#online-platforms

#online-platforms

In today's ExchangeWire news digest: Supreme Court case Gonzalez v. Google could reshape the online advertising industry; TikTok commits to building new data centres in Europe to dodge security concerns; and gaming giant Tencent retreats from metaverse development.Gonzalez v. Google poised to reshape online advertising
From today (21st February 2023), the US Supreme Court will hear a case that could reshape the online advertising landscape.

A-level computer science students are still learning about floppy disks, but not artificial intelligence (AI), Parliament was told.Labour peer Lord Knight of Weymouth, chief education adviser at TES Global Ltd, a digital education company, told peers he met an A-level student at the weekend who revealed this.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The Queen Consort has made her first public appearance since recovering from another bout of Covid-19 to launch her book project founded to help people of all generations share a love of reading as a charity.

Living in digital times means we're often faced with evolving malicious scenarios that try to trick us, catch us out, or locate the vulnerabilities in our online platforms.After all, we're only trying to live our online lives to the fullest.By contrast, the online security market can feel like an intimidating space, conjuring images of jargon-filled and tech-heavy software.

Have you ever watched the movie "The Joker?"What a sociopath he was!His acting was tremendous but the experience of watching that movie was on a different level!He literally spooked up the fear of clowns in me.Also, if you have ever watched "Sex and The City", you must be aware that Carrie also had a fear of clowns.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, drew a line in the sand Monday, saying it adamantly opposes a proposed law that would allow newspapers to bargain collectively with social media companies for more ad money in exchange for content.Allowing such a thing would create a cartel-like entity, the company claimed.

(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

Californians may no longer be able to read daily news from their Facebook and Instagram feeds if the state Legislature passes a bill forcing tech platforms to pay publishers.That's the threat parent-company Meta issued on Wednesday via Twitter."If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers," tweeted Meta spokesman Andy Stone.

Social media platforms are struggling to navigate a patchwork of US state laws that require them to verify users' ages and give parents more control over their children's accounts.States including Utah and Arkansas have already passed child social media laws in recent weeks, and similar proposals have been put forward in other states, such as Louisiana, Texas, and Ohio.

Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
Yet more senators are trying to resurrect legislation aimed at protecting kids' online privacy.Senators Bill Cassidy and Ed Markey have reintroduced a "COPPA 2.0" (Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act) bill that would expand and revise the 1998 law to deal with the modern internet, particularly social media.

Borrowers seeking mortgage financing to purchase a home could find themselves saving $100 a month or more by shopping around, and locating cheaper lenders with which to do business.This is according to a new blog post published this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).By analyzing Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 2021, the CFPB determined that mortgage rates paid by consumers vary across a wide variety of lenders, including for mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and jumbo loans through price dispersion.

PepsiCo is partnering with Bad Bunny to achieve the ultimate summer vibes, with QR codes and, ultimately, first-party data as key parts of the beverage brand's summer campaign.From Memorial Day through Labor Day, limited-edition Pepsi bottles will include QR codes that give consumers access to Apple Music for the summer season, along with prizes such as travel to Apple Music Live events, Beats By Dre headphones and Pepsi branded merchandise.

Have you ever heard of a font called Arabesque?Well, you can't download it online, if that's what you're wondering.It's estimated to be around 171 years old and can be found in an 1858 type catalogue.As the name suggests, Arabesque is highly decorative in appearance, featuring wavy, leaf-like strokes that appear to have been created with an ink brush.

I've worked as the CEO of my own advertising company since 2020, and my Gen Z employees have taught me a lot.Spending extra time to teach my younger employees has paid off with a strong office culture and happy clients.I use a unique approach when giving constructive criticism to my Gen Z workers.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Elle De Freitas, a 31-year-old advertising executive based in Austin, Texas.

Amazon said on Thursday that it would publish the next iteration of the popular video game franchise Tomb Raider, a coup for the tech giant's video game business.Tomb Raider, an action-adventure title developed by a California game studio called Crystal Dynamics, features the character Lara Croft, a British archaeologist who traverses unexplored tombs around the world, solving puzzles and fighting villains.

in brief Japanese automaker Toyota has admitted yet again to mishandling customer data - this time saying it exposed information on more than two million Japanese customers for the past decade, thanks to a misconfigured cloud environment.Toyota explained in a Japanese-language statement that it took measures to block external access to the insecure cloud system as soon as it noticed the issue - but the fact it took a decade to catch on isn't exactly reassuring.

