Future Media w/ Ricky Sutton and Chapell

Denmark may be famous for Lego, Ozempic, and a Bluetooth named after a Viking king — but its next export could be a new model for media power in the AI era. It’s rallied 99 per cent of the country’s publishers and broadcasters into a collective licensing body designed to negotiate with Big Tech, and the result is already looking less like Scandinavian hygge and more like a Viking bloodbath.At the centre is Karen Rønde - a judge, former MP, journalist and ex-Netflix policy lead - now running the DPCMO, Denmark’s collective spearhead for publisher rights. Google has signed up but is stalling on price, Apple's been reported to the cops, Meta and TikTok face enormous fines, and OpenAI and LinkedIn are headed for court. Karen joins Chris Duncan and me to explain what Denmark is building - and why the chaos is part of the strategy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

South Africa just announced the most intriguing deal I’ve seen yet for tech platforms to support premium publishers. It follows Australia deals in Canada, Europe, the UK, Denmark and a growing list of others testing multi-year, multi-million-dollar arrangements, and at first glance, the package looks familiar: Money for content.But then it turns into new territory. Google has agreed to let users customise Search to prioritise preferred South African news sources, and to give publishers stronger levers to opt out of AI training and AI products. Most striking though is Google’s own framing. It used its official blog to say supporting local media a shared responsibility and urged other tech firms to follow. I’m joined by James Hodge, chief economist at South Africa’s Competition Commission who chaired the inquiry, and Paula Fray, the inquiry’s media expert, to unpack how the deal was done, and whether it can actually shift the media-tech landscape.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bouncing around LinkedIn the other day I stumbled on a post by one of the smartest people I know. Stuart Forrest runs audience development for global media group Bauer, and he was pondering the future of search.He made a strong argument that AI Overviews - and its big brother AI Mode - can’t be Google's end game because it kills its US$198 billion search ads cash cow.Instead, his money’s on a beta project about to emerge from Google Labs. He joins me today to talk about it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two former Meta leaders are breaking their silence on Australia’s world-first under-16s social media ban. The law is just weeks old, and we’ve heard plenty from government, parents and kids - but less from the people who understand, from the inside, how Meta thinks about safety, incentives, and enforcement.My guests are a former Meta director Kelly Stonelake who worked on Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse before raising concerns about child harms and later being laid off. She now advocates for child safety and tech regulation, advises the US Federal Trade Commission, and publishes the Substack Overturned. I’m also joined by Brian Boland, Meta’s former Vice President of ads and marketing, who has advised governments and testified to the US Senate that platforms prioritise growth over safety.We recorded the day after the terror attack on Australia's Bondi Beach, leading to violent footage flooding social media. I wanted to know whether society rely on tech companies to self-regulate, or will it take laws like Australia’s to force change?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Last year, Google pulled a move only a trillion-dollar giant would try. It literally wrote the US government a cashier’s cheque for a little over $2 million so it could dodge a jury in the Justice Department’s ad-tech monopoly case and face a judge alone. By paying the damages the DOJ said it was owed, Google turned the whole thing into a bench trial in Virginia - no unpredictable jurors, just one judge. It looked clever at the time, but it’s now turning into a long-term headache. That ruling, and the cheque behind it, are ammunition for a growing line-up of publishers, advertisers, and ad-tech rivals now chasing Google for potentially tens of billions in damages.Joshua Hafenbrack, a Justice Department trial lawyer on the Google search monopoly case, joins us to explain why he thinks that strategy created what he calls “a devastating long-term risk”.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Australia was the first to make tech pay for journalism with a trailblazing News Media Bargaining Code. Five years on, those deals with Google and Meta are expiring. Meta's walked away. Google's signing one-year extensions.A new government wants a News Bargaining Incentive – a tax on Big Tech that says: Pay publishers for the content you use, or pay the taxman instead.So what happens? And should AI, Apple and TikTok be dragged in? I’m joined by Rod Sims, the architect of the code, to map out what comes next.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On December 10, Australia will drop a legal hammer and become the first country in the world to ban social media accounts for under-16s. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, X, and Threads are all caught in the dragnet and face fines if they stuff it up.It sets a frightening precedent for platforms which have banked trillions by being unregulated - and as the deadline has approached, the eSafety Commissioner at the heart of it has revealed she and her family have been targeted by a dirty tricks campaign.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're joined by one of the most influential figures in journalism. Danielle Coffey is President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance and was just named one of the most powerful women in Washington.She’s leading a global charge on behalf of 2,000 news and magazine publishers to reshape how journalism is protected, funded and valued in the digital age. She talks about AI theft, Google power, why regulators terrify tech, and how the tide is turning.