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Amazon confirmed today in an email to Prime members that it will begin showing ads alongside its streaming Prime Video content starting January 29, 2024. The price will remain the same, but subscribers who don't wish to see any ads will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month on top of their monthly or yearly Amazon Prime subscription. The change was first reported back in September.

"Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements," Amazon wrote in an email sent to Amazon Prime subscribers. "This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership."

Subscribers who want to avoid ads can sign up for the extra monthly fee at the Prime Video website.

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Chrome has finally announced plans to kill third-party cookies. It's been almost four years since third-party cookies have been disabled in Firefox and Safari, but Google, one of the world's largest ad companies, has been slow-rolling the death of the tracking cookie. Ad companies use third-party cookies to track users across the web, and that web activity is used to show users relevant ads. Now that Google's alternative user-tracking ad system, the "Privacy Sandbox," has launched in Chrome, it's finally ready to do away with the previous form of ad tracking. The new timeline to kill third-party cookies is the second half of 2024.

Google's blog post calls the rollout "Tracking Protection" and says the first tests will begin on January 4, where 1 percent of Chrome users will get the feature. By the second half of 2024, the rollout should hit everyone on desktop Chrome and Android (Chrome on iOS is just a reskinned Safari and is not applicable). The rollout comes with some new UI bits for Chrome, with Google saying, "If a site doesn’t work without third-party cookies and Chrome notices you’re having issues—like if you refresh a page multiple times—we’ll prompt you with an option to temporarily re-enable third-party cookies for that website from the eye icon on the right side of your address bar." Since other browsers have been doing this for four years, it's hard to imagine many web admins not being ready for it.

Chrome's new third-party cookies controls. (credit: Google)

Google says the rollout is "subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority." Chrome's Privacy Sandbox switch represents the world's most popular browser (Google Chrome) integrating with the web's biggest advertising platform (Google Ads) and shutting down alternative tracking methods used by competing ad companies. So, some regulators are naturally interested in the whole process.

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The appearance of any big brand's ads on websites that the brand has specifically blocked is one of a brand's biggest nightmares. That could include specifically blacklisted sites—like Breitbart—or any category of generally controversial site, like sites in countries sanctioned by the government, sites featuring hardcore pornography, or sites containing pirated content.

According to an Adalytics report, the Google Search Partner Network (SPN) has allegedly been putting brands at risk of all of these undesirable placements without advertisers fully realizing the dangers. Adalytics researchers reported finding Google search ads for top brands and government agencies displaying on hundreds of undesirable websites.

Among those impacted were big brands—like Amazon, Apple, BMW, Home Depot, Lego, Meta, Microsoft, Paramount+, Samsung, and Uber—and top government entities including the US Treasury and the European Commission. Ads from nonprofits like the American Cancer Society and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, as well as major media outlets like The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal were also found on illegal or adult sites.

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On Monday, Elon Musk followed through with his promise to sue Media Matters over reporting that helped spark the latest advertiser backlash against antisemitic content posted on Musk's X (formerly Twitter).

Musk's complaint—bizarrely filed in a Texas court despite X Corp. being based in Nevada and Media Matters in the District of Columbia—accused Media Matters of interference with X Corp.'s contract with advertisers, business disparagement, and interference with a prospective economic advantage by allegedly disrupting X Corp.'s relationship with advertisers.

The lawsuit's business disparagement claim marks the first time that Musk has sued a group monitoring hate speech on X for defaming the platform. Where individuals can sue for defamation, businesses can sue over disparagement. In this case, Musk must prove that Media Matters knowingly published false statements intended to harm X Corp.'s business to succeed in his lawsuit.