Omnipresent in our daily experience, digital advertising has ballooned into a half-trillion dollar segment of the modern economy. The Click Trap reveals how the digital advertising industry, monopolized by only a handful of big tech and social media companies, is leading to catastrophic material harm, both on and offline.

The concept of the "free internet" has facilitated an infrastructure built around advertising. Google, originally non-monetized, developed an ad-based model that was so successful that the biggest tech companies all followed suit. Tracking users via cookies across their internet usage, individuals are now targeted by hyper-specific advertisements, which can change depending on factors as fluid as the building they're in. "Data brokers" have emerged to sell groups of consumer data to anyone who requests it, with the most "valuable" demographics netting the highest prices.

Advertisers want to make sure that they are receiving the highest engagement possible, and with extremist and low-quality content generating the most clicks, the spread of hate, misinformation, and disinformation has been turbocharged by digital industries eager to profit from them. At the same time, cyber scammers across the globe are using programmatic advertising to target specific groups of vulnerable internet users. Additionally, US-based companies expand into emerging markets bringing with them these profitable models, consequently exacerbating political issues in cultures with which they have no familiarity. The powerful technology behind the advertising industry has profound and far-reaching consequences: shaping the outcome of elections, fueling genocidal violence, polarizing communities, and allowing ordinary people to be cheated by scammers without any criminal repercussions.

Testimony from politicians, journalists, academics, digital activists and a scam victim whose life was turned upside down give unique insight into how and why this murky industry continues to flourish. Is there a way to make online advertising more ethical? Is there a way to better protect internet users? Can hate-speech be effectively de-monitized and de-platformed? Is it time to hold big tech platforms to account? The Click Trap demonstrates that change can be possible, but that for now at least, those who hold the reigns are content to continue business as usual until regulators catch up to their destructive practices.