This week, AI faces lawsuits and security challenges as streaming giants chase billion-dollar milestones and media power plays reshape the screen. In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss documents revealing Meta’s profits from scam ads, Netflix entering its third year of ads with an eye on the future, and Snap shares surging after a USD$400m Perplexity AI deal.

Amazon has filed a  lawsuit against Perplexity AI, alleging its shopping assistant, Comet AI, illegally accessed user accounts and disguised automated activity as human interactions. The case, filed in California, accuses the start up of breaching Amazon’s safeguards and compromising customer data integrity.

Meanwhile, the world’s top AI players, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft are uniting to tackle escalating cybersecurity risks, particularly “prompt injection” attacks that exploit large language models through hidden commands in online content.

In brighter AI news, Getty Images has struck a multi-year licensing deal with Perplexity, integrating Getty’s premium visuals into the start up’s discovery tools and boosting its stock by 5%.

Across the media landscape, Omdia forecasts the global video entertainment market, spanning streaming and traditional TV, will surpass USD$1tn (£740bn) in annual revenue by 2030, powered by digital growth. 

Netflix has also tapped Moelis & Co to explore a potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets, a move that could redefine the streaming hierarchy if it proceeds.

And in broadcast news, ABC, ESPN, and other Disney-owned channels abruptly disappeared from YouTube TV last Thursday night after contract talks collapsed, cutting off roughly 10 million viewers just before prime time. Sources told Deadline that YouTube TV initiated the early shutdown to allow time for operational adjustments and customer notifications.