Spotlight

News You Need to Know Now

Good Monday morning. It’s June 4th. There is a major Apple product announcement today at 1 p.m ET. Analysts expect the company to announce the latest system upgrade and new tools built into its phones that will help people monitor and potentially curb their usage.

Highlights

• • Privacy battles are making news on multiple fronts, and there is more to it than websites changing their terms of service.

• • Facebook weathered its criticism over news hoaxes and privacy. Overall Facebook usage looks consistent, but there’s a big drop among younger users.

• • Multiple Google search initiatives launch in the next few weeks. They include new signals about a website’s security and even more reliance on a website’s speed as a quality measure.

Privacy Battles: (CA vs FTC, ACLU vs Amazon, and Those Privacy Notices)

A European Union data privacy rule that took effect May 25 caused all of those “Our data privacy rules have changed” notices you saw over the last few weeks. The rules are among the most stringent ever and create new requirements for any online entity regardless of where they’re located. The General Data Privacy Regulation, known by the acronym GDPR, even address information that doesn’t identify a person by name.

A company like Securus couldn’t exist in a GDPR world. Media reports have focused on the little known data company that can track “any phone within seconds using data from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint,” according to a ZD Net report. That’s pretty explicit information, and there have been abuses of that private data. Even worse, that company has been hacked at least once. Brian Krebs, one of the best security reporters on the planet, has written a must-read story called “Why is Your Location Data No Longer Private?”

Krebs ties the whole thing to the death of net neutrality’s consumer protection rules. That deadline has shifted several times and is now set for next Monday. The California State Senate passed a bill that is expected to become law that requires companies to adhere to net neutrality protections or be ineligible for California state contracts. And like the EU used GDPR to protect its citizens everywhere, California’s rules are expected to apply to its citizens as well.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is targeting a face-recognition program made by Amazon’s web services division called “Rekognition”. The ACLU claims that law enforcement agencies in at least two states are using the program to conduct surveillance. Other uses include finding lost children in crowds or providing security for high-profile events.

This was probably not the best month for Google to remove its “don’t be evil” motto from most of its websites.

Facebook’s Influence & Enforcement

Anyone can now search a Facebook archive of political or sensitive issue ads by company name or subject matter. The two ads shown above are part of the archive which grows more every day. Visitors can see the ad and which ages, locations, and genders were targeted and how those ads performed.

Search the archive at this link

Facebook also announced Friday that it was eliminating its Trending News feature and will instead show news items from Fox and CNN. Look for that feature change this week as Facebook rushes to slap a fresh coat of paint on the website.

Little more than cosmetics seem necessary because usage actually rose during CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional and EU testimony. Facebook continues policing itself and says that it removed 583 million “fake accounts” in the first 3 months of 2018. It also removed 2.5 million pieces of hate speech, 21 million sexually explicit images, and 837 million pieces of spam. You can read their first published enforcement report here.

Google Search Initiatives

Google’s “Speed” update, ranking websites based on how fast they render to end users, launches in July. Google is serious about website speed. We’ve been telling you about this initiative for years. They’re only going to be more focused as devices rely on public wifi and other slower systems.

The most important thing to note is that Google Analytics now reports on actual user experiences regarding speed. The speed data in their reports shows how fast your users load a page regardless of the technology they are using. Google will not base rankings on how fast its programs can access your website, but how fast your users do. The difference sounds subtle but is significant. Sue and I have spent most of the last year getting daily reports on site speeds for some sites. It’s not because we thought the reading was great.

Google will also start reporting on websites that are unencrypted in its Chrome browser. The previous standard was to show that a website was “secure”. The company will now report on an “insecure” website as it assumes that all are following the best practice of encrypting the entire site.

Also coming fast is Google’s “mobile-first” update. Google has already notified us that they will be using pages in the index based on how those pages appear on mobile devices in some sites we own and manage. This initiative affects consumers, businesses, and even government sites.

Finally, watch for a Google Chrome option this summer that will allow you to use facial recognition instead of passwords to access sites.

Great Data

Good Monday morning. It’s May 14th. Ramadan begins tomorrow evening and continues through June 14th. About 3.5 million Americans are expected to observe Ramadan, which includes fasting during daylight hours.

Today’s Spotlight takes about 4 minutes to read.  There are also video links to another 10 minutes of video. 

Highlights

• Digital ad spending during 2017 was $88 billion, a 21% increase over the previous year. Don’t try conceptualizing $88 billion. Think about 21 percent YOY growth.

• Online political advertising’s future continues with the first wave of agencies, including Silver Beacon, authorized for political advertising on Facebook although the process is still a bit glitchy

• Right after the video of robots running and a Google demo of a computer talking to a person on a telephone wowed the Internet this week, Google said it had plans to make tech less addictive. 

Questions or comments as you read this week’s Spotlight?  Write George

And it would be great if you encouraged your colleagues to get their own copy. They can do that at this link.

Political Ads Released, New Rules in Place

Congressional Democrats released 3,500 ads that were purchased by a Russian company over a two year period. We’ve looked through many and read many analyses. The key points:

• The ads targeted people on divisive issues. Feel strongly about health care coverage or another hot button topic? You were targeted, but so were people on the other side. The goal was to create dissension.
• It worked.
• USA Today did the best analysis we read. They found that more than half the ads were about race and another 25% were about crime, often with a racial component. 

Hint:  Don’t get caught up in the money spent or even the impression count that describes the number of times something was displayed. Every ad you see or hear in any media counts as an impression. We don’t know the real impact yet of the 25 million times that the racially divisive ads were seen.

