BuzzFeed, Inc.

For convenience, the terms “BuzzFeed,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our” used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K refer to BuzzFeed, Inc. and one or more of our consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context otherwise requires.

On December 3, 2021, we consummated a business combination (the “Business Combination”) with 890 5th Avenue Partners, Inc. (“890”), certain wholly-owned subsidiaries of 890, and BuzzFeed, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Legacy BuzzFeed”). In connection with the Business Combination, we acquired 100% of the membership interests of CM Partners, LLC. CM Partners, LLC, together with Complex Media, Inc., is referred to herein as “Complex Networks.” Following the closing of the Business Combination, 890 was renamed “BuzzFeed, Inc.”

Our Company— Overview

BuzzFeed is a premier digital media company. Across entertainment, news, food, pop culture, and commerce, our brands drive conversation and inspire what audiences watch, read, and buy now—and into the future. Our iconic, globally-loved brands include BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty.

BuzzFeed’s mission is to spread truth, joy, and creativity on the Internet. We are committed to making the Internet better: providing trusted, high-quality, brand-safe entertainment and news; making content on the Internet more inclusive, empathetic and creative; and inspiring our audience to live better lives.

BuzzFeed curates the Internet, and acts as an “inspiration engine,” driving both online and real-world action and transactions. Our strong audience signal and powerful content flywheel have enabled us to build a deep, two-way connection with our audiences, and an engine for high-quality content at scale and low cost. As a result, each of our brands has a large, loyal, highly engaged audience that is attractive to advertisers and creators, and through our rich first party data offering and contextual marketing solutions, we are able to help both advertisers and creators effectively and efficiently reach their target audiences. In 2024, our audiences consumed more than 297 million hours of content, and drove over$500 million in attributable transactions for our commerce partners. For additional discussion on Time Spent, refer to Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” within this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Our strength has always been to adapt our business model to the evolution of the digital landscape. Founded by Jonah Peretti in 2006, BuzzFeed started as a lab in New York City’s Chinatown, experimenting with how the Internet could change how content is consumed, distributed, interacted with, and shared. Our data-driven approach to content creation and our cross-platform distribution network have enabled us to monetize our content by delivering a comprehensive suite of digital advertising products and services and introducing new, complementary revenue streams.

Our Market Opportunity

We believe that BuzzFeed is well-positioned to adapt to the rapidly changing digital media environment. We have strong and differentiated IP in BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty, each with a trusted and established brand identity. The brands we have built are valuable and hard to replicate. Audiences spend more time consuming our content than that of any other digital media company in our competitive set, according to Comscore (competitive set includes Condé Nast Digital, Vox Media, People, Bustle Digital Group, and Dotdash Meredith).

Reputation, ethics, and quality matter now more than ever. Advertisers continue to face brand safety risks on the largest social platforms. These platforms have become reliant on user-generated content that is often toxic and / or misleading. As platforms continue to struggle with the policing of user-generated content and the impact to advertisers on their platforms, BuzzFeed has become a trusted partner in providing high-quality, brand-safe content at scale to serve advertiser demand. We are aiming to capitalize on our strong IP and market opportunity, and therefore in February 2025, we announced that we are in the beginning stages of creating a new social media platform with a focus on interactive storytelling, new content formats, and cutting-edge AI tools to power self-expression, connection, and creative exploration.

Further, amid the rapidly evolving data privacy landscape, it is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisers to drive returns on the large tech platforms. With a broad and diverse audience and scaled distribution across platforms, we capture rich first party data and third-party platform insights across our audience — offering advertisers the contextual alignment and tools they need to effectively and efficiently reach massive young audiences — particularly as the Internet continues to move toward a cookieless future. By leaning further into AI, we see the opportunity to capture and better understand a much bigger data set around our audience and the performance of our content.

Through our brand-safe content, proprietary first party data, and our suite of ad products, we offer advertisers the tools and contextual alignment needed to effectively and efficiently reach large, young audiences without running afoul of emerging data privacy regulations.