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Google’s former global news chief has a blunt warning: The world is quietly voting against facts. And when Google Search throttled news in Australia and Canada during a high-stakes regulatory standoff… almost nobody noticed.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Richard Gingras has been one of the most influential figures at the intersection of news and tech over the past 40 years. He’s seen it from multiple angles: As a journalist, as an internet pioneer - but most notably as VP of Google News, and the architect of the Google News Initiative. He shares tough truths and triggering insights about how he sees news failing in a fracturing digital landscape.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” It’s a line we’ve all heard, but in an AI-powered world of constant surveillance, it’s never felt truer - or scarier. Today’s guest is someone who has spent years trying to fix it.Joe Jerome is the Senior Public Policy Manager at DuckDuckGo - the search engine that built a business by saying no to surveillance. No cookies, no creepy trackers, no data slurping for profit. Just search, without the stalker.Joe’s spent time inside DC’s policy circles, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and now sits at the heart of the privacy vanguard - working to reshape internet regulation, user rights, and the future of ethical tech.We talk surveillance capitalism, the shifting browser wars, emerging AI, and whether regulators, judges and governments have the spine to go up against Big Tech’s trillion-dollar dragnet.And we ask: Can a company like DuckDuckGo survive and scale - without selling you?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marc Choquette heads SEO at The Boston Globe and has lived in the blast radius of Google since 2009, but he’s a numbers guy and he’s seen something new and exciting.He says the data shows that AI isn’t flattening everything evenly, and sites built on original, local, can’t-fake-it reporting are seeing gains.Marc joins Alan Chapell and I to share the Globe’s playbook on rising above AI slop and how his newsroom has figured out how to “ship, learn, and repeat” its successes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tech giant Cloudflare jolted the tech and publishing world when it announced it was stepping in as a traffic cop to protect publishers from AI's training on their content without permission. Alan and I are joined by Will Allen, Cloudflare’s VP of Product, to unpack whether this is really the turning point in what’s been, so far, a losing battle for content creators.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Antitrust professor John Newman - veteran of both the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission - hasn’t minced words about Google’s monopoly in search.Today, he explains why the judge’s remedies miss the mark in both law and tone, how publishers and other victims can push back, and why a new generation of lawyers is preparing to fight for tougher rules to save the open web.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ad chief Joshua Lowcock was a key witness alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in the antitrust trial that exposed Google’s dominance in both search and advertising.As global chief media officer at UM Worldwide, he oversaw billions in ad spend for some of the world’s biggest brands. His unflinching testimony helped the court rule Google held an ad tech monopoly.Today, he reveals what comes next.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shoshana Wodinsky was a tech reporter for Gizmodo, AdWeek, and MarketWatch until reporting wasn’t enough. So she joined the US Federal Trade Commission. Soon, she was in the room with former chair Lina Khan, shaping decisions on Big Tech mergers and global privacy. Now she’s part of a new wave of journalists helping regulators swap out theory for real-world experience.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has led the charge against Google’s trio of monopolies in search, ad tech and app stores.As lead counsel for 38 US states, he had an influential say in the multi-year investigation that backed the US Department of Justice, and landed the landmark wins in court.Now, with verdicts in and remedies imminent, AG Weiser has a rare kind of power.His office will appoint one of three members to the technical committee tasked with dismantling Google’s empire. The other two picks will come from the DOJ and Google.That gives him the swing vote in how the post-Google internet takes shape.In this exclusive interview, AG Weiser reveals who should - and shouldn’t - get Chrome, what it might cost, and why Google’s long game of appeals may already be running out of road.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Four billion people use Chrome to access the web but after three antitrust losses, the Department of Justice has demanded the browser is spun out and handed to a new custodian to power the next generation of the open web.We are joined by leading voices in tech policy and browser tech to discuss how big a job that actually is. Alissa Cooper is the executive director of the Knight Georgetown Institute, and Eric Rescorla is the former CTO of the Firefox browser.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Cowen of Preiskel & Co joins Alan Chapell to discuss Google's antitrust woes, and the Movement for an Open Web's call for DOJ to more effectively harmonize the various remedies Google's antitrust trials given the interdependencies between the cases. They also compare and contrast the UK CMA's approach to reigning in Google Chrome with the DOJ's proposed use of a technical committee. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ricky Sutton and Chapell talk with competition and regulatory attorney Gene Burrus about Apple's participation in EU Digital Markets Act workshops. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.