Digest: Google Ruling Signals Major Ad Tech Shake Up; Ofcom to Demand Stronger Child Protections from Social Platforms

In today’s digest, we cover the landmark antitrust ruling against Google, Ofcom’s upcoming child safety regulations, and Netflix’s plans to overhaul its search experience using AI to enhance content discovery.

Google ruling signals major ad tech shake up

The long running antitrust case against Google’s advertising technology business has reached a pivotal moment, with major implications for the future of the digital media ecosystem. On 17th April 2025, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google had violated Sections One and Two of the Sherman Act. The Judge concluded that the tech giant had monopolised the open-web display publisher ad server market through DFP and the ad exchange market via AdX. The court found that Google had unlawfully tied these two products together under the Google Ad Manager (GAM) suite.

While the exact remedies are yet to be determined, the court’s findings lay the groundwork for potential divestiture of some of Google’s most powerful ad tech assets and reshape the economics of digital media.

Ofcom to demand stronger child protections from social platforms

Ofcom is set to unveil a series of codes of practice this week that will require social media, search, and gaming platforms to protect children from adult content, as part of the UK’s Online Safety Act. According to sources, the rules are aimed at reducing exposure to both pornographic and “legal but harmful” content and will apply to major platforms such as X, Meta, and others.

Under the new guidelines, companies will be expected to either remove adult content, implement robust age-gating measures or introduce alternative safeguards to limit children’s access. The changes form part of a staged rollout of the Online Safety Act, which was passed into law in 2023 and represents one of the most comprehensive overhauls of how Britons engage with digital platforms. Platforms may now be compelled to adopt strict age verification technologies, such as credit card authentication or age-aware facial estimation tools, to ensure underage users are not exposed to harmful content.

Netflix developing AI-powered search tools

Netflix is developing a new AI-powered search experience aimed at improving content discovery across its platform, according to CEO Greg Peters. The company plans to leverage generative technologies to create a more interactive search function that helps users explore a wider range of titles beyond the most popular ones.

Speaking during its first quarter results conference call, Peters noted that Netflix’s top performing shows account for just 1% of overall traffic, highlighting the importance of better recommendation tools to surface more of the platform’s catalogue.

According to Peters ‘There is more room to improve the discovery and recommendation experience, and therefore provide more value for members, and therefore find the biggest audiences for our titles’.