All Or Nothing
Schools looking to ban AI for students are realizing just how much weight Google has to throw around. It’s a story publishers and ad tech companies know well.
As more K-12 schools ban AI, Google is playing ball by turning off the AI features in its products (unless school admins actively opt in to using them). But, because Google has so thoroughly baked AI into its search experience, Google has determined that turning off AI for schools also means turning off search, The New York Times reports.
Call it malicious compliance on Google’s part. After all, Google is kind of known as the search platform (as in, monopolistically). But, if you don’t want its AI, you don’t get its search platform either.
Taking away access to Google search makes the new policy feel like a way “to force AI on us all,” Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, tells the Times.
Polikoff may be onto something. After all, Big Tech has untold billions invested in the idea that the next generation must use AI.
By giving schools an ultimatum between permitting AI use or losing access to the largest search engine in the world, says former FTC chair Lina Khan, “Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line.”
Thanks For The Gold, Kind Stranger!
Less than a week after announcing its shift to login-only viewing, Reddit is now beginning to test ad placements in its own search pages, the company shared in a blog post on Tuesday.
Reddit’s search ad algorithm will prioritize contextual relevance. For example, “A search for ‘espresso station’ could surface ads for espresso machines, coffee beans, or mugs,” the blog post reads.
Reddit has long planned to build up its own search platform, since its relationship with Google Search is on the outs.
As Reddit admitted during its Q3 earnings call last week, its search traffic dropped precipitously in October because Google has been sending less users there (or anywhere, really, thanks to the growing prominence of AI Overviews). That’s despite Google relying on Reddit’s content for AI scraping and training purposes.
Meanwhile, Reddit’s ad revenue has grown exponentially, with the company topping a $3 billion run rate for the first time this year. And now that logins will soon be required, users might be more inclined to use Reddit’s internal search engine rather than going to Google and typing, say, “espresso station reddit.”
Maybe there’s a silver lining for Reddit’s notoriously anti-ad user base, though. If marketers can simply buy more kinds of ad inventory on Reddit search, maybe they won’t spend so much time trying to astroturf and spam the actual content of subreddits.
Well-Versed In Golf
Versant Media Group – the portfolio of networks that Comcast spun off in January – announced its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday. And the results are a mixed bag.
Versant saw a 4% year-over-year drop in revenue to $1.59 billion last quarter, which the company chalks up to general declines in the pay TV industry.
On a better note, platform revenue – which represents revenue from nonlinear sources, such as direct-to-consumer and streaming offerings – was up 10% YOY last quarter.
Distribution agreements were also promising for Versant, which closed several major deals last quarter that secured 75% of network subscribers already under contract going into 2028.
And it wouldn’t be a TV network earnings report without mention of the live sports biz. Versant closed its acquisition of Full Swing last quarter, building on its existing golf programming portfolio from Comcast, including Golf Channel and GolfNow. As TV publishers compete to grow their live sports offerings, Versant wants to claim golf as its differentiator.
But Wait! There’s More!
Apple adjusts its App Store policies to restrict dating apps and AI companions to users 18 and up. [TechCrunch]
Shopify app extensions have been using subtle checkout page redirects to fool people into forking over payment and personal info. [Adweek]
Why publishers feel like Meta is holding them “hostage” over a planned terms of service change that would opt any site posting on the platform into AI scraping. [Digiday]
Netflix is launching a new interface called AI Discover to provide more targeted content recommendations to users. [THR]
Disney plans to eliminate thousands of jobs, giving managers a goal of 20% reductions. It’s Disney’s fourth round of layoffs this year. [Bloomberg]
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