This week marked significant changes in the evolving relationship between advertising and climate responsibility. In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Google being hit in a €4.1bn Android fine battle, Microsoft considering abandoning high-stakes negotiations with OpenAI, OpenAI ending work with Scale AI after its Meta deal, as well as Omnicom closing Cannes Lions with a YouTube livestream deal.

WhatsApp is finally making its move toward monetisation. WhatsApp will be introducing ads on its Status screen, the first major step toward monetisation since launching as a free, privacy-first chat app. Similar to Instagram Stories, users will begin seeing ads interspersed between WhatsApp Status updates after viewing a few in a row.

While Meta explores new ad terrain, UK broadcasters are banding together for a different kind of ad revolution. Sky, Channel 4, and ITV have announced plans to launch a pioneering self-serve TV advertising platform in 2026, in partnership with Comcast Advertising. The new marketplace will allow advertisers to run a single campaign across the broadcasters’ combined addressable inventory for the first time, covering premium on-demand and streaming content. 

But not all ad stories this week are about expansion. A new report by UN Special rapporteur Elisa Morgera recommends that states criminalise advertising and media firms for amplifying false or misleading information from fossil fuel companies and pushes for a blanket ban on fossil fuel advertising, sponsorship, and promotion. It also urges advertising agencies and big tech platforms to refuse fossil fuel-linked sponsorships altogether, and to actively support campaigns promoting fossil-free lifestyles.

Meanwhile, TikTok has announced a new initiative in collaboration with Scope3, enabling advertisers to measure the carbon footprint of their campaigns. This forms part of its broader push toward sustainability and carbon neutrality by 2030.

In a surprising twist in the AI space, Google, the largest customer of Scale AI, plans to end its relationship with the company after news emerged that rival Meta is acquiring a 49% stake, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.Regulators also appear to be easing off on Google. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened a consultation into whether to lift the legally binding commitments Google agreed to in 2022 around its Privacy Sandbox initiative