Interactive

Google and YouTube Will Pay Record $170 Million for Alleged Violations of Children’s Privacy Law

Google and its subsidiary YouTube will pay a record $170 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General that the YouTube video sharing service illegally collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent.

Is Facebook a 'Bug' in Our Democracy? Part 2

[Commentary] Is it time to recognize that Facebook, and ‘Big Tech’ at large, may be a bug in our democracy? In Part 1, I examined how the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica story illustrates the harmful effects of “Surveillance Capitalism.” The erosion of our privacy is contributing to the declining health of our democratic discourse.  Moreover though, Facebook has facilitated the proliferation of hate speech, fake news, and international electoral interference.

Let’s not make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media

Artificial intelligence, like social media, it has the potential to change the world in many ways, some favorable to democracy. But at the same time, it has the potential to do incredible damage to society. There is a lot we can learn about social media’s unregulated evolution over the past decade that directly applies to AI companies and technologies. These lessons can help us avoid making the same mistakes with AI that we did with social media. In particular, five fundamental attributes of social media have harmed society. AI also has those attributes:

Who Shares Your Information With Facebook?

The overall scope of data sharing and targeted advertising that occurs on Facebook is immense. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of “partners.” But what is the scale of this surveillance?

Meta to Stop Letting Advertisers Target Teens by Gender

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said advertisers will no longer be able to use a teenager’s gender to target them with promoted messages on its sites. The updated settings are scheduled to go into effect in February and will mean advertisers can market to teens based only on age and location. Meta previously stopped advertisers from targeting teenagers based on their Facebook or Instagram activity, such as the Pages they like. The changes will apply to those 13 to 17 years old.

Facebook parent Meta settles suit in Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook corporate parent Meta has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social network service allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign in 2016. Terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed in court documents filed Aug 26. The filing in San Francisco federal court requested a 60-day stay of the action while lawyers finalize the settlement. That timeline suggested further details could be disclosed by late October.

A New Chapter for the Interactive Advertising Bureau

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a massive trade group that represents companies on all sides of the digital ads ecosystem, is about to get a whole lot more involved in tech policy discussions on Capitol Hill. IAB has tapped Lartease Tiffith, an Amazon public policy executive and former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, to lead its policy shop. And Tiffith plans to make the group’s presence known.

How your mobile carrier makes money off some of your most sensitive data

T-Mobile says it will use its customers’ web browsing and app usage data to sell targeted ads unless those customers opt out.

Deletion of Items from August 6, 2020 Open Meeting

The following items have been adopted by the Federal Communications Commission and deleted from the list of items scheduled for consideration at the Thursday, Aug 6, 2020, Open Meeting.

Common Antenna Siting Rules (MB Docket No. 19-282); Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative (MB Docket No. 17-105): The FCC will consider a Report and Order that would eliminate the common antenna siting rules for FM and TV broadcaster applicants and licensees.

NSA Warns Cellphone Location Data Could Pose National-Security Threat

The National Security Agency issued new guidance for military and intelligence-community personnel, warning about the risks of cellphone location tracking through apps, wireless networks, and Bluetooth technology.

The game is rigged: A former marketer shows you how Big Tech’s advertising practices harm us all

It appears the US Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general likely will file antitrust lawsuits against Alphabet Inc.’s Google for an array of anti-competitive practices in its search and 

Zuckerberg’s power to hurt President Trump

Top Republicans are privately worried about a new threat to President Trump’s campaign: the possibility of Facebook pulling a Twitter and banning political ads. Facebook says it won't, but future regulatory pressure could change that.

Google Draws House Antitrust Scrutiny of Internet Protocol

Congressional antitrust investigators are scrutinizing plans by Google to use a new internet protocol because of concerns that it could give the company a competitive advantage by making it harder for others to access consumer data. Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee asked Google for information about its “decision regarding whether to adopt or promote the adoption” of the protocol, which the company said is aimed at improving internet security.

FTC approves settlement with Google over YouTube kids privacy violations

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission has finalized a settlement with Google in its investigation into YouTube for violating federal data privacy laws for children. The settlement — backed by the agency’s three Republicans and opposed by its two Democrats — finds that Google inadequately protected kids who used its video-streaming service and improperly collected their data in breach of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which prohibits the tracking and targeting of users younger than 13, the people said.

FTC Seeks Comments on Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule

In light of continued rapid changes in technology, the Federal Trade Commission is seeking comment on the effectiveness of the amendments the agency made to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) in 2013 and whether additional changes are needed.

Your Data Could Be at the Center of the Fight Against Big Tech

As American regulators and lawmakers intensify their scrutiny of Big Tech, there is a lot of discussion about whether or how they could accuse the companies of violating antitrust law.

Google Made $4.7 Billion From the News Industry in 2018, Study Says

$4.7 billion is the amount that Google made from the work of news publishers in 2018 via search and Google News, according to a study by the News Media Alliance. That $4.7 billion is nearly as much as the $5.1 billion brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising in 2018 — and the News Media Alliance cautioned that its estimate for Google’s income was conservative. For one thing, it does not count the value of the personal data the company collects on consumers every time they click on an article like this one.

Behavioral Ad Targeting Not Paying Off for Publishers, Study Suggests

Behavioral advertising, which involves collecting data about readers’ online behavior and using it to serve them specially tailored ads, often through bits of code called cookies, has become the dominant force in digital advertising in recent years.

European Union fines Google €1.5 billion for antitrust violations

The European Union fined Google €1.49 billion for hampering potential rival search advertisers between 2006 and 2016, closing the last formal EU investigation into the US tech company.

Beyond Fixing Facebook

The report calls for a tax on targeted online advertising to respond to the crisis in journalism and fund diverse, local, independent and non-commercial news and information. The report proposes a series of proposals to levy a small tax on ads sold by highly profitable companies like Facebook and Google.

Apple’s Deal With Google Is a Two-Way Street

Both companies have long preferred to be vague on the details of their arrangement in which Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on its Safari internet browser. Some $4 billion a year is the most conservative view among analysts who have taken a stab at estimating these payments.

UK's Information Commissioner’s Office Finds Cambridge Analytica and Brexit Financier Misused Private Data

Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which has been investigating the misuse of personal data by political campaigns, found that defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica violated British law when it used improperly harvested Facebook data to aid Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and would face a significant fine if it were not already in bankruptcy.

Your Kid’s Apps Are Crammed With Ads

In apps marketed for children 5 and under in the Google Play store, there were pop-up ads with disturbing imagery. There were ads that no child could reasonably be expected to close out of, and which, when triggered, would send a player into more ads. Dancing treasure chests would give young players points for watching video ads, potentially endlessly. The vast majority of ads were not marked at all. Characters in children’s games gently pressured the kids to make purchases, a practice known as host-selling, banned in children’s TV programs in 1974 by the Federal Trade Commission.