Meta gets a wake up call, Google's playbook rewrite, and Reach goes galactic

Sheriff to the AI wild west, Prospect represents, scraping free days ahead and AI ruining celebratory recipes - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 14:59, 27 November 2025

Corbidge comments on...personalisation, human style
While we have AI promising "hyper-personalised" stories for every reader, publishers are already aware of what that would entail. Yes, tweaking sports coverage for superfans is one thing, but rewriting hard news based on individual biases is an easy way to lose credibility. Publishers are instead talking about personalisation that actually matters, which is the oldest kind in journalism, the one where people choose people, where audiences follow the people that they trust and not the algorithms that guesses right from time to time. In a world that revolves around customisation, the strongest differentiator for publishers may simply be their journalists.
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Spain hands Meta a €479M media reality check
Stop me if you know this story: Meta is yet again in trouble for how it handles user data, and this time Spain is the one sending the bill. A court in Madrid has decided that Meta's "creative" interpretation of GDPR, in order to get ahead in the ad race, resulted in nearly half a billion euros debt to local media outlets. The Spanish publishers claim that fiddling with the rules crushes their ad revenues, while Meta is shouting "nonsense" and gearing up for an appeal. It seems that collecting mountains of data under a legal excuse nobody bought was not the move.
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Reaching for the stars
Astrophysics analogies with user traffic data are fairly rare in publishing, but Piers North, CEO of one of the UK's largest publishers, Reach, makes a good fist of it here: "There is no question a Big Bang has happened. And what you’ve seen is the universe has kind of massively expanded, but the number of stars has remained the same, and what has filled it is like dark matter. It's this space that we’re not quite sure what is there. Is the traffic going elsewhere?"
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Italy rewrites Google's playbook
Italy took one look at Google's "Do you want to share your data?" screens and deemed them a bit too nudge-nudge-wink-wink, forcing the company to redesign them to be less confusing for the users. And they're not stopping there, they're eyeing Meta and WhatsApp as well. Even though the EU's big digital law (the DMA) was supposed to centralise all of this in Brussels, national regulators like Italy keep taking the wheel from time to time, which doesn't make Brussels angry, on the contrary, they're excited, cheering from the sidelines, and planning to roll these changes out across the whole EU. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic the US is giving EU the side-eye for constantly smacking US tech giants with rules and fines. Italy followed in Germany's footprints, who have done something similar, which prompts the questions whether the supposedly unified EU rulebook is actually turning into a patchwork of different (national) interventions.
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No to churnalism, yes to the authentic
Publishers are doubling down on authenticity, proving once again that humans still matter in content. The playbook is to treat reporters like brand ambassadors, create distinctive editorial voices, and make digital experiences feel premium. That will keep the readers loyal and make them come back for more, proving that even though AI is all around us, humans still call the shots. INMA knows more.
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Prospect for the win
Prospect Magazine clearly came to play at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards, snatching Commercial Leader of the Year as well as Newsletter of the Year, while the rest of the team bagged shortlists for Innovation, Independent Publisher, and Changemaker of the Year. Big cheers from their proud CMS supplier - that would be us - to the team for showing that UK indie media is thriving!
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Aussies are leading, not lagging
Australia isn't taking AI safety lightly. In 2026, the government is launching the Australian Institute for Safe and Innovative AI, a place where new algorithms will be monitored, tested, and policed. Besides giving Australia a spot in the global AI safety network, it will help regulators keep pace with evolving AI and offer guidance to both businesses and the public, making sure that future "AI did what?" moments will be avoided.
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The return of Bread & Butter
There are more signs that legacy brands aren't just content to fade into the archives: Consumer Reports in the US is dusting off Bread & Butter, a WWII-era shopping newsletter and serving it to a new generation, via substack instead of via snail mail. While the 1941 version talked about nylon shortages, it's younger brother is discussing chaotic online deals. The revived version is aimed at readers who probably only know Consumer Reports because their parents talked about it, pitching a weekly no-nonsense and hype-free shopping advice coming straight from their 90-year-old trustworthy friend.
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Is the end to AI scraping nigh?
The Internet Engineering Task Force has started to put shape to standards which might force AI companies to actually respect what site owners want to do with their content. The IETF's AI Preferences Working Group is pushing for real and enforceable rules in robots.txt and HTTP readers. The plan is to have a universal vocabulary for AI permissions, a standard way to attach them to content, and a conflict-resolving system which would enable creators to throw AI crawlers out the door when they want to. Nothing is standardised yet, but if these stick, then AI scraping might get an expiration date.
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Artists in control
The music industry is not waiting around for the AI chaos to settle, as Warner Music and Suno have struck a deal to turn AI-generated music into a licensed operation instead of a free-for-all buffet. Things are moving quickly, as it was only last year that Warner was suing Suno for copyright violations of "an almost unimaginable scale". Artists will get a say on how their names, voices, and songs are used, trying to put a stop to the era where AI models scrape first and ask questions never. In 2026, Suno will roll out new models, sunsetting free users while paid users will get their monthly fill. They are calling it a "pro-artist AI", giving the musicians a chance to decide where their voices will end up.
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Chatbots VS chefs
AI took over the internet, and now it's aiming for your kitchen. AI Overviews are dropping traffic for recipe writers, up to 80 per cent, and conveniently forgetting to link the original source. If you want to avoid burning or expiring from botulism, maybe it's time to dust off grandma's old cookbook instead of turning to a chatbot.
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