Cookie banners crumble, Google Search under siege, and publishers pushing back

Spam update sweeps through sites, headline contest celebrates wordsmiths, and debates over copyright and fair AI practices heat up across continents - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:17, 25 September 2025

Corbidge comments on... Microsoft's Publisher Content Marketplace
Eyes widened and jaws dropped this week as news landed of Microsoft going public with its plans for a Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM) pilot, aiming to give publishers a share of the cash for content consumed by AI - a welcome development set against the otherwise endless copyright lawsuit merry-go-round Big Tech has been caught up in. GPP's very own content Rob-bot takes a closer look at what PCM could mean for the media industry.
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The way the cookie banner crumbles
One of the most irritating features of the modern web is finally on the way out, and publishers everywhere need to take note. EU cookie consent banner regulations, a well-meaning idea to protect users but widely hated by audiences and site owners alike, are set to be simplified as part of a wider tightening of cookie regulations. The burden may shift from websites onto users themselves, giving them far much more control - and publishers a little breathing room.
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AI-n't making it
Some sites relying on AI-generated news have suddenly disappeared from Google's Top Stories, even as they continue to show up in regular search results. Visibility isn't guaranteed.
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Google Search and seizure
The only remedy of note in the recent Google Search monopoly ruling was the company being forced to hand over its search and habits data to rivals. You'd think everyone would be in support, right (except Google, of course)? Wrong. Privacy advocates are understandably concerned that search habits which can easily identify people are going to end up in the hands of who knows who. There will be a new oversight committee, which will control who gets access and how, in order to avoid some of the risks such as serious privacy concerns. Google, as expected, plans to push back hard on the whole thing.
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August 2025 spam update
Google's August 2025 spam update finally landed on September 22. No flashy bells and whistles, just a broad sweep to crack down on spammy content - although we all know what damage a Google broad sweep can do. It's the first spam update of the year, and most likely not the last. Search Engine Land has the scoop.
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German media unite
A coalition of German media groups has filed a Digital Services Act complaint against Google's AI Overviews, branding it a ''traffic killer'' for independent outlets - with even evergreen content at risk. It is to be noted that violations of the DSA can result in severe sanctions of up to six per cent of annual global turnover.
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Fair, not free
The News/Media Alliance has weighed in on Australia’s ongoing AI and copyright debate, pushing back against a proposed Text and Data Mining exception that would make it easier for AI developers to copy publisher content. Weakening copyright protections, they warn, weakens creative industries, so NMA is instead calling for voluntary licensing agreements to keep publishers' work respected and paid for. The full comments are available as a PDF download.
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ChatGPT usage
Harry Clarkson-Bennett has waded through OpenAI's study on how people are actually using ChatGPT and teased out what it actually means for the industry. Meanwhile, citations from ChatGPT to those users have nosedived overnight.
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Wit meets words
At Glide, we love a good headline - and so does ACES: The Society for Editing. They've announced the 2024-2025 winners of their headline contest, plucked, judged, and crowned for being witty, memorable, and proof that headline writing is as much an art as it is a craft.
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INMA Media Innovation Week
INMA's Media Innovation Week kicked off in Dublin this week, gathering 300 news media professionals to talk about the state of the industry and everything in between. Early insights from the Irish Media Study Tour are already rolling in. (And speaking of rich insights, our very own Rich is on the ground, ready to dish out a Fairbairn dose of newsroom wisdom on data, AI, and audience engagement - swing by and say hello if you're around!)
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Defending journalism
Publishers face an AI-fuelled battlefield, and INMA has put together a simple, but painfully necessary playbook.
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Signalling control
Cloudflare have introduced the new Content Signals Policy. This will update the robots.txt file, enabling "website operators to express preferences over how their data is used by others, including the ability to opt out of AI overviews and inference". Such a thing doesn't prevent illicit crawling, but it's the "Private Property" notice on content that sets out the criteria for it being scraped, and by its breach shall malevolent actors be known.
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