The web and Google once had a deal：/24067997/robots-txt-ai-text-file-web-crawlers-spiders: Google collects data and indexes webpages and in exchange sends oceans of traffic to websites. The deal wasn’t perfect and certainly made Google more money than it made the websites, but it worked for a long time. Now, however, the deal seems to be dead：https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/technology/google-ai-open-web.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zVA.L7zf._L5VDoBJCS4f&smid=url-share. And the web is being forced to reckon with what happens when the Google traffic dries up.

On this episode of The Vergecast ：https://pod.link/vergecast, David and Nilay talk about the week’s Google Zero news, including Reddit’s interest in getting out of an AI training deal：/ai-artificial-intelligence/969104/reddit-might-cut-ties-with-google-as-traffic-drops, and the publishers considering blocking Google from crawling their sites altogether. (Nilay also takes a bit of a victory lap on the whole “Google Zero” term, but only a short one.) Even Google’s Search business is feeling the AI crunch：https://s206.q4cdn.com/479360582/files/doc_financials/2026/q2/2026q2-alphabet-earnings-release.pdf, and it’s anyone’s guess what happens next.

After that, it’s time for some AI news, including questions on how much to panic about OpenAI accidentally hacking Hugging Face：/ai-artificial-intelligence/968988/openai-hugging-face-hack-ai, and the many：/ai-artificial-intelligence/968855/substack-pangram-ai-detecting-tool dubious：/tech/968680/meta-ai-detection-labeling-content-seal-watermarks-synthid AI detector systems coming to platforms near you. We also have a Hype Desk, an episode of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, some news on an Apple payment plan：/tech/968750/apple-upgrade-program, a new minimalist phone：/gadgets/968563/light-flip-phone-price-specs, and a special guest appearance to talk about Ford and Apple Maps：/transportation/969919/ford-apple-maps-bluecruise-driver-assist.

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