The news that moves growth.
A daily digest of what's happening in search, social, AI and advertising — curated headlines linking to the original sources, refreshed every morning.
Curated from the sources we actually read.
Last updated: 19 August 2026, 04:30 IST
Search & Digital Marketing
Google tests advertiser list above mobile Search ads
Google is testing a new mobile Search ad layout that surfaces the advertisers in a sponsored results block before displaying the ads themselves, potentially giving users…
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Anthropic To Mark Claude Text & Files Under EU AI Act Code
Anthropic will embed invisible watermarks in Claude text and sign generated files.
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Google adds Campaign Data Import Validation Report
Google has introduced a Campaign Data Import Validation Report, giving advertisers a new way to check the quality of imported campaign data before it impacts reporting.…
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12 things Reddit needs to make its ad platform more competitive
Channels outside of Google and Meta have struggled to get recent headlines in the paid advertising world. But my agency’s performance marketing team has seen one…
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What TransUnion’s AI Research Reveals About How Brands Actually Get Cited
TransUnion's survey of 100 marketing leaders shows AI search blind spots mirror walled garden measurement gaps. Frame GEO as a company-wide problem to get funded.
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DMCA as a weapon: How to fight fraudulent takedown claims
Introduced in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was designed to solve a specific problem: protecting creators from digital piracy while granting online…
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A 5-layer framework for measuring AI search performance
AI search is influencing buying decisions before prospects reach your website, making traditional traffic and attribution metrics less complete. A B2B buyer might ask…
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YouTube Adds New Shorts Payout Rules To Partner Program Terms
YouTube announced Partner Program changes taking effect in 2027, including new Shorts earnings rules, activity checks, and a terms deadline.
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The AI Detection False Economy: Fueling FOW (Fear of Writing)
AI detectors gave wildly different verdicts on the same human-written article, and even flagged writing from 2014.
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How to decide whether a keyword deserves its own page
Keyword research tools often split closely related terms into separate opportunities. Once each variation shows its own search volume, it can seem reasonable to create a…
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WPForms Lite Accused Of Adding Backdoor. I Tested It And Was Surprised
WPForms Lite WordPress plugin accused of adding a backdoor to new installs. I gave it and try and what happened was unexpected.
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Google confirms testing new buttons on home page to drive users to AI-powered search features
Google is testing new buttons on the Google home page, right beneath the search box, to encourage searchers to try out AI Mode and other AI-powered search features. The…
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Snapchat ads pharma ad disclaimer links
Promotions will support multi-CTA attachments and allow health brands to include important safety notes in the app’s in-feed display.
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Ad Tech Briefing: More take-private deals are on the horizon, here’s what to look out for
Public markets are becoming an uncomfortable place for many companies in the sector, and while that’s been widely known for some time, the latest quarterly earnings have…
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Experian retires the Audigent brand, folding it into Experian Marketing Services
Twenty months after it was acquired by Experian, the Audigent brand is no more. It’s been absorbed into Experian Marketing Services. A spokesperson framed it as…
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S4 and Monks are trying to get ahead of rising AI token costs
Rising costs associated with AI tokens are forcing marketing services groups to confront hard questions about how much they should be spending on AI. Token usage is…
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Perplexity blocks Time’s ads served to AI agents, calling them ‘deceptive’
Time is selling ads to AI agents. Perplexity refuses to let them work. Less than two weeks after Digiday reported that Time had started serving ads inside the markdown…
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Why agentic media buying is becoming a client-by-client configuration job
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify There’s a lot of promise in agentic media buying. The issue is in the governance. Butler/Till should know. The independent media…
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Spotify will label ‘AI Persona’ profiles and exclude their music from recommendations
Spotify is introducing “AI Persona” labels for artist profiles that represent AI-generated identities and will exclude their music from editorial, algorithmic, and…
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Anthropic says it will watermark text generated by its AI models
Anthropic will extend support for watermarking AI generations for older models as well.
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OpenAI reportedly completed a $7 billion employee tender offer
San Francisco's housing market is in trouble again.
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As AI-led attacks multiply, OpenAI launches a new cyber model
OpenAI is expanding its AI cybersecurity defense program Daybreak, and rolling out a new cyber-trained AI model with it.
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Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto is exactly why people don’t like AI
On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto about personal AI, largely about the possibilities for the "personal superintelligence" systems Meta AI is…
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Tech industry is buzzing after a Claude agent hacked into a gym
An OpenClaw agent hacked into a gym's reservation system to bump its human boss higher on a class' waitlist. And the tech industry took notice.
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