The EC has launched an investigation into Google and Meta's ad deal for teenagers

Brussels was interested in an article in the British edition of the Financial Times (FT), which reported that Google and Meta (recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and banned) had entered into a secret agreement. Advertising under the agreement of the organizations was to be published to bypass the rules on advertising content for adults.

"European regulators have asked Google to provide more information about a secret advertising partnership with Meta that circumvented the search company's own rules on how minors should be treated online, raising the possibility of an official investigation," the publication says.

Thus, according to the material, representatives of the European Commission (EC) have begun to examine a number of advertising campaigns promoting Instagram (owned by Meta) to teenagers on YouTube.

In October, during an internal investigation of the incident, data from presentations, internal chats and emails related to the advertising campaigns were collected. These materials were handed over to Brussels for its further verdict.

Earlier, on December 2, it became known that Google's traffic and the superprofits it generates are declining because young people are losing interest in using the company's search engine. They more often use for this purpose other platforms, including those based on artificial intelligence.