Daily Archives: April 27, 2021

As the industry prepares for Apples highly-anticipated iOS14.5 changes, SAVV Digitals founder and managing director Rani Arsanios shares his advice for navigating the unknown when it comes to tech giants.

The tech giant threats and short-lived action by Facebook spooked many businesses. Todays roll out of Apples App Tracking Transparency feature on iOS14.5 further highlights the need to take stock of your brands digital strategy.

The tech-frights should also inspire brands to review how dependant they are on these platforms, which they have no control over, despite how much they spend on them.

Whilst Apples move to ask users for explicit permission for mobile apps to track them is perhaps better for user privacy, many mobile apps and advertisers will be significantly impacted. So much so, that companies and startups like Bumble are greatly concerned. This is a great reminder of how one move by a tech giant can impact the success and survival of businesses.

The fundamentals of online marketing and advertising were shaken when Facebook shut down countless media feeds and Google also threatened to withdraw search. The looming Apple changes compounds the urgency to act. These events foretell future online risks and demonstrate that the landscape can change quickly. Businesses need to be prepared for such risks and start mitigating them today.

As the threats were brewing, I amplified my age-old message to clients that they should diversify their marketing efforts and budgets. I know businesses are definitely listening now, and are developing strategies that include alternative marketing channels.

Diversity must be a marketing value

Finding diversity in the face of virtual monopolies is difficult, but not impossible, and we should all be thinking about how we can effectively work with channels that complement big tech. Traditional media is a good place to start, but there are other avenues and rising digital channels too.

Peter Strong, CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, takes the view that competition is central to a healthy economy and if monopolies face no real competition, they must be well regulated. At the same time, diversification reduces risk, and so its never a good idea to become dependent on a single platform, supplier or customer. These things dont change.

Moreover, even though we all think that diversity drove the Internet, today, that is no longer the case. Data scientist and author of Online Gravity, Paul X McCarthy, says that contrary to what most people think, long-term research shows the web is becoming less diverse. McCarthy told me, We observed that a smaller number of organisations account for an ever-increasing proportion of total user attention, usually with one large player dominating.

Invest in building up your own channels

Diversifying in the digital marketing space has always been a topic marketing executives talk about. Yet, for some brands, it was not more than a nice to have. Today, its a must-have. Its unlikely that the tech giants will pull out of Australia, but the reality is, there are major red flags that should make every business consider their marketing strategy and the short-term and long-term risks of not having a truly diversified marketing approach.

My view is that in the threats we saw a political flashpoint and a compromise was reached. Looking at the changes Apple is making, we will see a lot of iPhone users elect to opt out of tracking with some estimates going as high as 70 per cent. Perhaps the opt-out rates will not get that high, but targeted advertising is going to become more difficult.

Regardless, we should all be seeing these changes as an opportunity to invest in new channels and marketing capabilities. The goal must be to develop stronger value proposition, more points of differentiation, and more sustainable customer acquisition strategies.

If 80 per cent of your business is coming from one online source, an alarm should be ringing. The risk can come from anywhere, especially competitors. Your goal is to have a diversified portfolio that brings maximum returns.

Theres never been a more complex digital landscape. The opportunities and potential are beyond what most marketers think. So, next, focus on customer retention and customer lifetime value. A dollar spent on a happy, returning customer will almost always bring more money than a dollar on a prospect that knows nothing about you.

To me, it is a time to be even more creative. Innovation often arises in the face of adversity. Experiment with new tactics, including collaborations with traditional news sites and other non-competing businesses, in ways that benefit both parties.

Finally, invest in virality. Granted, it takes time and typically requires trial and error but when it does work, you hit the jackpot. Rather than investing all your marketing dollars in ads, allocate more funds to creative content that can go viral and catapult your brand forward.

At the very least, look at your marketing strategy as a forever evolving journey that needs you to be proactive and vigilant at all times.

Continue reading here:

Brands Beware: Diversity Is The Key To Managing Big-Tech Threats And Changes - B&T

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

Europe is the global capital of tech backlash.

The authorities there have taken tech companies to task over dodging taxes, stalking our data, crushing competition and letting people blare dangerous lies online. This week regulators sketched out limits on what are so far mostly hypothetical harms from artificial intelligence technology.

Here are possible explanations for why Europe is so hard on tech companies: It might be scapegoating American giants for Europes status as a technology backwater, and overreach of clueless government bureaucrats. But European authorities also repeatedly choose to risk making too many rules for technology rather than too few.

The European approach might be visionary, or it might kill helpful innovation in the cradle. It is definitely a real-world laboratory of what technology might look like with far more guardrails.

