MadTech Daily: WPP Hits Back at Whistleblower Suit; Meta Strips Advertisers of Placement Exclusion Controls; Paramount, California Hold Preliminary Warner Bros Talks

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Bailey flagging the risk of an AI slowdown for global markets, OpenAI denying Apple’s trade secret theft claims and calling the lawsuit “a mess of Apple’s own making,” and Anthropic signing a USD$35bn cloud deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda for a Texas data center. 

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss the FTC and states suing Amazon over alleged ad-price manipulation, Brussels putting ChatGPT in the same bracket as Google and ushering in tougher rules, and Australia’s digital ad spend hitting a four-year high, climbing 14% to AUD$19.8bn (£10.45bn).

In this episode of The MadTech Podcast, ExchangeWire CEO Rachel Smith and COO Lindsay Rowntree join John Still, head of content, to discuss WPP vs. Richard Foster, Apple's app data consent rules, and YouTube's new monetisation bar.The first story this week covers WPP moving to seal parts of Richard Foster's amended wrongful termination lawsuit, and what this case means for agency practices. The second is Apple revising its app data consent rules after regulators found its App Tracking Transparency framework violated competition law. The team discuss if this move will make a difference with regards to user data and privacy, or truly benefit third-party app developers within Apple's ecosystem.Finally, YouTube will significantly raise its monetisation thresholds for new creators, while also changing the way it counts public video views. Are these changes keeping pace with the platform's scale? And how might this affect its creator ecosystem going forward?*Creators already enrolled in the YouTube Partner Program will not be affected – we mistakenly said that this would push existing creators out of the monetisation window. The dialogue instead highlights how many existing creator channels the new thresholds theoretically could affect, as a wider point about how steep the bar to entry has become for the creator economy, even for those that would otherwise look established enough to expect a straightforward path to monetisation.•••0:00 Get your tickets to ATS London!0:43 Introduction1:50 WPP escalates legal fight with Richard Foster15:49 Apple to revise app data consent rules26:19 YouTube raises threshold for new creators; changes how it counts views34:05 Weekly Quiz: Which British celebrity recently advised people to delete TikTok?35:48 Happy US National Dog Day!

In today’s MadTech Daily, we look at The Trade Desk’s leaked deck revealing its agentic AI plans, Nine cutting the value of its television business, and OpenAI bringing shopping to the ChatGPT sidebar.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Meta agreeing to pay up to USD$18bn (£13.5bn) and restrict teen access under a sweeping state settlement, X revamping its creator pay with a new rewards program, and MiniMax posting a 283% revenue surge, though its pace still trails full-year targets. 

In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover the ASA awareness campaign returning with expanded industry inventory, including Netflix and Waitrose, TikTok settling a children’s privacy case for USD$400m, and Taptap Digital acquiring Skyrise to expand in Europe. 

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Amazon being sued over its use of Twitch streamers’ videos to train AI models, UK digital infrastructure investment reaching dot-com era levels amid the AI data center boom, and Shein preparing to debut in Hong Kong at a valuation well below earlier expectations.

In today's MadTech Daily, we cover WPP's court filing against Richard Foster's whistleblower claims; Meta's decision to strip advertisers of the ability to exclude ad placements, and preliminary talks between Paramount and California officials over its $110bn Warner Bros Discovery acquisition.

In this episode of The MadTech Podcast, Amy Banks, head of SEO and GEO at Havas Media Network, joins ExchangeWire COO Lindsay Rowntree to discuss the evolution of search.LLMs have transformed search, pushing the ad industry towards a zero-click era. With the declining importance of search engine rankings, Amy outlines what replaces click-through as the number brands should actually be watching. The conversation dives into whether generative engine optimisation (GEO) is a lasting, standalone discipline, or if it will eventually fold back into SEO once the market matures.•••0:00 Introduction1:53 Bringing GEO into SEO teams5:52 LLMs and zero-click search9:28 Optimising for LLMs vs. Google15:30 Combining GEO and paid ads23:21 Will GEO eventually collapse into SEO?

In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover OpenAI expanding its ChatGPT ads pilot to 31 European markets, Apple’s latest spyware alert wave appearing to be its largest yet, according to a digital rights group, and Taboola striking an exclusive programmatic display deal with NBC News.