Category: In the News

In last week’s Media Briefing edition, we heard from publishing execs about their struggles with Google search referral traffic declines and the cracks in Google’s relationship with publishers. This week, we’ll look at the other platforms publishers are turning to as channels to offset the losses they’re seeing from Google search referral traffic, including Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook.

• Publishers are seeing if they can get referral traffic from Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook – with varying degrees of success.
• Microsoft is building an AI marketplace for publishers, Meta talks AI content licensing deals, and more.

Reddit and Pinterest and Facebook, oh my!

It’s no secret that publishers are griping about the volatility of Google search referral traffic since the debut of AI Overviews last year. In a closed-door town hall session during the Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami, Florida last week, publishing execs shared which platforms they’re putting more resources into with the hope that they can try to offset some of those losses.

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As the U.S. trudges through its high-profile case against Google’s monopoly over online advertising this week, Europe is pursuing the same target – just without the courtroom drama. Time for a look at how that’s unfolding. 

Let’s start with the basics: earlier this month, the European Commission – the European Union’s executive arm – hit Google with a €2.95 billion fine for abusing its control over how ads are bought and sold in a market it also happens to run. But that was just the start. It also gave Google 60 days to come back with a fix. If it can’t – or won’t – the commission has said a breakup of Google’s ad tech business could be the only resolution.

This sounds like the antitrust case against Google in the U.S: it’s not a carbon copy of the U.S. case, but the parallels are hard to ignore. For starters, both the European Commission and the Department of Justice’s efforts trace back to the same academic groundwork: research that argued Google’s dominance stems from a built-in conflict of interest – one that wouldn’t be tolerated in most industries. In each case, the regulators came to the same conclusion. Fines aren’t working. Structural separation is the endgame. 

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