Wrong Party
Third-party ad tech has always struggled with a painful dichotomy.
Some consider it unworkably opaque and untrustworthy, yet direct competitors for ad dollars – namely, Google, Meta and Amazon – continue to win budgets despite their lack of transparency.
For instance, agency buyers are shifting spend away from The Trade Desk’s OpenPath sell-side integration, Digiday reports, because advertisers can’t clearly see how much of their budgets are taken up by tech and data fees.
“We have to be transparent upstream for the way we run media,” one indie agency exec said at a recent Digiday event.
“There’s not a ton of visibility,” said another who tested OpenPath this year and has since sworn it off.
On the other hand, these same agencies almost certainly buy media via platform products like Google’s Performance Max, Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and Amazon Performance+.
Meanwhile, third-party programmatic gets tarred by web-wide issues like MFA content – but that’s because they share their files. Yet the platform products account for 90% of MFA ad spend. Go figure.
History is written by the winners.
What’s Appening?
Sam Altman is not a fan of ads.
Even though he’s admitted that they “don’t always suck” (high praise), they clearly aren’t his first choice for monetization.
Instead, ChatGPT is launching its own app store.
This isn’t completely out of left field. Back in October, ChatGPT introduced integrations with major apps – including Expedia, Spotify and Zillow – so users could take advantage of the app-based services directly within chats.
The ChatGPT Apps SDK, which is still in beta, “provides a toolkit for developers looking to create new experiences for ChatGPT users,” as TechCrunch reports. Developers can then submit apps to OpenAI’s developer program, which will start approving apps in 2026.
It’s not clear whether ordering groceries or creating a slide deck within ChatGPT (rather than within the app’s native environment) has any benefit for consumers other than saving them a button click or two.
But that’s not the point. The purpose here, TechCrunch notes, is simply to give users “more reasons to use the app and stay on it.”
Springering To Action
German publishing giant Axel Springer is eagerly scouring for digital “new gold.”
“We are ready to move,” CEO Mathias Döpfner tells The Wall Street Journal.
M&A advisors in Berlin and New York City are on the hunt for potential flagship digital media properties, he says, as well as American or Israeli tech companies that focus on advertising, storytelling or subscription services.
“The priorities are the new media properties of the future that we can either launch organically or we can acquire,” Döpfner told the Journal in an interview earlier this year.
The problem is that there’s not much gold in them thar hills.
Axel Springer acquired Business Insider, Politico, Morning Brew and Emarketer, but hasn’t made a splashy move in around five years. There just aren’t that many new media flagships left out there anymore. The once-vaunted BuzzFeed has slipped into penny stock territory, and Vice is in disrepair, now owned by private equity investors.
TechCrunch was an informal target, and Axel Springer has also considered acquiring popular podcasts or a podcast network. But to no avail.
Döpfner says he wants to buy a journalism outlet, in particular. It’s just hard to find something new in digital news that also has growth prospects.
But Wait! There’s More
At least hating on the AI moratorium has Republicans and Democrats coming together for once? [The Verge]
Shareholders accuse DoubleVerify of hiding how AI-related bot fraud and rival platforms were hurting its business and increasing undisclosed risks. [The D&O Diary blog]
Looking back on the biggest data breaches of 2025. [TechCrunch]
On the internet, fake reviews might be a problem, but real reviews are also an issue. [WSJ]
TikTok’s new US owners won’t control key parts of the business, according to a leaked memo. [Business Insider]
