The regulatory mistakes that let Facebook and Google buy ad dominance

Several major acquisitions have helped Google and Facebook on their way to unprecedented dominance over the advertising supply chain, antitrust analysts argued at the Open Markets Institute forum. There are six acquisitions that experts cited as missed opportunities by regulators at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to curb the advertising market dominance of Google and Facebook.

For Google, most of its acquisitions helped scale its ad-serving dominance. The big three for Google are its acquisition of DoubleClick for ad-serving, AdMob for its own mobile ad-network, and AdMeld. For Facebook, most of its acquisitions helped scale its ad inventory. The big three for Facebook were its acquisition of Onavo for VPN serving, Instagram for ad inventory, and Whatsapp for expanded user base.