What this means for the future

We told you last week about Facebook’s new political ad authorization process. The process works, but the execution of new ads was glitchy this weekend. Google is launching the same type of program as Facebook approves the first agencies to place political and issue advertising and hopefully things will run smoothly when after a few more days.

Facebook’s list of “political issues” that will require disclosure: abortion, budget, civil rights, crime, economy, education, energy, environment, foreign policy, government reform, guns, health, immigration, infrastructure, military, poverty, social security, taxes, terrorism, and values.

We’re pretty sure we can advertise toast, but it can’t be buttered and can only be made from white bread, not whole wheat.

Why this is Important

The issues surrounding online political advertising are summarized in a fantastic BuzzFeed News piece. They found that they could access an unreleased Facebook tool that shows where a Facebook page’s managers are based.

The page above that shows an American flag and is titled “Conservative Fighters” is managed by 17 people who live in Macedonia and Germany. 

There are plenty of other pages, not ads but pages, that are run from overseas locations. Some mention political candidates or the president.  That’s a problem that won’t be fixed by a political ad authorization process. Read the article here.

“We are living in a science fiction world,” my wife Joan told me. She’s right, and it’s not just Atlas.

Google made people gasp this week with these phone calls that Google boss Sundar Pichai played at a developer’s conference.

One big issue: the human-like non verbal comments such as the “umms” and the other vocal tics. Another big issue: the automated assistant doesn’t introduce itself as a machine. We’re in uncharted territory–the science fiction world my wife mentioned. Our laws, ethics, and education don’t address these issues yet.

Even as Google introduced this amazing technology and former Google company Boston Dynamics showed its robotics tricks, Google made a pitch to make tech less addictive. The initiative is called “Digital Wellbeing”.

Three features in the rollout:

1. Turning your phone screen side down will activate “Shush” and silence calls and notifications.

2. “Wind Down” activates color filters on your phone during the times you set so that looking at your phone doesn’t disturb your sleep cycle.

3. And you can see how much time you spend on different apps on your phone with “Dashboard View”. You can even set the system to alert you if you’ve used your phone longer than you planned overall or in certain apps.

Spotlighted

Facebook is rolling out new fundraising functions for non profits. If you work at a nonprofit org, you need to be putting them on your Facebook page. 

Media company Gannett has purchased a leading Google advertising agency that also created its own software. Could they be positioning to supplement newspaper advertising online?

Amazon has stopped purchasing Google shopping ads. That’s good for retailers who won’t have as much price competition. Amazon is one of the few companies who could stop advertising on Google and remain okay.

Great Data

Spotlight

News You Need to Know Now

Good Monday morning. It’s May 7th. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers this Sunday, including the mothers in heart and spirit who never ad the opportunity to raise a child.

Highlights

• • F8, Facebook’s big annual show, happened this week. There is plenty of news including the new dating function everyone is talking about.

• • Google introduced dot app–a place for mobile app downloads. They bought the rights to the entire top-level domain three years ago for only $25 million.

• • Twitter left a password file unprotected. Any password used there may have been compromised. If you’re still using the same password for multiple services, you need to stop. And if you’re using them on Twitter and another service, you need to change both.

Facebook Starts Advertiser ID Program

Facebook’s promise to track individuals purchasing political ads became real Friday afternoon when the first requests were sent to advertisers. This is part of my personal application. Here’s the process:

• An application with a physical mailing address.
• A copy of a driver’s license or passport including size and color requirements for the image.
• A portion of your Social Security Number (like a credit application)
• A letter with a code is sent to the address on the license to be entered in Facebook.
• Only after all that matches are you cleared to run ads.
• Whoever pays for the ads also has to be identified.
• That identity will be be published for anyone to see, as will the ads that are run.

There are holes in this program. U.S. agencies could work for another country. Applicants can lie. But by making the information public, Facebook transfers a big part of political ads verification to the Internet. The wisdom of crowds won’t find everything improper, but you can be certain that people on the other side of an issue or political race will be motivated to look.

That’s the other promise Facebook made. These political ads are also defined as issue ads. Those can be anything from health care to gun violence prevention to the environment and everything in between.

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” wrote Judge Louis Brandeis in 1914. This type of advertising transparency has never been available before–and still isn’t required for broadcast ads.

EU’s Privacy Wars

Rigid data privacy laws in the EU take effect at the end of this month. They’re included in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and cover the privacy rights of all citizens of EU countries regardless of where a company is located.

This is why you’ve seen more notices on websites in the last month than you probably have in previous months combined. Any organization storing information, even an email address, from an EU citizen is subject to the regulation. 

Google is warning its advertising partners, those who place and those who publish ads, about the issue. 

Does a Main Street retailer need to address this? Well, maybe. You should check with your attorney. At the very least, your organization should have a great privacy policy that it abides by. Talk with your attorney.

Spotlighted

We often tell you about voice being the new frontier of search. AudioBurst agrees and has an audio search engine for podcast and radio broadcasts. 

Facebook’s dating service will require a separate profile according to reporting at Recode. There will be a separate messaging app and a mix of automated suggestions and the ability to match others manually. And Facebook says that it will allow all users to clear their history on the platform. This is potentially the biggest program they announced.

Great Data

Understanding probability is a critical part of deciphering your organization’s online performance.

This fantastic website helps people understand that through a live experiment with your own birthday. If you had a fun statistics professor, you may have already participated in the birthday paradox. This website is still worth your time in how it educates users in a technical subject.

Featured image of political symbols: Larisa