On Wednesday, my colleague Adam Satariano wrote about proposed new rules in Europe to regulate high-stakes uses of artificial intelligence, including in self-driving cars, bank lending, test scoring and criminal justice. (Reminder: A.I. is the term for a collection of concepts that allow computer systems to vaguely work like the brain.)

Some uses of A.I. would be banned, with exceptions, such as live facial-recognition software in public spaces. In other areas, the draft rules would require companies to assess the risks of their technology, document how it makes decisions and generally be open with the public about whats going on under the A.I. hood.

It will take years before any of this could become law. But European authorities are showing that they want to imagine what might go wrong with the technology and try to stop it in some cases before A.I. is in wide use.

The potential harm of A.I. is very great. Its a technology that has humanlike decision making, and problems around bias are well documented, Adam told me. On the other hand the harms are still mostly hypothetical. How do you regulate it?

The choice to regulate first is not typically how we do things in the United States. Yes, some U.S. jurisdictions have banned or limited the use of facial recognition by law enforcement, and many states have set safety rules for companies that want to test driverless cars on public roads. But mostly, we tend to wait for something bad to happen and then try to do something about it.

The American-style wait-and-see approach to regulation means that new ideas have fewer barriers to becoming reality. But weve also seen the risks of failing to plan for the downsides of technology.

With the relatively hands-off approach to technology, companies like Facebook and Google thrived. But maybe they now have too much influence. Likewise, Uber and Lyft were able to operate without too many rules, and changed how many of us use transportation and offered new types of work. But we all must also deal with the problems those companies created, such as increased congestion and low-wage jobs.

In the United States in particular, governments, the public and tech companies have often not given enough consideration to what could go wrong.

Its impossible to say if the European approach is wise or misguided. Regulating tech is also easier in Europe, which has relatively few homegrown tech giants that would be hurt by onerous rules. (And the United States may be moving closer to Europe on some issues of tech regulation.)

Adam also told me that European technology regulation hasnt been very effective because of poor enforcement or clumsy implementation. Sometimes misguided regulation can be destructive maybe worse than no regulation at all. Online hate speech laws in several European countries, for example, have given cover to countries to enact censorship laws.

Europe and the United States have been, in a way, on opposite sides of a big question: Is it riskier to regulate too little or too much?

Not a lot of love for Big Tech in Washington: In two different Senate hearings on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans were mostly united in their pillorying of tech giants, as our friends at DealBook wrote. My colleagues Cecilia Kang and Jack Nicas have more details. One big reveal: The online dating company Match Group said it paid nearly $500 million a year to Apple and Google in app store fees, its single largest expense.

The allure of online fame has a dark side: Jake Paul was one of YouTubes first stars and started a trend with his live-in collective for online video creators. My colleague Taylor Lorenz looked at what happened as stories have mounted from mostly young associates who say that Pauls organization exploited them for fame and money.

Seriously, this might be the nicest corner of the internet: Verzuz is a weekly online broadcast in which musicians debate who has the better song catalog. It is one of the internets most reliable suppliers of good vibes, Jody Rosen writes for The New York Times Magazine.

Watch a worker stick an ENORMOUS Band-Aid on the blue whale exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The whale is now the spot for a Covid-19 vaccination center.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.

If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.

Read more from the original source:

Why Europe Is Hard on Big Tech - The New York Times

Japanese Shares Fall as Investors Look Past Upbeat Corporate Outlook

Japanese shares inched lower on Tuesday as investors looked past upbeat corporate outlook amid worries about the governments handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, while chip-related stocks took cues from a positive finish overnight on the NASDAQ.

Japan imposed a third state of emergency on Tokyo and other big cities, but local media have reported many parts of Tokyo are still crowded as people arent complying with the order.

Chip-related shares gained, aided by a strong finish for the NASDAQ overnight. Tokyo Electron inched up 0.29%, TDK gained 1.45% and Kyocera rose 0.95%.

Shares in companies, which reported positive earnings, are not rising. That means investors expectations for corporate outlook are too high, said Takatoshi Itoshima, strategist at Pictet Asset Management.

Japans central bank maintained its massive stimulus on Tuesday and projected inflation missing its 2% target for years to come, as fresh curbs to combat a spike in COVID-19 cases overshadow the boost to growth from solid global demand, Reuters reported.

As widely expected, the BOJ maintained its short-term interest rate target at -0.1% and that for 10-year bond yields around 0%.

Australian shares fell on Tuesday, with losses in technology and financial stocks outweighing gains in the mining sector as iron ore prices and gold prices firmed.

Financial stocks fell 0.44%, led by Zip Co Ltd, down 2.22%, and AMP Ltd, losing 1.75%. Technology stocks fell 0.12%, led by Appen Ltd, down 0.97%, and Afterpay Ltd, losing 0.47%.

