Google and Meta are being investigated by the EU and UK for an antitrust probe related to a 2018 ad deal.

• The "Jedi Blue" agreement between the two companies may have hindered competition in the online display advertising market.

The EU and U.K. regulators have launched antitrust investigations into Google and Facebook following their 2018 ad agreement.

The parallel probes, announced on Friday, will investigate whether the "Jedi Blue" agreement between the two companies has hindered competition in the online display advertising market.

In January, a group of U.S. state attorneys generals accused Google and Meta of colluding to manipulate online ad auctions and set artificially high prices, which harmed smaller companies. However, both companies denied the allegations at the time.

The CEO of the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority, Andrea Coscelli, expressed concern on Friday that Google may have collaborated with Meta to hinder competitors who offer crucial online advertising services to publishers.

A stranglehold by one company on a specific market can hinder start-ups and smaller businesses from entering the market, potentially limiting customer choice.

The regulator aims to ascertain whether the tech giants impeded or hindered the adoption of "header bidding services," which allow news publishers to sell their online advertising space to multiple buyers simultaneously, instead of receiving individual offers.

Online display advertising is a primary source of funding for many publishers, according to Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission's competition policy chief.

According to her, the "Jedi Blue" agreement between Google and Meta may have been aimed at weakening a competing technology to Google's Open Bidding and excluding it from the market for displaying ads on publisher websites and apps.

Vestager stated that if the investigation confirms it, it would limit and distort competition in the already concentrated ad tech market, negatively impacting rival ad serving technologies, publishers, and ultimately consumers.

Meta's non-exclusive bidding agreement with Google and other bidding platforms has helped increase competition for ad placements, resulting in better outcomes for advertisers, publishers, and Meta. We will cooperate with both inquiries.

Google has previously rejected the claims in a U.S. lawsuit, with Director of Economic Policy Adam Cohen calling it a "misleading attack" in a 2021 blog post. In January, a Google spokesperson stated that the company would file a motion to dismiss the case and that it remains "full of inaccuracies and lacks legal merit."