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By Steven Perlberg 

BATTLE ROYALE: The Florida judge who presided over Hulk Hogan's legal bout with Gawker Media dismissed the digital media company's motion for a new trial, as expected, setting up what could be a protracted appeals process. But the real story looming over the proceedings was about Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who confirmed to the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal late Wednesday that the reports that he has been underwriting legal battles against Gawker are true. Mr. Thiel said estimates of $10 million are "roughly in the ballpark" of what he has spent to secretly take on Gawker, which he called a "singularly terrible bully." In a statement to WSJ, he said he does "not support legal actions against any other organizations." While his financial support is certainly not illegal, the fact that a technocrat billionaire has waged a war against the media company that outed him as gay could have a chilling effect on sites that publish private things about powerful people.

EXCHANGE YOUR MIND: Facebook will shut down its ad exchange, called FBX, a product that let third-party ad tech players purchase ads across its platform, CMO Today reports. The move is pretty much in line with Facebook's push to focus on its own Audience Network and places another brick in the company's so-called "walled garden," or closed-off ad-buying ecosystem. FBX also didn't feature mobile or video ads, two areas of explosive growth at the company, and Facebook last year limited the number of ad tech partners who could buy ads through FBX. One former Facebook product manager who helped build FBX told CMO Today it was created in an effort to boost revenue right around the time Facebook was going public, but the company was never a fan of giving up any control over its ads.

TELECOM RIVALS: While Verizon is said to be one of the favorites among the companies bidding on Yahoo, Bloomberg reports that its telecommunications competitor AT&T is still in the mix to buy the company's core Internet business. A marriage between AT&T and Yahoo would be quite the pivot, given that the telecom company had at one point decided against bidding and it recently unwound a 15-year partnership with Yahoo that moved a large chunk of its business elsewhere. But AT&T may see Yahoo as a way to better compete after Verizon acquired AOL, which has a mix of ad tech and media properties like Yahoo. We'll likely find out who wins in another two to three weeks, according to Bloomberg.

BUY BUY BIRDIE: Twitter has disbanded its 25-person commerce team and has stopped product development on its "Buy" button, which had been encouraging consumers to purchase products in the app, BuzzFeed reports. As WSJ notes, Twitter at one point hoped that the buy button could make the platform into a "virtual shopping mall." Facebook, too, has experimented with buy buttons, but it appears consumers aren't quite ready for a social media shopping experience. The move coincided with Twitter's annual shareholder meeting, where CEO Jack Dorsey fielded questions and concerns from investors about whether the tech company is on track. Mr. Dorsey pointed to this week's news about not counting media attachments or usernames in Twitter's 140-character limit as an example of user-friendly progress.

Elsewhere

Apple executive Eddy Cue floated the idea of buying Time Warner Inc. at a meeting with the media company last year. The discussions never included the two companies' CEOs and didn't progress beyond a preliminary stage. [ FT]

A federal appeals court rebuked the Federal Communications Commission over the agency's failure to update its media-ownership rules, some of which date back four decades. The FCC is required to review its rules every four years, but that hasn't happened since 2006. [ WSJ]

Marketers and media companies are chasing the "mythical millennial," but thinking of the group as a monolith obscures the fact that it's one of the most diverse generations. [ NYT]

Speaking of millennials, Chris Altchek, CEO of millennial-focused Mic.com, said on the WSJ Media Mix podcast that it's only a matter of time before all advertising is branded content. [ CMO Today]

The New York Times is offering buyouts to staff at the end of the month. The newspaper also didn't rule out the possibility of layoffs. [ WSJ]

Insider, a Business Insider-owned lifestyle brand that started as purely "distributed" on social media, has launched its own website. Insider has already attracted 10 million followers across six Facebook pages. [ CMO Today]

Warren Buffett, who owns dozens of local newspapers, says he would never sell any of his publications, though even the Oracle of Omaha admits his company hasn't yet cracked the code on a viable business model. [ USA Today]

Snapchat has hired former Vanity Fair editor Betsy Lack to lead "global brand strategy." [ Recode]

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Write to Steven Perlberg at steven.perlberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 26, 2016 07:42 ET (11:42 GMT)