Amazon's AI content marketplace, Section 230 turns 30, and WhatsApp to get 3rd party chatbots - could it be yours?

A "bookshop for bots", Reddit's AI search surge, Discover plays favourites, and data-hungry apps - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:39, 12 February 2026

Corbidge on... AI firms, bots, and paying for content
Unsealed documents from a years-old court case show that a pioneer of the AI revolution was well aware that taking content at scale and ignoring the payments due to creators was both out of order and destined to cause issues down the line. His words, and others like him yet to be revealed, may well come back to bite those who took without recompense. If only there was a "bookshop for bots" marketplace for content people to make deals with AI firms and their language transformers. Our own Optimist Prime Rob finds out there might well be one soon, from marketplace masters Amazon no less.
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AI cash for content? Amazon delivers
Can't wait to read Rob's ruminations? Well... Amazon appears to be cooking up a new marketplace for publishers, where AI firms and content creators can broker deals. According to The Information and based on slides seen ahead of an AWS conference, the new marketplace would sit alongside Bedrock and Quick Suite and become a part of a broadened Amazon AI toolkit. For disclosure we use AWS, and Bedrock for parts of our GAIA AI system inside Glide CMS, but have no specific insight into this so our eyes are just as peeled as yours.
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SEO vs paywalls advice: rank and bank
SEO and paywalls often make unhappy bedfellows, but there are specific things you can do to balance the act of protecting your content while also showing it the right ways so it features well in results without giving everything away. A 2-hour masterclass from the WTF is SEO? experts is coming in hot on March 4, with Jessie Willms, Shelby Blackley, Barry Adams, and Harry Clarkson-Bennett discussing how publishers can make their paywalls work alongside search, and not against it, covering implementation, smart monetisation tactics, and structuring paywalled content.
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30 years of the internet's secret superpower
30 years ago, the US Congress has quietly added Section 230 into the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the internet has never been the same since. At first, nobody has noticed - as Google and Facebook weren't the giants they are today and tech was more or less tiny, but this law - which declares that websites aren't liable for what the user posts - slowly became the secret ingredient to Web 2.0., from forums, feeds, and memes, to everything else. With a little help from DMCA, Section 230 became the legal magic of the Internet. It stopped frivolous lawsuits, allowed platforms to moderate without panic, and made the internet feel a little less like a lawless swamp. This year it's celebrating it's 30 birthday, and Technology and Marketing Law Blog brings a bunch of interesting facts to read while celebrating.
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From likes to lawsuits
Meta and Google are back in a courtroom hot seat, this time in Los Angeles, where they are accused of turning Instagram and YouTube into digital addictions for kids. In a dramatic courtroom opening, the pair were compared to casinos and drug dealers, with lawyer Mark Lanier claiming they set out to hook young minds. The trial is being closely watched as it could set a tone for thousands of similar lawsuits and also rewrite both the rules about how social platforms handle minors, but also our understanding of these platforms. TikTok isn't off the hook either, as the EU Commission just found them to be a bit too addictive for their taste.
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Give content a sporting chance
Sports teams - calling timeout on clunky platforms? Fed up of fans being offside from your content? Glide CMS has your full back. We're experts at allowing content teams and tech squads to use live match data, stats, and archives to make fan-facing apps and sites run like a well-oiled F1 car, helping your club sprint out of the digital stone age and deliver a knockout blow to dropped points and missed goals. OK, less of the sporty puns: when you're publishing to hundreds of millions of fans on every imaginable channel, this is serious business. Elite clubs are already linking player profiles to match reports, automating workflows, and delivering fan experiences that actually get people involved and taking part, so do have a peak at this overview of how to make the tricky task of publishing to fans and followers easier and better for you, them, and sponsors.
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From top to flop
Grok and Grokipedia might be considered an unreliable narrator by people, but they are being ghosted by digital rivals too. Since January Google, ChatGPT, and other AI answer engines have started to recommend it less and less, while it dropped in Google rankings. Did the other bots have an epiphany? Is it deliberate? The consensus seems to corral around it failing for the same sort of things a bad site would be downranked by Google - low domain authority, poor linking, AI-generated below-par content - that sort of thing. All of which begs the question why it rocketed up the rankings in the first place, an SEO cynic would say, and many do in the comment chain.
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UK cracks down on app store players
Been messed around submitting apps to the two main stores and had that sneaking suspicion you are being treated unusually? That might change. In the first set of regs since Apple and Google app stores received strategic market status designation last October, they look set to be bound by new requirements to make them more fair. App reviews and rankings will need to be more transparent, data gathered in review will be safeguarded - a positive for any app designer who thinks their ideas are feeding someone else's machine - and iOS less locked down. Public feedback on the mooted rules is open until March 3rd, while the new commitments kick in April 1st. Read the full blog post by CMA Executive Director for Digital Market Will Hayter here.
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Meta's chatbot blockade
In a similair vein, the EU just gave Meta a formal kick to force it to open up WhatsApp to 3rd party chatbots - something which publishers might want to take a look at, given how many conversations on the app will feature publisher-created links. Th app blocked external AI tools in January, and prompted a swift reaction to get it to unlock the gate. This probe is just the latest in a long line of EU eye-rolls aimed at Meta, from fines to DMA investigations.
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Privacy? Not on this app
Ever wondered which apps have been munching on your privacy? According to a study by IT Asset Management Group, which analysed 5,000 App Store apps, the crown goes to Meta which scoops up 32 out of 35 possible data types (physical address, device details, and user ID). Others aren't innocent either, Nordstrom, Pinterest, AE + Aerie are all close to the top, tracking and linking user data. The crown for the most intrusive apps, however, goes to the Photo and Video apps which are followed by Social Networking, Food & Drink apps. Yikes.
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The Discover shuffle
Google Discover in the UK has decided to throw a curveball. At the end of January X got a serious visibility cut while YouTube gracefully took its place in the spotlight. This only applies to the UK, as across the Atlantic things are unchanged in comparison. Is it an experiment, or a regional classifier tweak, or just Google having a moody day? Keep your eyes on your own markets to see if this is a growing change.
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