The Stack: Outbrain and Teads Officially Merge; Google’s Latest Moves

This week on The Stack: Outbrain and Teads Officially Merge; Google’s Latest Moves; Today’s MadTech Daily 

In some of the biggest ad tech news of the week, Outbrain completed its USD$900m (£725m) acquisition of Teads. Moving forwards, the entity which merges the branding and performance offerings of both will go by the name Teads. 

Unsurprisingly, Google heavily featured in this week’s digest news. We looked at the lawsuits it’s facing from publishers in Australia, which add to growing opposition from the global ad tech industry. Last Friday, two hearings took place criticising Google’s dominance in the sector. Meanwhile, Google dropped its vow to not use AI “for purposes which could “cause or are likely to cause harm” – a move which means it’s no longer explicitly opposed to developing AI for purposes such as weapons. In today’s MadTech Daily, we also look at Google’s decision to ditch its diversity, equity and inclusion hiring targets.    

Elsewhere in the ad tech landscape, Elon Musk added more advertisers to its lawsuit over their alleged ad ‘boycott’ of his platform, X. Colgate and Shell are among the companies newly added.