Disney+ has updated its UK subscriber agreement to allow ads on plans marketed as ad-free. The new terms state that "all Service Plans may include: (i) promotional content, (ii) sponsorships, and (iii) advertisements before/after playback of Content and in channels, live/as-live, special events, and any third-party services content."

London-based gaming website Dexerto first spotted the change. Ads can now run before and after content on both basic and premium plans, though not in the kid-friendly "Junior Mode." The previous agreement conceded only that ad-free tiers might carry "limited" promotional content tied to bundles, product integration or sponsorship messaging.

Disney is not the first streamer to blur the ad-free line. Netflix already runs ads during live programming regardless of subscriber plan. But Disney+ carries more churn risk. The service lost 1.7 million subscribers when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended from "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" last year, and it lost more when prices rose a few weeks later.

The updated agreement cuts two ways. Either Disney+ now earns enough ad revenue to justify alienating ad-free subscribers, or it is not earning enough and wants to expand available inventory. Either reading points to more ad slots coming to the platform.

Pricing data disappears across e-commerce and search

Big Tech companies understand the value of price and purchase data. Amazon email receipts and shipping updates no longer include transaction data in the email body, and Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI and other outside agents from scraping its site.

Pricing information is becoming harder to find elsewhere, too. Earlier this month, Google debuted a new search response protocol in Europe for price comparison queries and review searches covering restaurants, hotels, airlines and other specialized products, in order to comply with new EU laws. Google itself says the change will degrade search quality. Real-time pricing info will be stripped from those response pages.

Automaker Stellantis — owner of Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat — offers the latest example. The company is adopting a "minimum advertised pricing" rule for its dealerships, The Wall Street Journal reports, following other large auto companies. Finding the cheapest car just became harder. And hooking buyers on the lowest rate in an ad only damages the brand when the car inevitably costs more than advertised.

Paramount clears its biggest legal hurdle

Paramount Skydance's path to owning Warner Bros. Discovery is clearer. The studio settled the merger-blocking antitrust lawsuit with California and 11 other states, Bloomberg reports.

Anonymous sources told Bloomberg that California effectively determined the settlement, having led the legal charge against Paramount in recent months. Paramount had threatened to leave the state if no settlement arrived before October — a move that could have cost California some 57,000 full-time jobs and up to $21 billion in annual economic output.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, the deal requires Paramount to release 30 films a year in theaters. The combined Paramount/WBD must also still negotiate pay-TV carriage deals as two separate companies. Paramount avoids selling its cable channels, The Wall Street Journal reports, and will spend an additional $1.5 billion on film production over the next five years, according to The New York Times.

With court dates and ticking fees to shareholders out of the way, Paramount can focus on closing the $111 billion acquisition — a deal that will also push the company past $80 billion in debt. For an ad sales operation, a debt load of that size makes expanded inventory an obvious next lever to pull.

In brief

• TikTok bans political advertising, yet TikTokers still earn thousands per month from political sponsorships through secondary or alt accounts, and through more duplicitous methods, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Fox News Media, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News pulled out of White House press pool coverage after President Trump banned CNN, MS Now and Politico from the pool over the weekend. A Trump press conference on Monday carried no audio because no news mics were present, The Hill reports.
• Residents fighting Amazon's noisy drone deliveries in Texas worry the drones could be used for targeted advertising — say, pool equipment ads after flying over their yards, The New York Times reports.
• Grandparents and baby boomers remain unlikely targets of AI services that slopify family photos, Business Insider reports.

Source: AdExchanger (https://www.adexchanger.com/daily-news-roundup/tuesday-22092026/) / Source: help.disneyplus.com (https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-price)