Meta Platforms Inc. entered into a 2018 deal with Google after concluding internally that it couldn’t successfully compete against the search giant, because of its monopoly over the technology undergirding online display advertising, a former Facebook advertising executive testified as part of a US Justice Department antitrust trial.
Brian Boland, who headed Facebook’s advertising technology between 2009 and 2019, told a Virginia federal court that the social network initially aimed to directly challenge Google in the market for display ads sold on websites. The Facebook Audience Network sought to allow marketers to run ads on the company’s social networks, Facebook and Instagram, as well as buy them on websites and in apps.