Affiliate Roundup: Cashrewards Shuts Down, Google Fined $3.5B, Live Shopping Rises, & More

This week in FMTC’s Affiliate Roundup: Cashrewards suddenly shut down, impacting millions of users and thousands of brands. The EU fined Google $3.5B for abusing its dominance in ad tech. Live shopping is emerging as the new affiliate marketing, driving real-time purchases.

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• Perplexity has extended a partnership with PayPal and Venmo that could bring millions of new users to its Comet AI browser, positioning it as a disruptive counter-monopoly to challenge Google in search and browsing.

• Judge Mehta’s Google antitrust ruling keeps Android and Chrome intact but bans exclusivity deals, adds data-sharing and auction transparency, and imposes six years of oversight.

• The EU fined Google $3.5B for abusing its dominance in ad tech and ordered it to stop favoring its own platforms.

• Cashrewards abruptly ceased operations on September 8, 2025—impacting 2.5 million users and 2,000 brands, with AU$165 million in cashback paid out and over AU$4 billion in sales generated—and industry peers have publicly commended its foundational role in affiliate marketing.

• ZeroClick—just over two weeks old—raised $55M, bought Sleek, and is embedding contextual ads into AI search results.

• Most marketers are doubling down on walled-garden platforms like Google and Meta—even as rising costs, mounting transparency issues, and shifting consumer behavior signal a critical need to diversify ad spend beyond these closed ecosystems.

• Live shopping is becoming the new affiliate marketing, driving instant purchases through influencer-led streams.