By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026Now consider that Google is *also* an advertiser and *also* a web publisher, and the opportunities to cheat are just *wild*. 170
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026The numbers tell the story. Before Googbook captured 80% of the display advertising business, the *total* share of the advertising industry's revenues that went to "intermediaries" (middlemen like ad agencies, ad buyers, etc) was about 15%. 191
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026Today, that number is *51%*. *Hundreds of billions of dollars* have been moved out of publishers' and advertisers' bank accounts and onto Google and Facebook's balance sheets. 2101
