Cloudflare's crawler blocker, and former DOJ antitrust chief on Google's future

Google's latest experiments, the BBC doing AI right, Elle Belgium doing it wrong, and top-shelf SEO insights - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:35, 03 July 2025

Corbidge is out, Fairbairn's about... and AI regulations are back on the menu
Are the legislative tides turning on the leading lights of AI? A flurry of changes in chambers both sides of the Atlantic give hope to those who think the time for lawmakers to set guardrails around AI has long since sailed. As regular opinionist Rob suns his guns on a well-earned break, pun puritan Rich has a look at what this week's events might mean for legal landscapes in the US and EU.
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Cloudflare: No pay, no scrape
Some welcome news for publishers as Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers by default, meaning bots can no longer hoover up your content for free. Backed by big-name publishers on both sides of the pond, it will let publishers directly charge engines for scraping their content, pushing for fair play or no play at all. Meanwhile, as you weigh up Cloudflare, here are 6 things you can do now to protect content from AI creepy crawlies.
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The good AI
We love it when AI just works, and we also love seeing humans kept in the loop when using it too - it's how our AI toolset GAIA works - so it's interesting to see how someone like the BBC is using the tech in its newsrooms, with new AI summaries and BBC Style Assist, and full transparency.
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Slowly but surely
New data from Oxford's Reuters Institute reveals that 18 per cent of consumers across 20 markets now pay for online news, nearly double the figure from a decade ago. Growth has been particularly strong in Austria, Switzerland, and Ireland, driven by major news events and clever subscription bundles. The shift is happening, albeit late in some quarters, and those investing in their local stories are starting to see the payoff.
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June 2025 Core Update
Google's June 2025 Core Update is in motion. Still to early too see the impact, but Barry Schwartz outlines the details while the rest of us keep an eye on the data screens.
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Google trials favourites
Google is trialling a new ''Preferred Sources'' feature that lets users star their favourite news outlets in Top Stories, giving readers more control over what they see and giving publishers a shot at deeper audience loyalty. Try not to overdo the “pin us to your Google feed!” pleas to readers. (But, US and India-based Content Aware readers, don't forget to give us a star!)
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More fake mistakes
A VRT NWS investigation uncovered that over half of Elle Belgium's recent articles were AI-generated and attributed to fake journalist profiles, with regional rights-holders Ventures Media backtracking and slapping disclaimers on articles after exposure.
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Interviewing Google's biggest headache
Former DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter sits down with Future Media for a frank chat on Google's court battles, the Chrome sale, data, consumer privacy, and what opportunities lie ahead for the publishing industry - all in a cracking two-part interview with market mover Ricky Sutton.
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Brand builder tips & tricks
From his must-read SEO newsletter, Telegraph SEO Director Harry Clarkson-Bennett talks brand visibility and building audience trust in the age of AI.
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Testing how AI Mode works
Currently only live in the US, Google's new AI Mode wants you to type longer queries, ask follow-ups, and get AI-powered responses. But after testing it across 10,000 US-based keywords and measuring it up against AI Overviews, SEO experts found consistency isn't part of the package just yet.
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Denied
Early in 2023, Sarah Andersen filed a class-action lawsuit accusing AI companies of copyright infringement for using artists' work without permission to train their models, and pushed to see all the datasets they used. This week, a judge ruled the case only concerns the LAION dataset, so any non-LAION data remains under lock and key. A loss for copyright advocates.
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AI gets journo backs up
Journalists are rebelling against enforced use of AI. Writers at LexisNexis' Law360 signed a petition demanding mandated ChatGPT-powered tools which monitored their work should be optional, not forced. Meanwhile ex-Washington Post opinion editor bemoans what the use of AI could do to the title’s reputation and prestige.
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Google tries to patch things up
Here's a thing that Google hopes will help mend the last few months of traffic freefall: Offerwall, a new tool available through Ad Manager that lets publishers gate content behind ads, surveys, or micro-payments to reclaim what AI search has taken from them. Naturally, it's AI-powered, but do publishers really want more Google AI influencing their revenue? Early testers report some revenue uplift, yet publishers are still waiting on clear visibility into how much AI Overviews are diverting audiences in the first place.
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