "ecosystem talking about why SSPs and DSPs are willing to do things that are NOT in the publisher's best interests..."

"____ said he's on it... not sure what that means... but trust it will work."

Holy shit, the feds got communication between Google and the Google-controlled AMP board and finally proved that this (amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/amp…) is not-at-arms-length from Google, and they debate internally about whether Google or the AMP Board should release statements. 🤣🤣⛈️⚖️

A "senior Google employee" apparently admits to screwing ad buyers globally - the non-transparent pricing gives them "some flexibility to react and counteract market changes. If we face tons of pricing pressure on the buy-side, we can fall back on the sell-side, and vice-versa."

Woof, the Unified Pricing rules and the May 2, 2019 meeting between Facebook and Google that had the details previously redacted, are pretty jaw dropping.

We now know that Facebook didn't want publisher pricing floors, their pressure on Google & these deals pushed changes..

Youtube ads should be open to non-google ad systems, and the feds have proof that Google stopped the open ads on YouTube because restricting access to DV360 (google's ads product) was as they said in a document "a significant driver of DBM Video adoption."

The changes at YouTube to break the ability of Google advertising competitors to target/buy ads there, should be evidence #1 that Google can't both run consumer platforms and an advertising network. Google made an entire document about this strategy, and it absolutely worked.

Google made the details about restricting competitor access to YouTube... too easy? This is textbook market breaking behavior, it absolutely worked, because it wasn't some genius plan, it's just massive self-preferencing across subsidiaries, vertical integration of audience data.

~worst part⤵️, Google taxed all small/medium/large businesses just like front-running stock schemes, except this is on their own damn network. They broke their own network, purposefully deceiving all the small/medium/large buyers about auction logic.