For years, young people have continued to come to BuzzFeed for culturally relevant content that inspires them to discover new things. We extended this relationship to our commerce business to create trusted shopping content that inspires our audiences to discover new products. This content is led by our editorial team and informed by audience insights, yielding hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions annually on behalf of some of the world’s largest retailers, including Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Our approach provides retailers with an incremental channel for capturing high-quality, actionable consumer traffic.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the annual U.S. e-commerce market to be approximately $1.2 trillion, comprising approximately 16% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter of 2024. The U.S. e-commerce market is expected to reach $1.7 trillion by 2028 and comprise 20% of total retail sales, according to eMarketer. The ability of our content to inspire millions of consumers to transact and deliver meaningful results for our retail partners is what sets us apart from other digital publishers. And, as the e-commerce market continues to grow, we see an opportunity to expand and deepen these relationships over time.

Our Brands

The Company has built and assembled iconic brands for Millennial and Gen Z audiences across entertainment, news, food, pop culture, and commerce.

Our flagship BuzzFeed brand curates entertainment content, pop culture, and the best of the Internet. With articles, lists, quizzes, videos, and original series — our audience comes to BuzzFeed to learn what to watch, read, and buy now — and into the future.

HuffPostis a global, award-winning media platform for news, politics, opinion, entertainment, features, and lifestyle content that continues to attract millions of loyal readers directly to its front page.

Tasty, first launched in 2015, pioneered the overhead video format that is now ubiquitous across most major food brands, and is a platform for food creators.

We sold Complex Networks, a global youth entertainment company targeting Millennial and Gen Z audiences, in February 2024. Additionally, we sold First We Feast, a food, drink, and pop culture-focused online destination, in December 2024. These sales complete our strategic pivot away from a combined portfolio of brands, and into a strategy that leverages the strength of each of our brands, with a focus on programmatic advertising and affiliate commerce. Refer to Note 21 to the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere within this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional details with respect to these sales.

Our Audience

Our content reflects the voice of Millennials and Gen Z, and creates an “inspiration engine” that helps millions explore new things, try unique experiences, and discover novel products. Across our brands, we reach millions of monthly viewers, who consumed more than 297 million hours of content and drove hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions in 2024. Our cross-platform distribution network gives us the ability to connect with the Internet generations at scale on whatever platform they are using to consume content. We attract and retain audiences as a function of our data-driven approach to content creation. As audiences engage with our content, we capture insights into their preferences and apply those learnings to new content development. This enables us to attract larger, more engaged audiences and capture deeper, more reliable insights.

Our Technology Platform and Data-Driven Content Flywheel

Creating meaningful content requires data, technology, and scale, all of which are key competitive differentiators that BuzzFeed uses to reach our audience, wherever they are. Our data-driven approach to content creation is designed to benefit all stakeholders across our ecosystem: audiences, creators, and advertisers alike.

BuzzFeed began as a lab in New York City, experimenting with content, formats, and distribution on the Internet. For nearly 20 years, we have established a deep understanding of modern media and developed proprietary technology designed to rapidly scale and monetize digital content. Machine learning and analytics power everything from our scaled tech stack of quiz makers built into a content management system to proprietary algorithms and custom tools for content creators and brand advertisers to headline optimization.

Supported by our scalable and repeatable technology platform, our data-driven content flywheel informs our most important decisions. Our content and brands are designed for modern-day consumption patterns, providing engagement behavior data and learnings across the BuzzFeed network. With this distribution strategy driving scale, efficiency, and adaptability, we capture the interests of our audience, inform our content creators and journalists, and help advertisers reach their target audiences, with a commitment to brand-safety.

Our proprietary technology stack is powered by AI and machine learning, and trained on BuzzFeed proprietary data to optimize publishing across our owned and operated and third-party platforms. This enables us to attract engaged audiences and capture deeper, more reliable insights — delivering high-quality content at scale and low cost. In doing so, we are able to capture rich first party data and third-party platform insights that our advertising partners can leverage to more effectively reach their target audiences.

Our differentiated model for content creation and distribution is designed to serve all stakeholders in our ecosystem.

