Google has been running a secret program for years that used data from previous bids in the company’s digital advertising exchange to allegedly give its own advertising buying system an advantage over competitors, according to court documents filed in an antitrust application in Texas.
The program, known as ‘Project Bernanke’, was not disclosed to publishers who sold ads through Google’s advertising buying systems. It has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the company annually. In its lawsuit, Texas claims that the project gives Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., an unfair competitive advantage over competitors.
The documents filed this week were part of Google’s initial response to the Texas-led antitrust lawsuit, which was filed in December and accused the search industry of a monopoly on digital advertising that harmed both advertising and publishing competitors. This week’s submission, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, was not properly inferred when it was uploaded to the court’s public deed. A federal judge has let Google seal it again.
Some of the unlimited content of the document was previously announced by MLex, a news market focused on antitrust.
The document sheds further light on the state’s case against Google, along with the search company’s defense.