Affiliate Roundup: OpenAI Launches Atlas Browser, Holiday Recommerce Boom, AWS Outage Disrupts E-Commerce, & More

This week in FMTC’s Affiliate Roundup: OpenAI launched Atlas, an AI browser with built-in ChatGPT to rival Google. The holiday recommerce boom shows resale and refurbished goods driving new seasonal revenue. A major AWS outage disrupted global e-commerce operations.

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• OpenAI has launched Atlas, an AI-powered web browser designed to rival Google Chrome by embedding its ChatGPT capabilities directly into browsing—signaling a new phase in the competition for search and ad dollars.

• Google is scrapping major Privacy Sandbox APIs (like Topics and PAAPI) after the Competition and Markets Authority dropped its oversight.

• The resale economy is surging this holiday season — valued at an estimated $64 billion in U.S. transactions — and smart merchants are using “recommerce” (pre-owned, refurbished, and overstock goods) as both a revenue channel and a brand-preserving discount strategy.

• YouTube has officially rolled out a new AI-powered “likeness detection” feature that lets eligible creators detect and request removal of videos using their face or voice without authorization.

• Amazon Web Services’ global outage disrupted major e-commerce and online services by knocking out cloud infrastructure in its US-EAST-1 region, highlighting the fragility of today’s digital commerce backbone.

• Holiday shopping now starts months early, with 75% of consumers researching before mid-November; Impact.com’s report urges brands to activate creators sooner, prioritize shipping reliability, and manage affiliate strategies across the full shopping journey.