Anyone want to weight in on how this falls legally? Price fixing can be a felony, and result in jail time[1]. Not sure if this falls under that, or similar anti-trust laws.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1987/06/20/p...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1987/06/20/p...
Assuming the same was done in reverse, this is both companies reducing the pool of ad slots available to others, and pushing up the price.
It would be equivalent to one oil company giving lots of oil to a competitor to destroy, and that competitor doing the same in return.