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For the past year, Spotify has been quietly purging tens of thousands of podcasts that advertised illegal online pharmacies. A report released Thursday by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, faults the company for acting only after news outlets exposed the content and her office spent nearly a year pressing for answers.None of what it removed was sent to law enforcement, the report says.Spotify reportedly removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,000 shows, and took enforcement action against 3,500 accounts, all pushing links to illegal online pharmacies advertising opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for sale without…

Two of the world’s biggest digital advertising platforms, Google and The Trade Desk, have chosen not to renew their accreditations with the Trusted Accountability Group (TAG) at a time when confidence in the certification firm is waning, advertising leaders say. Founded in 2015, the trade group is dedicated to combating digital ad fraud and advancing brand safety online. It quickly gained the support of brands and ad agencies, from Mondelez and Colgate-Palmolive to Publicis and IPG Mediabrands (since folded into Omnicom). Many of the world’s biggest publishers and adtech suppliers sought out TAG certifications to endorse their company in effective ad…

Waymo is launching a loyalty program called Waymo Premier, which will offer frequent robotaxi riders a number of perks in exchange for $29.99 per month. Premier members will be able to skip the virtual line and earn 10% cash back on every trip (and “even more during busy times,” according to Waymo). They’ll also get five free ride cancellations every month, and Waymo says Premier members will even be able to hail a robotaxi in cities where the service still has a waitlist. Waymo Premier will not be available to riders in Austin or Atlanta, the company told TechCrunch, because…

Being away from the office means working on my laptop—and with that comes productivity slipping away into oblivion. The problem, for me at least, is the screen, or rather, the lack of them. A portable monitor solves this dilemma handily, working just like an external monitor setup does in the office, but with mobility also in mind. While larger portable monitors (especially multi-panel ones) may require a dedicated power connection, most can use your laptop’s USB port for all the juice they need.The portable monitor category is a very large one, occupied by both name-brand producers of laptops and desktop…

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has appointed Publicis Media to handle its global media account, ending its 17-year relationship with Omnicom Media Group, ADWEEK has learned.The move follows a closed pitch between the two ad networks, which concluded earlier this spring.Omnicom has been working with HP since 2009, when PHD won the brand’s global traditional media business. In 2017, PHD added global digital media duties to its remit. Then, in 2024, it retained the business again, leading strategy, planning, and buying, while HP managed the bulk of its digital media in-house.The laptop, printer, and computer accessories manufacturer spent $194 million on media globally…

Microsoft has signed a three-year agreement to buy nearly 37,000 tons of carbon removal credits from Indian startup Alt Carbon, marking the tech giant’s first enhanced-rock weathering deal in Asia. Under the agreement, Alt Carbon will deliver 36,920 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal credits by 2029 from its Darjeeling Revival Project in eastern India. Microsoft also has an option to purchase additional volumes if the startup meets delivery and verification milestones. The deal follows reports that suggested Microsoft — the world’s largest buyer of carbon-removal credits — had paused parts of its carbon-removal procurement program. The company rejected those…

Approximately 30 percent of the trading volume on Polymarket comes from the United States, according to a new study—an eye-popping number, considering that none of those people are legally allowed to use the crypto-based platform.The study, conducted by Rutgers University statistician Harry Crane, estimated that people in the US funneled between $10.6 to $26.7 billion through Polymarket. To track the platform’s activity, Crane looked at what appeared to be US-based trades on offshore prediction market platforms from May 2025 to the end of April 2026. He found that many of the highest-volume markets on Polymarket were US-centric, including those covering…

The World Cup is a global celebration, but there’s a darker side to the tournament.FIFA predicts some 6.5 million fans will attend games over the coming weeks, with nearly half coming from overseas. Seattle’s King County Prosecutor’s Human Trafficking Unit recently predicted the tournament will see a spike in sex trafficking and tourism.Seattle agency DNA&STONE (shortlisted for Adweek’s 2025 Agency of the Year) is launching a campaign aimed at raising awareness around sex trafficking. Starting Monday, when Seattle’s Lumen Field hosts its first game, and lasting for the duration of the tournament, “Poison the Fantasy” includes broadcast, social, digital display,…