South Korean shares slipped on Tuesday despite an upbeat first-quarter GDP data, as foreign investors reduced their positions ahead of earnings from U.S. tech giants and the Federal Reserve policy meeting later this week.

In other news, South Koreas economic growth beat expectations in the first quarter, extending the countrys export-led recovery as global demand surged and the government maintained support for ailing small businesses.

Finally, foreigners were net sellers of 192.1 billion won ($172.79 million) worth of shares on the main board.

For a look at all of todays economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.

Read more from the original source:

Asia - Pacific Shares Weaken Ahead of US Tech Earnings; BOJ Lowers Inflation Expectations - FX Empire

Enlarge / Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are shown at a 2019 hearing. Both senators harshly criticized big technology companies at the 2021 confirmation hearing for Lina Khan to serve on the Federal Trade Commission.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

When President Joe Biden chose Lina Khan for one of the Federal Trade Commission's five seats, it was an ominous sign for the nation's largest technology companies. While still a law student, Khan made her academic career penning"Amazon's Antitrust Paradox,"a scholarly 2017 treatise arguing for a tougher approach to regulating the Seattle behemoth.

Prior to law school, Khan worked for Barry Lynn, a scholar who wasfiredfrom the centrist New America Foundation over his aggressive criticism of Google, a major New America funder. After law school, Khan worked as the legal director of Lynn's new organization, the Open Markets Institute.

So if we can expect anyone to push the Federal Trade Commission to enforce antitrust laws more aggressively against big technology companies, it would be Khan. The choice of Khan could also signal that the Biden administration more broadly will take a confrontational posture toward Big Tech.

But the really ominous sign for Big Tech is what happened when Khan had her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

You might have expected Republicans on the committee to go on the attack against Khan. Senators are usually happy to criticize nominees from the opposite party. And for most of the last 50 years, Republicans tended to favor a hands-off approach to antitrust law.

But only one Republican at Wednesday's hearing raised any significant objections to the Khan pickand her concerns weren't about antitrust policy.Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said she worried about Khan's "background and lack of experience" for such a senior positionKhan is in her early 30s.

Other Republicans seemed downright enthusiastic about Khan's adversarial stance toward big technology companies and urged Khan to wield the FTC's regulatory powers aggressively.

"I believe the FTC should be doing much more to rein in the anticompetitive abuses of Big Tech," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said to Khan.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) asked Khan about the portion of "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox" that discusses treating Amazon as a common carrier. He also approvingly cited a recent concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas suggesting that the law could treat social media giants as common carriers.

"I've become increasingly concerned about social media companies that promise to be a free and open marketplace for ideas, but they're not in my view upholding those promise to their consumers," said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Moran has introduced legislation allowing the FTC to punish social media companies if they don't follow their own social media policies.

Democrats were equally critical of big tech companies, though they tended to focus on different issues. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) blasted Google and Facebook for trying to "hold a whole country hostage" during the recent dispute over Australia's news industry. Klobuchar also criticized Apple for its App Store policies.

It would be misleading to suggest that there's a leftright consensus on the best approach to regulating big technology companies. Republicans' rising antipathy toward big technology companies is partly a reaction to social media companies' increasingly aggressive moderation of right-wing contentincluding several sites banning Donald Trump back in January. Those moderation efforts are obviously popular among Democrats, so we can expect Democratic leaders to block legislative proposals like Moran's.

But Republicans' concerns are broader thanjust the moderation issue. For example, when the Trump administration filed major antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebooklate last year, the case was supported by the attorney general of almost every state, Democrat and Republican. And those lawsuits weren't focused on content-moderation issues. Rather, they focused on traditional antitrust concerns that have long been held by left-leaning legal scholars like Khan.

The tech giants' best hope of beating back this populist wave rests with the judiciary.Antitrust law is based on a small set of vague, century-old statutes that have been interpreted over time by a long sequence of court rulings. Starting in the 1980s, judges became more skeptical of strict antitrust enforcement. Over the last four decades, the Supreme Court handed down a series of rulings that weakened antitrust enforcement. Last year, for example, a federal appeals court rejected the FTC's case that Qualcomm had abused its monopoly power in the modem chip market.

Antitrust law isn't as ideologically polarized as some areas of the law, but it's traditionally had some partisan tilt. Liberal judges usually favor stricter interpretations of the law than conservatives. For example, in one landmark 2018 ruling,the Supreme Court's five conservative justices all voted to uphold an appeals court ruling that American Express had not violated antitrust law. The court's four liberals all signed a dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer arguing that American Express had violated antitrust law.

