The giant Meta and Google court cases and lawsuits edition

Forces in Japan, the EU, and the UK are joining countless US legislators coming for Google’s throat, while marketers wrestle with the same AI challenges troubling publishers - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:05, 17 April 2025

Corbidge comments on... Zuckerberg vs the FTC
Hark! A possible Meta break-up looms! As the US Federal Trade Commission puts Zuckerberg in the dock, GPP's influencer-in-chief Rob looks at what a bit of legal turbulence in the social media waters might mean for those of us in the audience engagement boats. People still pay the bills, after all. Right?
Read

The porridge problem of First Party Data
If First Party Data is core to successful growth in the engagement game (Hint: it is!), it would be a huge waste of opportunity to let it all slip into the ether just because the systems publishers use to track and manage said data all do different things and don't talk to each other. So says technology wizard and Glide CTO Nedim Dedic in a piece for the State of Digital Publishing on publishing tech's latest Goldilocks Problem.
Read

Inside Meta's monster
Zuckerberg’s Meta is under other pressures too, after former top exec-turned-whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams revealed to a US Congressional hearing insider allegations on Meta's business with China, AI, disinformation, and more. Among the many eyebrow-raising claims: Zuckerberg personally greenlit the destruction of publishers and the feeding of their work to Meta’s AI. Ricky Sutton reports.
Read

AI food
Meta is set to resume its AI training using public posts and comments from adult users in the EU, after hitting pause last year over a privacy backlash. While the company insists it's following EU privacy laws and offering an opt-out, the move feels like the familiar playbook: push the limits of data use, promise compliance, and offer an opt-out that few will likely navigate. Time will tell.
Read

Japan's いいえ to Android
The sun rises on Japanese efforts to rein in Google, which has been ordered under anti-competition laws to stop forcing the pre-installation of Google apps on Japanese market Android phones. Like other nations with similar concerns, the focus is on things like pre-installed Google search bars, Play Store, Chrome, apps, and the idea that to use Android you really have to use Google products.
Read

UK advertisers align
One more law suit to keep an eye on: EU law firm Geradin Partners has announced a class action suit in UK courts alleging overpriced Google ads, weighing at a whopping £5bn/$6.6bn of claimed damages to the advertising industry.
Read

EU publishers next up...
Google's parasite SEO handling has made a group of European publishers' associations unite in opposing its site reputation abuse policy, pointing to inconsistencies and significant traffic losses for media outlets across several European countries.
Read

Search for me, but not for thee
Google’s proved once more it’s less about nurturing the ecosystem, and more about owning it: SEOs have found out it's quietly linking AIO terms straight back to its own search results.
Read

The future of search
Straight from the SEO frontline: The Telegraph's SEO Director Harry Clarkson-Bennett shares his thoughts on current state of search and where publishers might be heading.
Read

"Fake expert" drama continues
Following Press Gazette’s recent investigation into so-called experts, publishers have started deleting or altering stories in response. This is what publishers have to fight against; whatever Google claims, we all suspect it works... and one SEO said the quiet bit out loud at BrightonSEO.
Read

Give it structure
We love structured data at Glide, and it has long been the powerhouse behind content that helps readers find what they need and search engines understand what they’re looking at. So how does it stand the test of time in the age of AI? Last week, at Google Search Central Live in Madrid, Google reaffirmed its status as the backbone of smart publishing.
Read

Tech buddies
GDPR alert for X in Ireland, as the local data watchdog has launched an investigation into Grok for using users' personal data and feeding it to the AI. Elsewhere in techbro land, Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey have apparently found common ground and would like to ''delete all IP law''. Is that all IP law, or just the inconvenient kind?
Read

IJF2025 takeaways
Journalists from across the globe descended on Perugia for the International Journalism Festival 2025. Here’s what they’re saying about AI, trust in the media, local news, and everything else shaping the industry right now.
Read

Marketers wary of AI
Marketers are now echoing many of the same problems publishers face: legal, ethical, and practical hurdles while trying to strike the right balance between innovation and risk.
Read