BRUSSELS - EU antitrust regulators opened on Friday an investigation into Alphabet unit Google and Facebook's online display advertising services deal to check if it violates the bloc's competition rules.

The European Commission said the investigation will focus on a 2018 deal between Facebook and Google dubbed Jedi Blue that may thwart ad tech rivals and restrict competition.

"Via the so-called 'Jedi Blue' agreement between Google and Meta, a competing technology to Google's Open Bidding may have been targeted with the aim to weaken it and exclude it from the market for displaying ads on publisher websites and apps," European antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The UK antitrust authority is also investigating the deal. The EU competition watchdog said it intends to cooperate closely with its British counterpart.

Google and Facebook, now renamed Meta, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An amended antitrust complaint filed by Texas and 15 other U.S. states against Google said the chief executives of both companies were aware of the deal to carve up part of the online advertising market.

  - Reuters