Google Is Poisoning Rival Scrapers' Data, and YouTube Insists It Is Not a Studio

Google has begun "injecting bad data" into search results for rival AI bots that scrape and resell its responses, targeting SerpApi in particular, a move that also risks corrupting the SEO and AEO tools publishers and brands use to track how they surface in search. Separately, at MIPCOM in Cannes, YouTube VP Pedro Pina said "we as a platform are not invested in producing content", describing YouTube as closer to a TV operating system that shares more than half its ad revenue with partners who "make nothing" if their content does not perform. On agentic buying, the roundup reports sell-side caution: The Economist's global head of advertising Jamie Jouning says publishers are not yet sure agentic media buys "are going to be of value", and The New York Times and Newsweek are still evaluating. It also notes a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to halt its taxpayer-funded TV ads, that political ad buyer Cross Screen Media refunded a $25,000 buy after running Maine ads in the wrong Portland, and that Google is testing prescription-drug ads in AI Overviews.

The crux

The same platform that monetises publisher content through search is now degrading the third-party scrapers that resell its results, while the sell side signals that agentic buying remains unproven as a yield source.

Sell-side read

Publishers relying on SEO/AEO tools built on scraped Google data may be getting a corrupted view of their own search visibility, and the agentic-buying scepticism is a reminder that near-term yield still sits with direct sales and sponsorships, not agent-led demand.

Watch

whether Google's scraper-poisoning spreads beyond SerpApi to SEO tooling at large, and whether the prescription-drug AI Overviews test becomes a new high-CPM placement.