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, could give Google and Meta greater influence over Canadian news media in the form of new agreements between online platforms and news organizations.The act would require digital platforms that make news outlets' content available in Canada to negotiate with those outlets to provide compensation for their news content.

Emotional health care provider Cerebral is informing over 3.1 million individuals that their protected health information (PHI) might have been inadvertently exposed via third-party tracking technologies on its platforms.Cerebral has been using tracking technologies - such as those provided by Facebook, Google, TikTok, and others - since 2019, but disabled, reconfigured, or removed them after learning that some of the data shared with the third-parties also included PHI.

During this year's Super Bowl, Limit Break's ad in the first quarter featured a QR code that was supposed to lead to a link for a free NFT.Unfortunately for the blockchain gaming company, during the ad and afterward, the QR code didn't work for many of those who attempted to use it.(The code directed people back to Limit Break's Twitter profile rather than the NFT.)

Fortunes can ebb and flow substantially on social media platforms, with content creators reaping riches from viral videos one month and making little the next.Influencers may also receive lavish gifts, one-off checks and direct tips from loyal viewers.In the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, they owe taxes on all of it.

Meta says it has shut down over 1,000 links related to ChatGPT that lead its users to malware, as criminals seek to profit from the current craze for generative AI.ChatGPT has quickly bagged more than 100 million users, encouraging many organizations to explore how generative AI might help them increase productivity and profit.

Driving relevance means driving growth.Join global brands and industry thought leaders at Brandweek, Sept. 11-14 in Miami, for actionable takeaways to better your marketing.50% off passes ends April 10.Before A-list celebrities started documenting the fine details of their personal lives on social media, a fan's self-proclaimed closeness to a public figure only required a stroll down the Macy's fragrance aisle.

(Image credit: Merchant Machine)
Online shopping offers massive benefits in terms of choice and efficiency, but we can't deny that there are downsides that the savvy consumer needs to navigate.We've all come across misleading language, hidden costs or confusing subscription offers, and these are just a few examples of the 'dark patterns' that retailers sneak into their user experience (UX) design.

It seems that another one of those recurring news cycles when we talk about the "end of social media" is upon us.It happens almost once a year, like the holiday season.Yes, for those short of memory, this is not the first time such millenarist titles have been used.Some headlines predicted the end of social media after scandals like Cambridge Analytica in 2018 or Facebook's announced pivot to private messaging in 2019.

The European Union government is seeking public input on a controversial proposal to make online platforms pay for telecom companies' broadband network upgrades and expansions.If it goes forward, tech companies like Google and Netflix and possibly many others could have to make payments toward the financing of broadband network deployment.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against a European proposal to make streaming providers and other online firms pay for ISPs' network upgrades."Some of our ISP partners have proposed taxing entertainment companies to subsidize their network infrastructure," Peters said in a speech Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona ( transcript).

Business "It used to be kind of old-fashioned sweaters, and people ... learned to knit from grandma, or their mother.Now it's a new ballgame."Annie Webber can usually track the popularity of knitting and crochet by the number of college kids and young adults who pay a visit to her shop, Mind's Eye Yarns in Cambridge.

In our highly digitized society, online speech like posts, messages, and emails, can be taken out of context, repackaged in ways that distort or completely lose their meaning, and spread far beyond the intended recipients.With this in mind, we are urging the Supreme Court to rule that any time the government seeks to prosecute someone for threatening violence against another person, it must show that the speaker subjectively intended to threaten before their speech can be considered a "true threat" not protected by the First Amendment.In a brief filed with the Student Press Law Center, we argued that people should not face prison time because they misjudged how many people would see their speech or how an unintended recipient would react to the speechThe First Amendment requires that true threats are only those in which a speaker subjectively intends to threaten someone, so as to prevent protected speech such as humor, art, misunderstandings, satire, and misrepresentations, we told the court.True threats are one of the very few categories of speech that has no constitutional protection.

Cenk Bulbul, director of marketing, Global YouTube Shopping Consumers worldwide search YouTube for help with the products they purchase - from assembling furniture to advice when choosing the right products - often in the form of how-to and explainer videos.People also rely on YouTube for guidance and information during every part of their shopping journey, whether they're watching unboxing videos, seeking product reviews or learning more about their purchases after buying.