This matters because Congress has become so polarized and dysfunctional that it's unlikely to pass an overhaul of antitrust laweven if most members of Congress believe that recent antitrust policy has been too lenient. Hence, as long as the courtsand especially the nine members of the Supreme Courtfavor weak enforcement of antitrust law, there may not be much that Khan or other members of the Biden administration can do to rein in big tech companies. It doesn't matter how many big antitrust lawsuits the FTC or the Justice Department bring if the courts reject them.

And this is why thatrecent concurrenceby Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is so important. The case wasn't an antitrust case. Rather, it concerned whether Donald Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking users from following him.

But Thomas went out of his way to express alarm about the market dominance of Facebook, Google, and other technology giants. He noted that Google has a 90 percent market share (it's not clear which market this refers to) and that Facebook has 3 billion users. He warned that such a large market share gives tech giants a lot of control over the public's communications.

While Justice Thomas didn't suggest any specific changes to antitrust doctrine, he certainly seemed sympathetic to arguments that the tech giants have been abusing their market share. More generally, this seems like a sign that the changing view of big tech companies among Republican voters and Republican politicians is also affecting at least some conservative members of the judiciary.

It's impossible to predict how Justice Thomas might rule if the Google or Facebook cases eventually reach the Supreme Court. And with six conservative justices, Thomas might not be a deciding vote even if he sided with the liberals.

But technology giants can't be happy to face growing hostility across the political spectrum and from all three branches of government. Even if the companies manage to beat back the current wave of antitrust lawsuits, the next Republican president could share Donald Trump's (and Joe Biden's) hostility toward big technology companies and their enthusiasm for antitrust activism. And that would mean that sooner or later, the judiciary would turn against them, too.

Here is the original post:

Republicans and Democrats increasingly agree: Big Tech is too powerful - Ars Technica

Metal coils are seen at ArcelorMittal steel plant in Ghent, Belgium, May 22, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Years from now, 2021 may be seen as the moment the European Union took a leap forward from its post-World War Two birth as a coal and steel bloc to a modern green and digital economy.

It could also be one of the biggest missed opportunities in the 70-year history of EU integration, which has always tended to lurch forward in the aftermath of shocks ranging from the end of the Cold War to the current coronavirus pandemic.

"If now done thoroughly, it could be a real game-changer," said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro research for ING bank, as European capitals this week finalise plans to spend an unprecedented 750 billion euros of jointly raised EU borrowing.

While Friday's deadline is "soft" - there are no penalties if countries are a few weeks late - the urgency is all too real.

And while it is not comparable to the multi-trillion-dollar U.S. stimulus plan being mooted - Europe's national governments must support their own economies and together have already spent over three trillion euros doing so - the stakes are high.

In the short term, the EU wants to create a durable investment and reform impulse for economies ravaged by the coronavirus and which are seen returning to their pre-pandemic size several months later than those in Asia, the United States and Britain.

In the longer run, the EU seeks global green leadership by cutting net CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 to slow climate change and to get a slice of the digital economy, now dominated by U.S. tech giants like Google, Amazon or Facebook.

The grants and loans on offer via the Next Generation EU (NGEU) fund have an existential purpose too: to prevent greater divergence between rich and poor countries in the bloc that could destroy its cherished single market of 450 million people.

"The NGEU was historically important as a tangible sign of solidarity," said Daniel Gros, head of the CEPS think tank.

"It can have an important impact because it leads to different policy goals and political realignment for example in Italy," he added of a country that was once the epicentre of the virus in Europe and is burdened by a legacy of national debt.

Success ultimately depends on the quality of the spending plans now being prepared by each government and on how these plans will be put in place through to the end of 2026 - when many of them will no longer be in office.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

The sheer complexity of long-term planning of investment and reforms, while conforming to EU requirements that 37% of the funds must go to fighting climate change and 20% to digitalising the economy, means many will postpone submission until mid-May.

Spain, one of the major beneficiaries of the fund, initially envisaged no fewer than 1,700 performance benchmarks for its plan - a number it was asked to cut significantly for the sake of simplicity.

"The NGEU is complex, it couldn't be rushed. But now it is time to implement, to publish the plans and to follow through," said Mark Wall, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.

Officials said many plans focus their green spending on renovating buildings for energy efficiency, clean transport like rail, charging stations for electric cars, combustion engine car scrapping schemes and public transport development.

To prosper in the digital world, governments are planning to build high speed internet and mobile networks, invest in cloud computing and data storage, computerising public administration and courts or upgrading computer literacy of citizens.

To get started, governments that have their plans approved by the Commission and EU finance ministers can get 13% of their share of the money up front, as pre-financing, which for the whole EU will total around 45 billion euros this year.

The rest will come in instalments as planned investments and reforms reach agreed milestones and targets in a verified way.

