“According to the memo, CNET will be subject to regular “content pruning” going forward, at least once a year.”
CNET has deleted thousands of stories going back to the mid-1990s to look “fresh” to Google. Google says its guidance does not encourage the practice. Red Ventures, the private equity-backed marketing firm behind CNET, already got caught publishing AI-written articles to carry affiliate ads. Its backup plan for three decades of tech journalism is to let the Wayback Machine keep the copies it no longer wants.