•These proprietary tools and technologies ensure we are serving our audiences compelling, culturally relevant content.

•Our content creators and journalists also benefit, as internal dashboards and metrics provide heightened visibility on audience interaction, allowing them to focus on content and formats that maximize engagement and revenue.

•Similarly, advertisers rely on our audience insights and first party data tools to optimize their ad campaigns.

•Our data-driven approach to content creation also offers advertisers an alternative to the risk of advertising alongside user-generated content on the largest social platforms.

Our Business Model

Powered by our highly scalable data-driven content flywheel, BuzzFeed has grown into a global media company that distributes content across owned and operated, as well as third-party, platforms. In recent years, we have leveraged our media network to develop a comprehensive suite of digital advertising products and services and extend into complementary business lines, such as long-form content development and commerce.

We measure our success in terms of engagement, monetization, retention, and operating efficiency using four key metrics: (1) audience time spent across owned and operated sites, as well as on third-party platforms; (2) revenue generated from advertising, content, and commerce and other; (3) net branded content advertiser revenue retention as an indicator of our ability to retain spend of existing customers from one year to the next; and (4) profitability (on an Adjusted EBITDA basis, a non-GAAP financial measure).

We generate revenue from (i) advertising, (ii) content, and (iii) commerce and other.

Advertising revenues consist primarily of payments we receive from advertisers, both programmatically and directly, for ads distributed against our editorial and news content, including display, pre-roll and mid-roll video products, as well as homepage takeovers. We distribute these ad products across our owned and operated properties as well as third-party platforms. This revenue source is driven by our industry-leading engagement, an overall shift to digital advertising, and our scaled reach to multiple demographics. We provide significant and differentiated value to advertisers by consistently delivering best-in-class audience engagement.

Content revenues consist primarily of payments received from clients for custom assets, including both long-form and short-form content, from branded quizzes to Instagram takeovers to branded content videos. These revenues also include feature films and content licensing. Our content production approach increasingly allows for turn-key, lightweight options that are scalable and repeatable and resonate with advertisers. Our content revenue is driven by continued investment in our content team, a strong data-informed understanding of our audience, demand for trusted, brand-safe digital content, and our brand integrity.

Commerce and other revenues consist primarily of affiliate commissions earned on transactions initiated from our editorial shopping content, and revenues from product licensing. Our editorial shopping content drives hundreds of millions of dollars in attributable transactions each year. Moving forward, we plan to continue to onboard new marketplaces beyond consumer retail, expanding into new shopping categories to drive additional growth. With strong brand recognition and audience trust, BuzzFeed is well positioned to capitalize on the continued shift to online purchases.

Our Differentiation

•Leading Destination for Audiences— Audiences spend more time consuming our content than that of other digital media companies in our competitive set, according to Comscore (competitive set includes Condé Nast Digital, Vox Media, People, Bustle Digital Group, and Dotdash Meredith).

•Premium, Brand-Safe Advertising — As platforms continue to struggle with the policing of user-generated content and the impact to advertisers on their platforms, BuzzFeed has become a trusted partner in providing high-quality, brand-safe content at scale to serve advertiser demand. Our iconic brands have loyal, highly engaged audiences — from food lovers to shoppers to parents — and everyone in between.

•AI-enabled Technology Stack — Our proprietary technology stack is powered by AI and machine learning, and trained on BuzzFeed proprietary data to optimize publishing across our owned and operated and third-party platforms. This enables us to attract larger, more engaged audiences and capture deeper, more reliable insights — delivering high-quality content at scale and low cost.

•Rich First Party Data — With a broad and diverse audience and scaled distribution across platforms, we capture rich first party data and third-party platform insights across our audience — offering advertisers the contextual alignment and tools they need to effectively and efficiently reach massive young audiences — particularly as the Internet continues to move toward a cookieless future. By leaning further into AI, we see the opportunity to capture and better understand a much bigger data set around our audience and the performance of our content.