Disbursements depend on the scheme getting backing from all EU's 27 national parliaments. After a legal challenge by German eurosceptics was thrown out this month, EU officials now expect the ratifications should be finished by June, which would allow for first payments in July.

ALL EYES ON ITALY

For some, the mere fact that the EU will jointly issue debt for the scheme is as big an achievement as the projects it will finance because many see it morphing over time into a more permanent arrangement of mutually issued and repaid EU debt.

"We think joint borrowing reduces euro break-up risk, issue of a euro area safe asset will be a supportive factor for EU markets, and the recovery fund is well targeted on high multiplier spending, and can support a stronger recovery," said Jacob Nell, head of European economics at Morgan Stanley.

EU officials privately say the performance of Italy, the scheme's greatest financial beneficiary and one of the countries most in need of deep reform, will be crucial for discussions on its repeated use. If the money helps transform Italy, it would be a powerful argument for using the scheme again, they say.

Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi presented the country's plan to parliament on Monday.

Expected to add an extra 2% to EU output growth by 2026, it could be even longer before it is clear whether the fund's goal of transformation has really worked.

"The question is whether the joint investments and reforms will deliver lasting, structural benefits. This will be the proof of success," Deutsche Bank's Wall said.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read more from the original source:

From coal and steel to carbon-free and digital: the EU reaches turning point - Reuters

A coalition of liberal groups is pushing to limit the influence of Lisa Monaco, the newly confirmed second in command at the Justice Department, because of her ties to Big Tech companies such as Apple and Google.

REVOLVING DOOR: TOP BIDEN AIDES CASHED IN ADVISING MAJOR CORPORATIONS

The liberal organizations, including government accountability groups such as Revolving Door Project and multiple digital rights nonprofit organizations, said in a letter to President Joe Biden Monday that Monaco's past work for Apple and her ties to Google should exclude her from playing a role in picking the leader of the DOJ's antitrust division, which is responsible for holding the tech giants accountable for bad behavior.

"The Antitrust Division will be responsible in the years ahead for reining in or failing to rein in Big Tech monopolies," the groups wrote to Biden. "For that reason, Monacos past work in the private sector relating to Apple and Google is deeply concerning."

Monaco has done legal work on behalf of Apple and was the founder of a company that gave advice to Google. The Justice Department is suing Google for anticompetitive behavior, while Apple is the focus of an antitrust investigation by the DOJ and state governments.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Liberal advocacy groups have been pushing for a new, aggressive leadership at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to hold Big Tech accountable better. A coalition of such groups called for a "break from past, failed leadership" in another letter to Biden last month.

Go here to read the rest:

Liberals aim to limit sway of Biden DOJ official with Big Tech ties - Washington Examiner

Have Apple MacBook schematics as well as the engineering data and designs of other future Apple products been leaked? It turns out that a $50 million ransomware attack on Taiwan-based manufacturer Quanta, may have just helped hackers steal blueprints of Apples upcoming products, among other data. This comes just days after Apple unveiled the new and colourful iMac, the Apple iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini in purple colour, the AirTag accessories, the new iPad Pro line and the refreshed Apple TV 4K. It is believed that Russian ransomware group REvil, also known as Sodinokibi, has taken responsibility for the ransomware hack. Quanta also manufactures products for HP, Google, Facebook, Dells Alienware, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Blackberry, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Cisco and Vizio, as well.

Quanta Computers information security team has worked with external IT experts in response to cyber-attacks on a small number of Quanta servers. Weve reported to and kept seamless communications with the relevant law enforcement and data protection authorities concerning recent abnormal activities observed. Theres no material impact on the companys business operation, Quanta said in a statement reported by Bloomberg. The report also goes on to say that according to the documents reviewed, REvil had posted schematics for a new laptop on the dark web, including 15 images detailing the innards, of what is believed to be a Macbook designed as recently as March 2021. Apple is yet to announce any new MacBook upgrades this year. The ransomware group has now asked Apple and Quanta to pay a ransom by May 1, according to reports by Bleeping Computer, and the hackers will continue to post images revealing upcoming products, on a daily basis. The group have also leaked the details of an upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad Z60m computing device.

REvil has been fairly active this year. In march, it was reported that the group targeted tech company Acer in a $50 million ransomware attack, and in April, the group demanded a $25 million ransom from French pharma company Pierre Fabre. Yet, with the latest attack, the Apple connection makes it more high profile than anything before it. Also, the timing of the ransomware attack just ahead of the Spring Loaded 2021 event. At this time, neither Quanta nor Apple have confirmed anything about the extent of the attack and what data has since been secured.

