Google, Facebook reportedly agreed to work together to fight antitrust probes

Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25503210

>Among those behaviors, a new report finds, is an explicit agreement from Google to work with Facebook not only to divide the online advertising marketplace, but also to fend off antitrust investigations.

>The final version of the suit made public last week (PDF) alleged that Google and Facebook signed a secret agreement in 2018 that "fixes prices and allocates markets between Google and Facebook as competing bidders in the auctions for publishers' Web display and in-app advertising inventory

>"For the most blatant agreements not to compete, such as price fixing, bid rigging, and market division, the rules are clear," the Federal Trade Commission's competition guidance explains. "The courts decided many years ago that these practices are so inherently harmful to consumers that they are always illegal, so-called per se violations."

Wonder how they're gonna get out of it this time

Cartelization?