Our Strategy

•Grow and deepen audience engagement —We plan to continue to leverage our iconic brands and invest in our technology and data-driven content flywheel to deliver engaging content that brands and advertisers trust to reach, grow, and engage audiences, at scale and across platforms. We use AI to make our owned and operated properties more engaging, personalized, and efficient to operate. As mentioned within “Our Market Opportunity” above, in February 2025, we announced that we are in the beginning stages of creating a new social media platform with a focus on interactive storytelling, new content formats, and cutting-edge AI tools to power self-expression, connection, and creative exploration.

•Empower our content creator teams —We are extremely fortunate to have many talented journalists, video creators, writers, and Internet visionaries, whose contributions are critical to our success. BuzzFeed will continue to focus on building the future of creative work by empowering our teams, providing them with next-generation tools, data, and an environment that fosters collaboration, diversity, and innovation to produce best-in-class digital content.

•Expand strategic partnerships —Our diversified and complementary advertising, content, and commerce offerings enhance our value proposition and strengthen our relationships with our customers. In particular, partners who purchase several of our solutions often increase their average spend with BuzzFeed, which drives longer term relationships and improves customer retention.

•Drive sustainable, profitable growth —Following several years of discipline and cost management initiatives, our business is benefiting from significant operating leverage. As we prioritize resources towards the highest margin businesses, we are committed to building a business that delivers margin expansion and generates positive cash flows.

BuzzFeed operates within the digital media space, a category that we have pioneered and helped develop. We broadly compete against other Internet companies that might attract audiences and advertisers to their platforms and away from BuzzFeed’s. More specifically, with a common core demographic of Millennials and Gen Z, online content providers that target younger generations are natural competitors to BuzzFeed. Historically, these have included digital publishers such as Vox Media (which combined with Group Nine Media), Bustle Digital Group, Dotdash Meredith, and Condé Nast. Additionally, our entertainment competitors include, but are not limited to, People and Entertainment Weekly, and our food brand competitors include, but are not limited to, New York Times Cooking and Food Network. We believe that our audience leadership, brand safety, AI-powered tech stack, and rich first party data are structural differentiators that set us apart from the competition.

BuzzFeed both competes with and partners with the largest social media platforms, streaming services, retailers, and traditional publishers. We believe that BuzzFeed’s unique, data-informed, brand-safe content is increasingly valued by ecosystem participants and enables BuzzFeed to grow alongside the largest consumer Internet and publishing businesses.

Customers

BuzzFeed offers a strong value proposition to customers and business partners looking to reach Millennial and Gen Z audiences at scale, in order to generate awareness and drive discovery, inspiration, and ultimately transactions involving their products and services. Customers rely on our high-quality, engaging and brand-safe content, creativity, and audience insights to accomplish these objectives. Our customer base consists of U.S.-based and global corporations, including several Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries including, among others, media and entertainment, consumer packaged goods, retail, financial services, insurance, and technology, who utilize one or more of our offerings in advertising, content, and commerce and other.

We provide our advertising customers with a broad array of offerings including display, programmatic, and video advertising inventory to target users on our owned and operated sites, applications, and third-party platforms. Our content customers include third-parties seeking to promote their businesses, products, and services with our content (for example, we can create customized promotional content for a third-party’s film release). Our commerce customers are e-commerce operators who partner with us through affiliate programs, or retailers with whom we enter into licensing and merchandising agreements. Customers can achieve the best results when tapping into a combination of our offerings, and we see increased retention from those customers that do so.

We derive a significant amount of revenue from the affiliate and advertising exchanges of Amazon and Google. For the year ended December 31, 2024, approximately 30% of our revenue was derived from Amazon, primarily from affiliate commerce transactions. Excluding affiliate and programmatic partners such as Amazon and Google, our top 10 direct customers made up approximately 10% of total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2024.

Human Capital Resources

Our Employees

We consider the management of our global talent to be essential to the ongoing success of our business. As of December 31, 2024, we had 611 employees located across seven countries. As of December 31, 2024, approximately

16.4% of our employees were unionized, with certain employees associated with BuzzFeed Canada, Inc. in Canada belonging to the Canadian Media Guild, and certain employees associated with HuffPost in the U.S. belonging to the Writers Guild of America, East.