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here

Link:

Apple, Lenovo And Other Tech Giants Find Themselves In The Midst Of A $50 Million Ransomware Attack - News18

Over the course of 2020, the previously minor social media application Parler rose to national prominence. The site served as a smaller, right-leaning mirror to Twitter, attracting an audience that included (among others) both U.S. senators and QAnon conspiracy theorists. Where Twitter forbade referring to a transgender person by biological sex, Parler reportedly banned users for mocking Republican congressman Devin Nunes. By the end of the year, the app had hit nearly 3 million daily users.

That changed after the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol, amid allegations that the app provided a haven for insurrectionist sentiments. Responses were swift and comprehensive. On Jan. 8, Google announced that it was removing Parler from its Google Play Store. Similar notices quickly arrived from Amazon, Apple and other technology companies. The app could no longer access most mobile stores for download, authenticate its existing users, or even host any actual content. Any existing posts were lost. In effect, over the course of 48 hours, it functionally ceased to exist.

It is sometimes difficult to assess conservative claims of Big Tech censorship. On one hand, Parlers erasure came only a day after Facebook suspended the account of President Donald Trump, and the same day that Twitter joined in that ban. On the other, the bans followed Trumps defense of the Capitol attacks as the things that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is stripped away. To ban a sitting president is a drastic step, but it is hardly less extreme for that president to praise thugs who stormed the congressional building. Likewise, to the extent that claims of Parlers complicity in the attacks are merited, its erasure, too, is justified.

Yet these bans come even as tech giants tolerate or cut deals with gratuitous moral evils. Apple, for instance, benefits from Uyghur labor camps, while Twitter continues to host the Ayatollah Khamenei. Meanwhile, other cases where content is removed such as Amazons refusal to sell transgenderism-cautious book When Harry Became Sally while carrying, say, Mein Kampf seem far less defensible.

Perhaps the underlying question is not whether a particular case is justifiable, but whether a handful of technology companies fundamentally control too much of the flow of information. Even where the bans described above are reasonable, the multi-company coordination that enabled them could potentially target any new service, with far less justification and no clear legal recourse. Indeed, the existing media giants arguably have good incentive to throttle upstarts in this way: by doing so, they limit the competition.

Such possibilities limit the strength of the usual free market response to corporate politicking: If you dont like it, build an alternative. Parlers troubles suggest that this solution is less viable than might be hoped. Developing a successful social media site is already a substantial challenge; to do so while also creating a new mobile storefront, authenticator, cloud service, and so on seems simply untenable.

A solution to this problem, unfortunately, remains elusive. Some conservatives suggest that the above cases justify the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Under Section 230, websites do not risk liability for deleting content, even where that content is protected by the First Amendment. Critics claim that the act was intended to target only broadly objectionable material, with the expectation that tech firms would be politically neutral in what they removed; this expectation, they say, clearly has not been met.

Such arguments are misleading and wrong-headed. Section 230 explicitly protects removal of content for any reason, not merely a reasonable person standard of undesirability. Its repeal would not prevent Twitter from putting content disputed warnings on Tweets (since such labels are Twitters own speech, and so protected by the First Amendment); nor Amazon from simply refusing, like any retailer, to carry certain products; nor Google from doing business with whom it pleases.

On the other hand, repeal could place heavy burdens on new social media competitors, which may explain Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs support for replacing Section 230 protections. Above all, it seems bizarrely short-sighted for Republicans to urge greater government interference in social media in this moment. One questions whether they expect the Democrat-controlled Congress and presidency to be more friendly to conservative speech than the status quo.

Perhaps the best of a set of bad options is to reconsider the role of antitrust laws. At issue in all the cases above is the ubiquity of the Big Tech firms: that decisions by a small group of companies can render information meaningfully unreachable or invisible. Amazon is at once a premier bookseller, accounting for over half of all American book sales, as well as a nearly $400 billion-a-year general retailer and the provider of a full third of all cloud infrastructure services. For its part, Googles parent company Alphabet might simultaneously own the servers hosting a site, the ads running on it, the browser loading it and the physical cables transmitting it and, of course, the search engine that located it. It controls a plurality of the market in several of these fields. Indeed, Google is already facing multiple lawsuits alleging anticompetitive behavior.

Careful revision of antitrust law might allow reopening of these markets, with competition encouraging a range of stances, political and otherwise. At minimum, such changes seem less fraught than inviting the government into the business of judging neutrality.

Brian Dellinger is an associate professor of computer science at Grove City College.

Read more from the original source:

Brian Dellinger: Power, Parler and the problem of Big Tech - TribLIVE

Are tech giants really damned if they do and damned if they dont (protect our privacy)?

