TORONTO – A new report says the hold tech giants have on the online advertising industry is putting national security at risk.
An analysis from the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project think tank says Google, Meta and Amazon control more than 90 per cent of the market meant to sell online advertising in Canada.
Much of that market is comprised of automated, high-speed auctions that allow companies to bid on users they will show their ads to in the seconds between when someone navigates to a website and when that page loads.
The Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project says advertising auction lots contain plenty of personal information ranging from a person’s location to their web browsing history.
It says the lots can also be combined with data from other sources to assemble a glimpse at a person’s health, finances, sexuality and religious and political beliefs, in addition to their vices, friends and family, where they go and who they meet.
The think tank feels the availability of this information puts national security at risk because it can be used to assemble detailed, location-specific data sets about government officials, which can then be paired with online advertising auctions to bombard users with misinformation or carry out attacks.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2025.