In December 2024, we completed the sale of certain assets and liabilities relating to the business of First We Feast; however, these former employees remained on our payroll until January 1, 2025. Additionally, in February 2025, we announced plans to reduce expenses by implementing an approximately 5% reduction in our then-current workforce. Following the execution of these combined actions, the Company had 558 employees as of March 12, 2025.

We are focused on supporting our employees across the full employee lifecycle from recruitment to onboarding through ongoing development, and have implemented programs designed to support both career satisfaction and overall wellness. We offer access to a range of wellness services addressing mental health, family support, child care, and other areas.

Our Culture

At BuzzFeed, we value openness and collaboration, experimentation and growth, and diversity of thought and experience. This is demonstrated through our content, as well as in the way we work together within the company. We aspire to provide outstanding people experiences through our workplace practices, benefits, employee programs, communication, and diversity.

•We believe in having a direct relationship between employees and management where ideas are shared and both work together toward a common purpose.

•We believe in the principle of equal pay for equal work and having compensation programs that provide for such equality.

•We believe in treating each other respectfully and employing principles of fairness when concerns or problems arise.

•We are committed to demonstrating diversity of thought, background, and experience across all functions and levels.

•We believe in supporting the wellness of our employees and their dependents, in championing progressive changes where needed, and adjusting our policies to address the changing needs of employees.

•We believe that people should be able to bring their whole self to work, and feel that the workplace is supportive and inclusive.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

At BuzzFeed, we value Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (“DI&B”) and strive to weave this value into everything we do. We attract a diverse group of employees that reflect the world we are trying to reach through our content and we welcome the unique skills, experiences, and backgrounds each employee brings to the table every day. Since 2014, we have been committed to holding ourselves accountable to this work by publishing our diversity and demographics report annually. As of December 31, 2024, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (“BIPOC”) employees constituted 38% of our employee population. In addition, 62% of our employee population identifies as female.

We continually refine our approach to hiring, training, career development, and education to support our mission of DI&B. Our recruiting team continues to be intentional about our diversity strategy to ensure that the company hires and retains talent with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. In the recruitment and hiring process, we also emphasize educating all team members involved about internal and unconscious biases and how to overcome them, and ensuring that all job descriptions and interview processes are inclusive and accessible. BuzzFeed is committed to increasing the representation of diverse employees and we have concentrated our efforts to both advance and retain current diverse employees.

We are committed to ensuring our culture allows employees to bring their authentic selves to work every day. We want all employees to feel safe and supported.

In 2024, we continued to develop and launch key educational opportunities, including Identity and Allyship training, and host a myriad of Heritage Month educational events, learning opportunities, and social events sponsored by the DI&B team, BuzzFeed employee resource groups, and the DI&B Council.

Intellectual Property

We depend on our iconic brands to build and maintain household name recognition and audience loyalty, and regard our intellectual property as critical to our success. We own numerous domestic and foreign trademarks and other proprietary rights that are important to our business and protect those rights in our brands including, but not limited to, BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty. We also maintain rights to the domain names www.buzzfeed.com, www.huffpost.com, and www.tasty.co, among others. We retain the rights to an extensive content library that is monetized through multiple revenue streams. In addition to our brand, domain, and content assets, we have a proprietary technology platform that powers our business. We rely on, and expect to continue to rely on, a combination of work for hire, assignment, license and confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants and third parties with whom we have relationships, as well as trademark, trade dress, domain name, copyright, trade secret and patent laws, to protect our brands, content, proprietary technology, and other intellectual property rights.

As of December 31, 2024, we held 105 registered trademarks in the U.S., including the BUZZFEED mark and the HUFFPOST mark, and also held 351 registered trademarks in foreign jurisdictions. We continually review our development efforts to assess the existence and our ability to register new intellectual property, and whether to decommission certain of our intellectual property assets. We intend to continue to file additional applications with respect to our intellectual property assets.

