Business | Commercial brakes

The $300bn Google-Meta advertising duopoly is under attack

The pair face a weak economy and powerful new rivals

|SAN FRANCISCO AND SEATTLE

For the past decade there have been two universally acknowledged truths about digital advertising. First, the rapidly growing industry was largely impervious to the business cycle. Second, it was dominated by the duopoly of Google (in search ads) and Meta (in social media), which one jealous rival has compared to John Rockefeller’s hold on oil in the late 19th century.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Commercial brakes”

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