Thats a damned good question thats been occasioned by Googles announcement that theyre killing the invasive, tracking third-party cookie (yay!) and replacing it with FLoC, an alternative tracking scheme that will make it harder for everyone except Google to track you (uh, yay?) (You can find out if Google is FLoCing with you with our Am I FLoCed tool).

Googles move to kill the third-party cookie has been greeted with both cheers and derision. On the one hand, some people are happy to see the death of one of the internets most invasive technologies. Were glad to see it go, too - but were pretty upset to see that its going to be replaced with a highly invasive alternative tracking technology (bad enough) that can eliminate the majority of Googles competitors in the data-acquisition and ad-targeting sectors in a single stroke (worse).

Its no wonder that so many people have concluded that privacy and antitrust are on a collision course. Google says nuking the third-party cookie will help our privacy, specifically because it will remove so many of its (often more unethical) ad-tech competitors from the web.

But privacy and competition are not in conflict. As EFFs recent white paper demonstrated, we can have Privacy Without Monopoly. In fact, we cant settle for anything less.

FLoC is quite a power-move for Google. Faced with growing concerns about privacy, the company proposes to solve them by making itself the protector of our privacy, walling us off from third-party tracking except when Google does it. All the advertisers that rely on non-Google ad-targeting will have to move to Google, and pay for their services, using a marketplace that theyve rigged in their favor. To give credit where it is due, the move does mean that some bad actors in the digital ad space may be thwarted. But its a very cramped view of how online privacy should work. Googles version of protecting our privacy is appointing itself the gatekeeper who decides when were spied on while skimming from advertisers with nowhere else to go. Compare that with Apple, which just shifted the default to no for all online surveillance by apps, period (go, Apple!).

And while here we think Apple is better than Google, thats not how any of this should work. The truth is, despite occasional counter-examples, the tech giants cant be relied on to step up to provide real privacy for users when it conflicts with their business models. The baseline for privacy should be a matter of law and basic human rights, not just a matter of a corporate whim. America is long, long overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action. Users must be empowered to enforce privacy accountability, instead of relying on the largesse of the giants or on overstretched civil servants.

Just because FLoC is billed as pro-privacy and also criticized as anti-competitive, it doesnt mean that privacy and competition arent compatible. To understand how that can be, first remember the reason to support competition: not for its own sake, but for what it can deliver to internet users. The benefit of well-thought-through competition is more control over our digital lives and better (not just more) choices.

Competition on its own is meaningless or even harmful: who wants companies to compete to see which one can trick or coerce you into surrendering your fundamental human rights, in the most grotesque and humiliating ways at the least benefit to you? To make competition work for users, start with Competitive Compatibility and interoperability - the ability to connect new services to existing ones, with or without permission from their operators, so long as youre helping users exercise more choice over their online lives. A competitive internet - one dominated by interoperable services - would be one where you didnt have to choose between your social relationships and your privacy. When all your friends are on Facebook, hanging out with them online means subjecting yourself to Facebooks totalizing, creepy, harmful surveillance.

But if Facebook was forced to be interoperable, then rival services that didnt spy on you could enter the market, and you could use those services to talk to your friends who were still on Facebook (for reasons beyond your understanding). This done poorly could be worse for privacy, but done well, it does not have to be. Interoperability is key to smashing monopoly power, and interoperability's benefits depend on strong laws protecting privacy.

With or without interoperability, we need a strong privacy law. Tech companies unilaterally deciding what user privacy means is dangerous, even when they come up with a good answer (Apple) but especially not when their answer comes packaged in a nakedly anticompetitive power-grab (Google). Of course, it doesnt help that some of the worlds largest, most powerful corporations depend on this unilateral power, and use some of their tremendous profits to fight every attempt to create a strong national privacy law that empowers users to hold them accountable.

Competition and privacy reinforce each other in technical ways, too: lack of competition is the reason online tracking technologies all feed the same two companies data warehouses. These companies dominate logins, search, social media and the other areas that the people who build and maintain our digital tools need to succeed. A diverse and competitive online world is one with substantial technical hurdles to building the kinds of personal dossiers on users that todays ad-tech companies depend on for their profitability.

The only sense in which pro-privacy and competition are in tension is the twisted sense implied by FLoC, where pro-privacy means only one company gets to track you and present who you are to others.

Of course thats incompatible with competition.

(Whats more, FLoC wont even deliver that meaningless assurance. As we note in our original post, FLoC also creates real opportunities for fingerprinting and other forms of re-identification. FLoC is anti-competitive and anti-privacy.)

Real privacyless data-collection, less data-retention and less data-processing, with explicit consent when those activities take placeis perfectly compatible with competition. It's one of the main reasons to want antitrust enforcement.

