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Google's toast for 'screwing over' publishers
Google on Trial

Google's toast for 'screwing over' publishers

#309: The market-fixing monopolist hid its con to strip news and democracy for trillions, but now the payback is beginning...

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Ricky Sutton
Apr 21, 2025
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Google's toast for 'screwing over' publishers
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As many of us carved lamb to celebrate Easter, an army of regulators in Washington DC were sharpening their knives too. For Google.

It was the hors d'oeuvre to hearings which began hours ago to decide how the $1.85 trillion thrice-convicted search and ad goliath will be stripped for parts.

Chrome will go, so will GAM. That’ll be sold off. Might even become free. I know publishers can barely believe it, but wake up. It’s time to get with the times.

Google’s era is ending. Advertising will change. Ad demand, supply, delivery and measurement are all about to be blown to smithereens. Meta’s next.

And half a trillion in ad demand is back in play.

  • Isn’t this what you in publishing wanted?

  • Isn’t this what you said you needed to survive?

  • Isn’t ad sales what you used to be good at before you sold out to become Google’s biatch?

  • Isn’t it time to stop begging governments for handouts and earn your keep based on the quality of what you say you do?

It’s funny. In the latest episode of the Future Media podcast, I explain how Google’s carve-up should be viewed as a win for publishing.

But publishers, who have allowed themselves to become Google’s subordinate, view it as a loss. WTAF? Man up. Change, or you don’t deserve to survive.

Because you ain’t going to believe what’s coming next 🤯

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This Future Media newsletter reports on the collision of Big Media and Big Tech, with some AI and real life stories thrown in to spice things up.

This weekend was the fastest weekend of subcriber growth ever, with a flurry of new sign ups from Meta’s impact measurement team. Plus, global marketing publisher The Drum in Glasgow, $500 million global in-game ad platform Azerion, the marketing crew at Petwise in California, the Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan, the Yorke Peninsula Country Times in South Australia, and more than 100 more.

This is the moment to sponsor this newsletter and get in the inboxes of the 15,000 most influential decision makers in tech, publishing and media three times a week…

Who’s winning the race, losing the pace, and getting egg on their face. Future Media gets up front and personal with the inside story and the leaders deciding the future.

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Now let’s get to the newsletter that I’ve been working 25 years to write.

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