0.49%, SINA 0.38%, Yelp 0.24%, and Millennial Media 0.08%.<sup>1</sup> Such data indicate that Google, Facebook, and Baidu are the key beneficiaries of Internet advertising’s growth. One should not be mistaken: Google, Facebook, and Baidu are not communications companies. They do not sell digital content or access to online platforms. They are some of the world’s largest advertising companies. They sell user data as commodity to advertisers, who in return can present targeted ads to users: in 2014, 89% of Google’s revenues came from advertising (data source: SEC-Filings Google, Form 10-K 2014). In the case of Facebook this figure was 92% in 2014 (data source: SEC-Filings Facebook, Form 10-K 2014), for Baidu it was in the same year 98.9% online marketing services (data source: SEC-Filings Baidu, Form 20-F 2014).
Google and Facebook are very profitable companies (see figures 9.6 and 9.7). They not just monopolise online search and online social networking, but are also key players in the business of targeted advertising. In 2015, Google was the world’s 39th largest transnational company and Facebook the 28th largest (data source: Forbes 2000 [2015]).
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1 China’s leading ad sellers to take 10% of the worldwide digital market this year. eMarketer, 16 December 2014.