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🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 ADS ARE SHOWING UP WITHOUT PERMISSION?

Some web site owners report that ads that block content have started automatically serving on websites, forcing visitors to abandon pages because they can’t close the ads.

Craig McDaniel, founder of Sweepstakes Today, says his site is being “hijacked by ads,” including recent placements from Walmart $WMT ( ▲ 3.1% ) and AC/DC. These full-page ads appear when users click links to the sweepstakes page. He suspects the ad-service companies are collecting "data," which he is reluctant to share with advertisers. McDaniel traced the issue to Criteo $CRTO ( ▲ 1.13% ) , and eventually to Magnite $MGNI ( ▼ 1.6% ) . more

• A Magnite spokesperson said that publishers create ad units and make calls for ad fulfillment, but Magnite doesn't directly serve the ads.

• The ads pop up over content for five seconds before letting users close them. Publishers decide whether to serve them, and a creative error could be the cause of the problem.

• Criteo did not respond to a request for comment.

🥈 AI ART CAN NOT BE COPYRIGHTED: COURT

🎨 Sorry, Vincent Van Grok: Federal court has ruled that AI-generated art can't be copyrighted. So, if you're using AI to create art or marketing content, you don’t own the copyright. A new court ruling backed this up when AI poetry author Stephen Thaler tried to claim damages for his AI-generated poetry being reused. more

• The court ruled that Thaler couldn’t be credited as the author because AI isn’t human.

• Thaler argued that copyright law should keep up with technology, but the court sided with the Copyright Office, which states that only humans can hold copyrights.

• Generative AI, which only uses text prompts, doesn’t qualify either.

🥉 GOOGLE REMOVES PAGES FROM SEARCH WITH NO TRAFFIC

🖱️ No clicks? No rankings: Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.2% ) has confirmed that if searchers do not engage with your page in the search results, it might be removed from future rankings. more

• Google’s Martin Splitt said that if users aren't clicking or interacting with your page, it could fall off the index.

• This could happen if the query is unusual, not frequently searched, or if other pages perform better in meeting user needs.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• 👑 Programmatic is running the show: eMarketer forecasts programmatic advertising will hit 90% of display ad spend next year, accounting for 97% of new display ad dollars in 2025, before dropping slightly to 96% in 2026. This year alone, programmatic spend will rise by nearly $50 billion, while nonprogrammatic will see a $1.6 billion increase.

• DoubleVerify $DV ( ▲ 0.23% ) has updated its keyword-blocking policies as part of its News Accelerator program to minimize the impact on publishers. The company will now restrict keyword blocking to “unclassified URLs” only, and launch tools to help advertisers optimize keyword blocklists, reducing excessive blocking of news content. more

• Best Buy Ads $BBY ( ▲ 1.6% ) announced a new tool called Social+ today, that will let advertisers directly target its audiences on social platforms. The tool integrates the retailer's consumer insights with Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaigns, currently limited to Facebook and Instagram, with plans to extend to other platforms. more

  • Social+ does not have a self-service option yet, so advertisers must work with a Best Buy Ads rep.

• Marketing Dive reports that Eventbrite $EB ( ▼ 3.21% ) has seen a 66% increase in click-through rates by using TikTok’s new Search Ads Campaign, which lets brands place ads on the search results page with keyword targeting. By targeting younger users, particularly Gen Z, with keywords like “travel” and “food & drink,” the events marketplace not only boosted CTRs but also reduced cost-per-acquisition by 33%.

• 🤷‍♂️ Who controls retail media budgets? Nobody knows: Retail media is booming, set to make up nearly a quarter of U.S. media spend by 2028. But, Digiday reports that marketers and agencies are struggling to determine who controls retail media budgets, leading to uncertainty in how deals are structured. With no clear owner of retail media budgets, advertisers are pulling funds from different sources to meet joint business plan commitments.

Influencer Marketing 🤳 

• 💥 Influencer marketing is growing faster than expected: eMarketer initially projected brands wouldn’t hit $10 billion in spend until 2026, but now they’re on track to blow past that in 2025. more

  • YouTube is set to dominate with $3.45 billion in spend, and for the first time, more than half of U.S. marketers are expected to pay for influencer ads on the platform.

  • Instagram will take second place with $3.17 billion in spend.

  • TikTok takes third place with $1.19 billion.

Social Media 📱

• After a year-long delay, Meta AI is finally rolling out in Europe... but with some limitations. The chatbot is strictly a text-based assistant for now, and won’t generate or edit images, answer questions about photos, or be trained on EU user data. It will be available across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger in 41 European countries and 21 overseas territories. more

• ❌ Threads wants your X list: According to a new discovery by an app researcher, Threads is working on an update that would let brands and users follow all of the same profiles they follow on X. The feature would add a “Creators from X” option within the following tools on the platform, guiding users through the process of how to download their X follower info and upload it to Threads. more

• Newsletter platform Ghost recently enabled fediverse connectivity, letting bloggers share content across ActivityPub-supported platforms like Mastodon and Pixelfed. Available in beta for Ghost(Pro) users, the feature lets users follow writers, comment on posts, and engage across different apps.

Bugs & Glitches 🐛 

• YouTube is investigating a bug causing a bug causing low-res videos and Shorts to stream at 144p or 360p on iOS, desktop, and smart TVs, despite having a strong internet connection. The platform is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. more

• Last week, Google unintentionally sent out reverification requests for some Business Profiles due to a bug. The company says the issue has now been resolved, and impacted profiles should have been reverified automatically. more

  • If you noticed a spike in listings entering a reverification state over the past week that hasn't been fixed, contact support and provide a list of those profiles for review.

• Bing Webmaster Tools $MSFT ( ▼ 0.9% ) saw some downtime and slow loading times yesterday, with SEOs noticing the issues in the morning. The issues followed the rollout of Copilot in Bing Webmaster Tools and updates to search performance reports. By yesterday afternoon, the tool seemed to be back up, but its stability remained inconsistent throughout the day. more

Professional Development 💼

• LinkedIn has shared the top professional skills on the rise, based on member and job listing data. Top skills for 2025 include:

  • AI Literacy

  • Conflict Mitigation

  • Adaptability

  • Process Optimization

  • Innovative Thinking

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