Daily News Roundup

RE/MAX gets into the retail media game; Meta loses a class-action lawsuit over how it handled period-tracking data; and the IAB Tech Lab unveils its ad delivery playbook for live events.

Google’s former SSP practices are the legal gift that keeps giving; Perplexity has been disregarding robots.txt files; and ads prop up a large chunk of the US economy.

Coinbase is getting into ads; Etsy can’t rely on search ads for very long; and Zuckerberg wants to buy AI companies.

Dotdash Meredith is People now; brands love influencers again; and Apple’s gonna finally help you with all those spam calls.

X will begin scoring ads according to Elon Musk’s aesthetic preferences; what those Sydney Sweeney jeans ads say about how brands capture attention online; and a Google exploit lets sites be deleted from search results.

SaaS companies are abandoning interoperability in search of more revenue; Spotify’s ad business is growing slower than expected; and sports is an upfronts winner for Disney and NBCU.

Google’s AI search tools are creating a paradox; Amazon pulled its Google ad budgets; and now’s a great time for indie commerce ad tech startups.

ChatGPT will google that for you; the Canadian TikTok shutdown gets real; and Elon’s crusage against media ratings organizations goes on.

Reddit is surging with advertiser demand; not everyone is Substack material; and Trump released his AI Action Plan.

Amazon acquires AI-equipped wearable manufacturer Bee; the UK’s CMA shares competition guidelines for Google and Apple; and AI models may be learning from each other in unexpected, potentially harmful, ways.

Netflix cracks Nielsen’s top 3 channels, but YouTube is still tops; CTV is maturing as a marketing channel, but it comes with zits; and Google rolls out another core update for search.

Marketing zippers is harder than you think; What should the new SEO be called? And TV-era consumer brands are all-in on influencers.

Social media companies are cutting the junk from their diet; Trump is trying to reshape American media; and selling ads is always the last resort.

Sing along, now: “Everything is an ad network!” Plus, Publicis is doing A-OK and Substack is changing its tune on advertising.

The Trade Desk makes the S&P 500, triggering a stock price rebound; Estée Lauder is the latest big legacy brand to embrace influencers; and CMOs are trying to measure their return on AI, but it’s tricky.

Nextdoor isn’t ruling out AI data licensing, but it has concerns; NBCU touts sports and streaming as drivers of its record Upfronts; and Scholastic follows kids and parents to YouTube.

Amazon’s DSP enjoys many advantages; More on the Cloudflare controversy; the European Commission moves forward with its age verification laws.

Can Google AI overview and other search chatbots cancel each other out?; say goodbye to both Demand Media and Linda Yaccarino.

Amazon locked in two more publishers for its AI shopping engine; AI companies are working on web browsers now; and platforms have a hard time telling AI from reality.

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

AI Overviews makes dodgy product recommendations because it scrapes marketing copy; discrepancies in TV ratings hamper upfronts negotiations; and why mar tech companies are building software fortresses.

Google challenges Cloudflare’s anti-scraping tech; are dupes plagiarism?; and web traffic is careening off a cliff.

Microsoft is deprioritizing ad tech; Google wants to get back into publishers’ good graces; and Meta has been quietly developing proactive chatbots.

How Amazon uses the threat of knockoffs to win brand business; YouTube introduces new creator video metrics; and Substack is the latest platform to pivot to video.

Have agency holdcos put too many eggs in the AI basket?; Temu has come back to us now at the turn of the tariff tide; and Cloudflare wants to help sites from getting scraped.

Where would the New York Times be without its recipes?; Cannes Lions deals with controversy; and Netflix wants to get ultra-personal with its ads.

Capitol One, coffee mogul?; Instagram and TikTok are coming for YouTube TV’s throne; Nike is reversing its DTC course.

Scammers have figured out about Reddit and Google Search’s licensing deal; Is affiliate marketing still a thing?; and AI companies consider creator micropayments.

Despite publicly hyping AI, advertisers remain privately skeptical; AI aims to replace agencies, but tech complexity makes them more valuable partners; and Americans aren’t paying for news.

What’s behind the drop in CTV CPMS; the UK CMA sets its antitrust sights on Google Search; and gen AI job cuts decimate another marketing department.