Regulatory Matters

We are subject to many laws and regulations in the U.S., Canada, the European Union (the “EU”), the United Kingdom (the “U.K.”), Japan, Australia, India, and Mexico and throughout the world, including, but not limited to, those related to contracts, securities, privacy, data protection, content regulation, intellectual property, consumer protection, e-commerce, marketing, advertising, messaging, rights of publicity, libel and defamation, health and safety, employment and labor, bribery and corruption, economic and trade sanctions, product liability, accessibility, competition, and taxation. These laws and regulations are constantly evolving and may be interpreted, applied, created, or amended in a manner that could harm or require us to change our current or future business and operations. In addition, it is possible that certain governments may seek to block or limit use or distribution of our products and services or otherwise impose other restrictions that may affect access to or operation of any or all of our products and services for an extended period of time or indefinitely.

Data Privacy and Security Laws

We are subject to various federal, state and international laws, policies, and regulations relating to the privacy and security of personal data, including personal data of consumers, customers, and employees. These laws often require companies to implement specific information security controls to protect certain types of data (such as personal data, “special categories of personal data” or employee data), and / or impose specific requirements relating to the collection or other processing of such data.

In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”), the Department of Commerce, and various states continue to call for greater regulation of the collection and processing of personal data, as well as restrictions for certain targeted advertising practices. Section 5(a) of the FTC Act grants the agency enforcement powers to combat and address “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce,” and the FTC has used this authority extensively to hold businesses to fair and transparent privacy and security standards. Numerous states have also enacted, or are proposing legislation to enact, state-level data privacy laws and regulations governing the collection, use, disclosure, and other processing of personal data. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (the “CCPA”) provides specific privacy rights to consumers residing in the state and imposes a range of compliance obligations on covered businesses. Compliance with the CCPA has caused, and will continue to cause, BuzzFeed to incur compliance related costs and expenses. Additionally, a number of other states have adopted or are considering similar legislation. Future changes in laws and regulations throughout the U.S., at both the federal and state levels, could impact our ability to collect data, exploit the data we do collect, limit the extent to which we can monetize that data, give rise to additional compliance costs, require us to make substantial investments in technology tools to satisfy new regulatory rules, and expose us to potential non-compliance liability. We are also subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which includes requirements with respect to website accessibility. Additionally, we are subject to the CAN-SPAM Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Video Privacy Protection Act, each of which may place restrictions on how we operate in a manner that adversely affects our business.

In the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) imposes stringent operational requirements for processors and controllers of personal data, including with respect to data subject rights, notices and disclosures to data subjects about how personal data is processed (including information about the profiling of individuals and automated individual decision-making), records of processing activities, limiting retention of personal data, mandatory data breach notification to data protection regulators or supervisory authorities (and in certain cases, to the affected individuals), and requirements to implement additional policies and procedures to comply with the accountability principle under the GDPR. The GDPR is intended to create a single legal framework in relation to the collection, control, use, sharing, disclosure, and other processing of personal data. However, the GDPR allows for derogations where EU member states can deviate from the requirements in their own legislation, including for example, by introducing measures that apply in specific situations and implementing rules regarding legal basis of processing. It is therefore likely that, where we operate or provide services in those EU member state jurisdictions, we will need to comply with these local regulations in addition to the GDPR. Local supervisory authorities are able to impose fines for non-compliance and have the power to carry out audits, require companies to cease or change processing, request information, and obtain access to premises.

Similarly, many other countries around the world have developed laws, rules, and regulations regarding privacy and data protection, including, for example, the U.K., Canada, Japan, Australia, India, and Mexico. Additional countries are developing or expanding privacy and data security laws, rules, and regulations, or may do so in the future, which could increase our risk and compliance costs.

Countries around the world also have developed, or are developing, laws, rules, and regulations regarding cross-border transfers of personal data. This includes laws relating to the transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) and the U.K. Recent legal developments in the EEA and the U.K. have created complexity and uncertainty regarding transfers of personal data from the EEA and the U.K. to “third countries,” especially the U.S. For example, in 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU (the “CJEU”) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (a mechanism for the transfer of personal data from the EEA to the U.S.). The CJEU also made clear that reliance on standard contractual clauses (another mechanism for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA) alone may not be sufficient in all circumstances. We currently rely on standard contractual clauses and these changes are therefore causing us to review our current compliance approach. Changes to our compliance scheme may be deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA, the U.K., and other jurisdictions may result in additional costs or the inability to transfer personal data out of certain countries.