After you’ve worked on rockets that find their way to outer space, it can be hard to come up with a second act. For SpaceX alumni Andrew Redd, it meant looking deep in the ocean. Redd, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, a region affected by uncharacteristic heat waves and catastrophic fires in recent years, knew he wanted to tackle something in renewable energy. “But the experience at a very hardcore company like SpaceX made me realize that I can’t just come up with an incremental solution. It actually has to be brand new and it has to be…

Encrypted Spaces is, in some sense, the next generation of the Signal protocol, but for more complex and fully featured tools that go beyond messaging and calls, says Matt Green, a cryptography-focused professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins. “They’ve built a system that’s kind of an extension of what end-to-end encryption can be, where you have an actual architecture for doing end-to-end encrypted collaboration,” says Green, who reviewed a white paper outlining the Encrypted Spaces project and a prototype application. “You can think of it as the Signal protocol for collaboration apps.”Unlike Signal, however, the code that the Encrypted…

Amazon’s souped-up Alexa is ripe for brands.Amazon recently debuted Alexa for Shopping, combining its Rufus AI assistant with Alexa+, Amazon’s generative AI assistant built into devices and products. Charlotte Maines, VP of content and advertising for Alexa, told ADWEEK that advertisers are increasingly playing a role in how Alexa shapes how customers shop and find information. Amazon says that Rufus is used by more than 300 million shoppers, while Alexa reaches 600 million devices.Unlike the standalone Rufus product, Alexa for Shopping pulls in non-shopping data from Alexa+, like what music people listen to or what recipes someone searches for.

Playing chess can be challenging, fun, and at times frustrating. Garry Kasparov called the game “mental torture.” With virtually limitless possibilities, chess offers unparalleled depth, and you could easily fill a library with books on how to play it. The internet has opened up a wealth of potential competitors, and smart chess boards enable you to play anyone online or off, not to mention dabble in a variety of chess programs.I’ve been testing smart chess boards for the past month or so, with the help of my chess-mad eldest, and these are my top picks.The Smart Chess Boards I Recommend…

Cannes Lions unveiled the 2026 shortlist for the Dan Wieden Titanium Lions, one of the most prestigious prizes in the advertising industry. The Titanium Lions, the festival’s most coveted award, recognizes game-changing creativity that progresses the industry. The 2026 jury is led by Chaka Sobhani, global chief creative officer of TBWA\Worldwide.This year, 18 pieces of work out of 137 entries made the shortlist. They include campaigns from brands such as Ikea, Heineken, Asics, Oreo, and Vaseline.McCann and LePub are the only agencies with two entries each on the shortlist.Last year’s Titanium Grand Prix went to insurance provider AXA and Publicis Conseil for…

Anthropic has partnered with Indian IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services in a bid to accelerate adoption of its artificial intelligence models at enterprises. The partnership will see TCS creating a business unit focused on deploying Anthropic’s AI models to its customers. TCS will also gain early access to new model releases, which it says it will use to build expertise, and it will provide Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant to its employee base of more than 50,000 people. The companies said they would develop solutions for sectors like financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and aviation. Frontier AI companies have been securing…

As the US war with Iran continues to roil the Middle East, new research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that YouTube is hosting and possibly profiting from dozens of channels linked to US-sanctioned groups linked to the Iranian government, including many with direct ties to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).The research, from the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project, identified more than 75 channels that appear to be run by entities that have been officially sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which has been enforcing sanctions against Iran for decades.The channels have been monetized, meaning…

Pinterest is expanding its partnership with Amazon. The social pinboard site said on Wednesday that it will now serve as a home for creators’ Amazon Storefronts. These online stores allow creators to generate income from affiliate links that direct their fans to products that they often feature in their videos and social media content. The move gives Pinterest another way to appeal to creators who have largely built their shopping and affiliate businesses on larger platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. Pinterest says more than half its users visit it to shop, and that it sees more than 80…