Google to keep cookies on Chrome | AI B2B newsletter publisher hits 1m subs
Plus The Guardian explains the strategy behind its new recipe app Feast and the Advertising Association argues the ad industry is a force for good in the world
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Tuesday 23 July, 2024.
After nearly five years and countless trade press column inches Google's half-baked plan to outlaw cookies in Chrome has crumbled.
On the face of it publishers should rejoice. Cookies, the tiny files which live in your browser and anonymously track you, underpin hundreds of millions in display advertising revenue.
But the Information Commissioner's Office has signalled that it still has it in for cookies. And Google's new plan to make it easy for web users to switch off cookies could be just as bad for publishers as its former bid to force everyone to use its new privacy Sandbox technology.
In early trading this morning shares for advertising-heavy publishers like Reach and Future were only slightly up, suggesting the jury is still out for investors on the likely impact of the latest Google announcement.
My hope is that publishers, the ICO and Google come up with a formula which really does support informed consent and makes it easy for readers to allow personalised advertising in order to support websites which they like and value. I'd like to see a regime which supports original journalism and removes the incentives for producing the clickbait and churnalism which currently swamps so much of the free internet.
The pop-up messaging for ad-funded news sites should be: say 'yes' to supporting original journalism, or say 'no' to undermine democracy and encourage the spread of fake news.
Meanwhile, today we also report on a newsletter publisher which is at once terrifying and impressive. Trending Now claims more than one million subscribers to its daily AI-generated newsletters operating across 27 B2B niches.
It employs ten staff, but none of them are journalists. It's a bit like Google in the fact that it is adds value through technology, but it doesn't add to the sum total of human knowledge.
Like Google, it operates on a consent-based model. So publishers are happy to share headlines and summaries in exchange for the clicks which are sent their way. Meanwhile, Trending Now acts like a publisher itself making money from selling marketing messages to its engaged specialist audience.
And we have spoken to Guardian chief supporter officer Liz Wynn about the publisher's new paid-for recipes app Feast.
Anyone who has struggled to keep a recipe open on their mobile phone whilst cooking and fighting annoying ads will see the value in recipe apps. Feast is an intriguing development in The Guardian's balancing act between gathering revenue from supporters (who pay to keep the site free for everyone) and subscribers (who pay for an enhanced service which no-one else is getting).
New from Press Gazette
Google scraps plan to ditch cookies on Chrome
Campaigners have warned that the “devil is in the detail” of Google’s new plan to offer Chrome users “informed choice” about the information they share with advertisers.
Why Guardian has expanded paid content offering with launch of recipe app Feast
“We know that the more people read, the more they engage, the happier they are, and the better their retention is.”
B2B newsletter publisher without journalists exceeds one million subs
Trending Now gives readers five key stories about their industry aggregated from international news sources daily or weekly, and says it crossed the one million subscriptions mark in June.
Advertising Association claims industry is a force for good
The amount of money spent by charities on advertising rose by 14% in 2023 to £872m from £762m in 2022, the report states. Cancer charities made up the lion’s share of that £872m, spending £164m.
Telegraph sale: Mail owner exits race, Nadhim Zahawi ‘plots £600m bid’
The move comes a week after Daily Mail owner DMGT pulled out of the race.
News in brief
Mumsnet is suing OpenAI after discovering its site had been scraped - "presumably" for use in the training of ChatGPT. It is thought to be the first British lawsuit against the AI company. (Press Gazette)
Nine Entertainment is cutting 200 jobs, including 90 at its publishing division which includes the Australian Financial Review, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury said yesterday that he is also resigning after 13 years. (The Guardian)
Hunter Biden has dropped the lawsuit he had been pursuing against Fox News over a fictionalised miniseries about him. (Semafor)
Semafor is launching in the Middle East after starting out in the US and sub-Saharan Africa in 2022. It will launch with an unspecified number of staff reporters as well as columnists, and will continue to expand into 2025, the publisher said.
The Met Police have called off their search for Muriel McKay — wife of Rupert Murdoch deputy Alick McKay — who was kidnapped in 1969. The police said in a letter to her family that a new area assessed did not contain "remains or any evidence relating to her kidnap and murder". (Sky News)
A coalition of 26 European media groups have urged newly re-appointed EU President Ursula von der Leyen to strengthen the position of European journalism in the digital environment using the Digital Services Act. (European Centre for Press & Media Freedom)
Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been sentenced to 6.5 years in jail in Russia accused of spreading false information. It comes after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony last week. (BBC News)
A Florida judge has declined the Pulitzer Prize Board's request to dismiss a libel lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. The suit centres on prizes the board awarded to The New York Times and Washington Post in 2018 for reporting on Russian ties to the Trump campaign, which the Pulitzer board reaffirmed in 2022. (The New York Times)
Our latest podcast
Bonnier News CEO on power of bundles and personalisation
Sweden’s biggest news publisher Bonnier News has more than tripled profits in the past eight years and doubled revenue.
It now believes a subscription bundle, putting together all of its Swedish brands and harnessing AI to better personalise what users see, will be the way forward for continued revenue growth.
Bonnier News chief executive Anders Eriksson told Press Gazette UK editor Charlotte Tobitt about the business transformation he has overseen and the internal culture change needed to do so, why Nordic countries are ahead on subscriptions, and the thinking behind the bundle subscription strategy.
Previously on Press Gazette
‘The hardest thing to put together’: Inside election night at the UK’s biggest broadcasters
City AM signs content sharing deal with Reach and brings back familiar face as editor
Weekly subscriber-based website for North East ceases publication after five months
Toronto Star launches pay-per-article and daily passes for website access
NUJ to take part in tribunal over claims of covert surveillance of journalists
Promoted: Slow online ads cost UK publishers £50m a year: Here’s how to fix them
Press Gazette live
Our flagship event the Future of Media Technology Conference and Awards takes place on 12 September on the Hilton Bankside hotel in London. It provides publishers with a masterclass on the big technology themes impacting our business and is also an unrivalled networking opportunity.
Full agenda and booking details here.