All of this is much easier to understand if you think about the issues from the perspective of users, not corporations. You can be pro-Apple (when Apple is laying waste to Facebooks ability to collect our data) and anti-Apple (when Apple is skimming a destructive ransom from software vendors like Hey). This is only a contradiction if you think of it from Apples point of view - but if you think of it from the users point of view, there's no contradiction at all.

We want competition because we want users to be in control of their digital lives - to have digital self-determination and choices that support that self-determination. Right now, that means that we need a strong privacy law and a competitive landscape that gives breathing space to better options than Googles track everything but in a slightly different way FLoC.

As always, when companies have their users backs, EFF has the companies backs. And as always, the reason we get their backs is because we care about users, not companies.

We fight for the users.

Read more from the original source:

Fighting FLoC and Fighting Monopoly Are Fully Compatible - EFF

The Australian share market is to edge higher this morning. Wall St closed mostly lower over the week despite its bounce back on Friday. Investors mulled on the news of President Biden proposing an increase in capital gains tax by almost double for high income earners amid the jitters of the growing number of coronavirus cases globally. Across the Atlantic, European markets followed the weak lead from the US closing almost lower with its counterpart in Japan closing in the red. Back home, the Australian share market on Friday closed higher led by Financials, Telecommunications and Materials. Its performance over the week saw the index slip into the red breaking its four week winning streak. On the commodities front, oil prices fell, gold mostly closed flat while the Aussie dollar remained unchanged against the falling greenback.

Figures from around the globe

Wall Street closed higher on Friday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7 per cent to close at 34,043, the S&P 500 gained 1.1 per cent to 4,180 and the NASDAQ closed 1.4 per cent higher at 14,017.European markets closed mostly lower: Londons FTSE closed flat, Paris lost 0.2 per cent and Frankfurt closed 0.3 per cent lower.Asian markets closed mixed, Nikkei lost 0.6 per cent, Hong Kongs Hang Seng added 1.1 per cent and Chinas Shanghai Composite closed 0.3 per cent higher on Friday.

Taking all of this into equation, the SPI futures are pointing 0.1 per cent gain.

On Friday, the Australian share market added 5 points or 0.1 per cent to close at 7,061.

Local economic outlook

The week starts off on Tuesday with the Weekly Consumer Sentiment from ANZ-Roy Morgan. On Wednesday, eyes will be on the Consumer Price Index report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the March quarter. Westpac economists are forecasting a 1.0 per cent lift which will see the annual growth rate rise from 0.9 to 1.5 per cent. Also on Wednesday there are two other reports coming out which are the Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages report for week ending 10 April and the Preliminary International Trade figures for March by the ABS . On Thursday, International Trade Price Indexes for export and import prices are scheduled by the ABS. On Friday the Australian Bureau of Statistics is set to release the Business Conditions & Sentiments report.

US economic outlook

The earnings season ramps up this week the likes of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, eBay, Starbucks and Amazon to release their quarterly performance figures. On Thursday, the central bank will meet to decide on monetary policy with the first quarter GDP figures scheduled to be released followed by jobless claims data.

Broker moves

Macquarie rates Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN) as a neutral from outperform with a price target of $4.80. The downgrade last Friday followed the company posting a weak March quarter with production down 9 per cent on the brokers forecast with costs up 18 per cent. Red Lake mine in Canada continued to perform above expectation but their Queensland mine in Mt Rawdon was impacted by heavy rain. The broker says that the companys guidance for FY21 implies a strong end to the year with higher copper credits driving a reduction in overall cost guidance. The studies at the Cowal gold operation west of Sydney plus their Red Lake mine could provide upside but the broker's expectation of a lower gold price could weigh on this. Shares in Evolution Mining closed 1.04 per cent lower at $4.78 on Friday.

IPOs

There are five companies scheduled to ring the bell this week on the ASX. Keep an eye out tomorrow for car dealership company Peter Warren Automotive (ASX:PWR) Holdings One. On Wednesday, Australasian Gold (ASX:A8G) and mining exploration company Black Canyon (ASX:BCA) are pencilled in on Wednesday. Lastly two companies on Friday, Albion Resources (ASX:ALB) and Metal Tiger (ASX:MTR).

Currencies

One Australian Dollar at 8:00 AM was buying 77.53 US cents, 55.83 Pence Sterling, 83.64 Yen and 64.08 Euro cents.

Commodities

Iron Ore has gained 1.4 per cent to US$186.25.Iron Ore futures suggest a 2.87% per cent gain.

Gold has lost $4.20 to US$1778 an ounce.Silver has fallen $0.10 US$26.11 an ounce.Oil has added $0.71 to US$62.14 a barrel.

Read the rest here:

US tech giants due to report earnings this week: ASX to edge higher - Finance News Network