We are also subject to evolving privacy laws on cookies and e-marketing. In the EU and the U.K., regulators are increasingly focusing on compliance with requirements in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem and current national laws that implement the EU directive known as the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic Communications (the ePrivacy Directive) are expected to be replaced by a forthcoming EU regulation known as the e-Privacy Regulation, which will significantly increase fines for non-compliance. Informed consent is generally required for the placement of a cookie or similar technologies on a user’s device and for direct electronic marketing. The GDPR also imposes conditions on obtaining valid consent, such as a prohibition on pre-checked consents and a requirement to ensure separate consents are sought for each type of cookie or similar technology. The text of the e-Privacy Regulation is still under development, and recent EU regulatory guidance and court decisions have created uncertainty about the level to which such laws and regulations will be enforced, which may require us to review our compliance approach and increase compliance costs.

Our employees and personnel may use GenAI technologies to perform their work, and the disclosure and use of personal information in such technologies is subject to various data privacy and security laws and obligations. Governments have passed and are likely to pass additional laws regulating GenAI, including, for example, the EU’s AI Act, which is expected to be adopted and enforced by 2026. Our use of this technology could result in additional compliance costs and regulatory investigations and actions. If we are unable to use GenAI, it could make our business less efficient and result in competitive disadvantages.

Finally, we may publish privacy policies, marketing material, and other documentation or statements regarding our collection, use, disclosure, and other processing of personal information. Although we endeavor to adhere to these policies, statements, and documentation, we, and the third parties on which we rely, may at times fail to do so or may be perceived to have failed to do so. Such failures could subject us to regulatory enforcement action as well as costly legal claims by affected individuals or our customers.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the United States are increasingly using privacy-related theories at both the federal and state level, including, but not limited to, the California Invasion of Privacy Act (i.e., CIPA), otherwise known as California’s “Wiretapping Law” and California Penal Code §638.51, also known as the California “Trap and Trace Law” to bring lawsuits against companies for their data-related practices. These cases typically concern allegations that common web-based tools capture signaling information that can identify the source of the electronic communication by either BuzzFeed and / or a third-party. Such wiretapping and “tap and trace” cases are brought forward in a class action or in a mass arbitration setting and seek monetary damages, which are statutorily defined, and equitable remedies. If such suits are brought against us, defending against them in court or in arbitration could substantially increase our legal costs and involve members of our legal teams to assist in defending these claims.

The number and scope of obligations related to data privacy and security are quickly changing. Preparing for and attempting to comply with these obligations requires significant resources and, potentially, changes to our technologies, systems, and practices and those of any third parties that process personal data on our behalf. We strive to comply with applicable data privacy and security laws and requirements, but we cannot fully determine the impact that current or future such laws and requirements may have on our business or operations. Such laws or requirements may be inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another, subject to differing interpretations, and courts or regulators may deem our efforts to comply as insufficient. If we, or the third parties we rely on to operate our business and deliver our services, fail to comply, or are perceived as failing to comply, with our legal or contractual obligations relating to data privacy and security, or our policies and documentation relating to personal information, we could face governmental enforcement action; litigation with our customers, individuals or others; fines and civil or criminal penalties for us or company officials; obligations to cease offering our services or to substantially modify them in ways that make them less effective in certain jurisdictions; negative publicity and harm to our brand and reputation; and reduced overall demand for our services. Such developments could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Seasonality

Our business is subject to some seasonal influences. Historically, our revenue is typically highest in the fourth quarter of the year due to strong advertising spend and consumer spending during this quarter.

Available Information

We file electronically with the SEC our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. The SEC maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information that we file with the SEC electronically. We will make available on our investor relations website at https://investors.buzzfeed.com, free of charge, copies of these reports and other information as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC.