Spotlight

News You Need to Know Now

Good morning. It’s Monday, April 16th. This is Spotlight #250. Tax Day is Tuesday. You think you have a busy season? The IRS is expecting 32 million tax returns between this week and last week. More than 85% are expected to be filed electronically. 

Today’s Spotlight takes about 3 minutes to read. 

Highlights

Facebook Testimony Week is over. The company was never held to account the way industry insiders expected. We have some fresh data for you from some polling we did.

Uber and YouTube are also in trouble (again) over privacy issues.

Gmail users should see a new version soon that includes Confidential Mode.

Facebook Users Say ‘Legal But Unethical’

After hearing and reading a lot of Facebook news, we asked its users to comment on their perceptions of the issue. There isn’t enough data for us to give high quality percentages on answers, but its fair to say that the people we asked overwhelmingly thought that Facebook operated within the law. To paraphrase Dickens, they also think the law is an ass and that their personal info is being handled in an unethical way.

We cared most about reader answer to this complex question:  Briefly describe the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal.

Many correctly noted that the data policy had changed over time. Many also correctly said that Cambridge took advantage of their Facebook app agreement. 

But there was a lot of focus on the fact that Cambridge is not a U.S. company and a huge percentage that said Facebook sold the data or allowed access to it without user permission. Many of those believed that the 2016 presidential election was influenced, giving credence to the intelligence community theory about Russian government involvement.

Almost all of the Facebook data was obtained when users gave apps, websites, or social media sites like Facebook permission to mine their data. And that’s the issue: people freely volunteered everything. Canceling your account now doesn’t mean that the company has to remove your data unless that’s in their agreement.

Have a look at this Facebook permission screen from an app this weekend.

Facebook Data Agreements

Most of us think that this agreement is how data is captured. And a lot of it is captured that way. This is not an official Monopoly app, and it’s not played on a phone, but on Facebook itself. The company will tell you that they want your birthday to give you in-game rewards on your special day and that they want your friends list so that you can invite them to play. 

But it’s not just game apps looking for data.

To the right is a screen from an official ESPN app Note the images above. The app is using social proof to show me that 33 of my friends have already done this.

And this app wants even more information. In addition to my public profile, Disney-owned ESPN explicitly says that they want a list of all the things I like on Facebook–not just those that are sports-related. And they want my email address.

The moment that I agree to that, I’ve become the entity giving away my data. It’s not ESPN’s fault. It’s certainly not Facebook’s fault. If I don’t want this information out, then I don’t have to get my sports news from the ESPN app.

Technology scientist Jaron Lanier, one of the fathers of Virtual Reality and a prodigy who entered college at the age of 13 said last week in a  well-received TED Talk,

“We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it’s financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them.” 

But we do have that society. And hopefully with a little more light on the issue, you can make informed choices that best fit your desires.

Spotlighted

Facebook isn’t alone in the hot seat. Uber has agreed to an FTC data privacy audit proposal after it failed to disclose a breach in a timely manner. And a coalition of 20 consumer groups has accused YouTube of violating federal law regulating data collection from children under the age of 13. The groups are asking the FTC to intervene. YouTube has countered by saying that the site’s rules require that users be at least 13 years old to access the site.

Google’s Gmail desktop app is getting a big makeover, including a cool new font and the ability to block others from copying or forwarding your email. Google is also introducing the same kind of suggested replies that are currently featured on its Android app.

Google also switched search results delivered on mobile devices to one long continuous page with a “Show More Results” button instead of reloading the page. That’s the same kind of design that sites like Pinterest and Facebook use.

Great Data

Conveying information in a memorable, visual way is something that we all strive to accomplish. Italian designer Emanuele Abrate did that in a great way by showing the logos of famous companies with the font name replacing the company name.

Here’s YouTube. See the rest of the display called “Logofonts”

 

Spotlight

News You Need to Know Now

Good morning. It’s Monday, April 2nd. Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. You can visit The King Center online to learn about events commemorating the date. 

Today’s Spotlight takes about 5 minutes to read.

Highlights

• Public criticism of Facebook continues, and there are some real changes that we’ll run down for you.
• Google’s long coming move to mobile content indexing is here. 
• We review the president’s claims regarding Amazon.

Facebook Problems Mount

Facebook introduced real change to its advertising and fact-checking operations as well as the streamlined privacy screen shown above.

Facebook’s automated systems rejected one of our client ads that featured a news story about a condominium. Facebook didn’t let the ad run because of the word “condo” and a limited audience. The client wasn’t advertising a condo–merely the presence of a news story about a condo, but approval took a day-and-a-half and two written appeals. I know because I wrote both appeals. This is a good, but painful step to ensuring that housing ads are visible to everyone.

Facebook already announced that it will identify the purchasers of political ads *and* show other ads that advertiser purchased. That program goes live this summer, but a new program to fact-check videos and links is starting now in France and expected to roll out in other countries in time for the U.S. midterm elections.

These are substantial changes. We may all want faster or more comprehensive changes, but this is a promising beginning. 

What about advertisers who were able to target you with ads via Facebook? 

We’ve already said that Facebook is only one of many data repositories. And remember that every click, every character you type, everything you do online goes through your Internet Service Provider. And with the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality protections, those companies are empowered to do a lot more than they have been doing with what they know about you.

We know that Facebook faces other problems, but as the company shows its willingness to change, it may avoid regulation. And as we say to people, “You don’t pay for it, and it’s voluntary. It’s awfully hard to build a case for Facebook being worthy of legal oversight.”

Google Readies Mobile Switch

We can’t stress how important this is for every organization. Google announced this week that they have begun indexing and ranking websites on the basis of how their content displays on a mobile device.

The change only benefits websites that are following best practices. And Google is notifying those sites. Google also doubled down on the promise that sites that load content slower “may perform less well for both desktop and mobile searches.”

Google has beat on the mobile drum for years and the speed drum for even longer. Talk with us if you’re not ready. At some point in 2018, your website’s visibility in Google will be based on how your mobile output works today in terms of speed and usability.

Bottom line: Facebook is getting the headlines, but this change will impact most of the world’s search behaviors. Ultimately, it will have a bigger effect on the economy than Facebook.

Fact Checking Claims About Amazon

The president attacked Amazon instead of Facebook this week with some claims we thought were wrong. Here are the claims and the facts:

“The post office charges Amazon and others little to deliver their packages…making Amazon richer and the Post Office [sic] dumber and poorer?” – the president on December 29, 2017

The USPS makes money on package delivery. The USPS financial issues stem from email, the lack of home catalog shopping, and a Congressional requirement that it fund its pension 75 years in advance.

“They pay little to no taxes to state & local governments…” – March 29, 2018

Amazon pays state taxes in the 45 states that have them. Amazon does not pay taxes on items sold by third-party sellers on Amazon because the third party sellers are supposed to do that.

“...They use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S…)” – March 29, 2018

Amazon pays USPS bulk rates. Taxpayers do not pay for anything because the postal service does not receive tax dollars.

“It has been reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon…” – March 31, 2018

The president is using flawed data that would encumber all USPS rates with their retirement liability. And the data was created by a financial firm with a stake in FedEx. But yes, if the USPS changed its rates to reflect its retirement requirements, then the rates would go up for everyone, incuding Amazon. And for you and me too.

The bottom line: The USPS doesn’t get taxpayer money, Amazon pays the same rates as everyone, and Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, but the public markets own about 83% of Amazon–not Bezos.

Monday Coffee Break

The Richmond Times-Dispatch covered the fun story of 15 year old Darian Lipscomb of Prospect, Virginia. Darian created a Snapchat id called @CarnivalCruise six years ago when his family vacationed on a cruise ship. They’ve gone on others since then, and the teen is pretty vocal in his love for the experience.

Rather than sending a nasty letter from an attorney, the cruise line had fun by going to Prospect and offering the Lipscomb family a free trip aboard their newest ship in exchange for the Snapchat name. There is even a promise of lots of surprises that sound intriguing given the huge mobile billboard that showed up at their home. 

After all the crazy-making news this week, that’s a story we can get behind. And it’s a case study in how to be smart about your business goals. Carnival and the Lipscombs both won. Read the rest

Highlights

• Remember that Amazon Prime plane picture in last week’s edition? Yep, whispers were making the rounds that Amazon wanted to get big in delivery. They did.
• Google Chrome’s  “Not Secure” warnings are coming to all non-https pages in July.
• Facebook is testing a downvote function that lets users rate comments.

Today’s issue of Spotlight takes an average of 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read

Amazon Gets Bigger, Faster

We wrote last week that Amazon was eyeing an acquisition. Instead, look for Shipping with Amazon to launch and reduce the company’s reliance on the USPS, FedEx, and UPS. Amazon spent about $50 billion on shipping over the last three years so this move has leverage.

This move also has precedence. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud business, now accounts for more than 60% of Amazon’s operating income. Amazon launched the service in 2004 to resell the Internet hosting services it developed for its own use. Delivery could be a similar success.

Jeff Bezos’ mantra of “get big fast” is almost surreal in the company’s execution. Amazon delivery is only one example. Amazon announced its Whole Foods acquisition less than 250 days ago. Since then, they’ve also:

• announced a search for a second headquarters housing 50,000 employees,
• partnered with Warren Buffet and JP Morgan to start a healthcare company,
• and announced two hour delivery windows for Whole Foods groceries in four cities.

Google Gets Customer-Friendly

Visit an unencrypted web page using Google Chrome beginning in July, and your browser will show that the page is “not secure”. That’s true today for e-commerce pages. But starting in July, Google will flag every page without encryption just as they’ve been warning that they would do. 

Google is also requiring ticket resellers to be certified and declare the face value of the ticket. The other kind of tickets–airline tickets–along with hotels and other travel services are getting a redesign. Travel info firm Skift says: “Google is one step closer to its user-centric vision of travel booking,”  Translation: Google wants to sell more travel, not travel advertising.

And hallelujah, word came from Lifehacker Thursday afternoon on Twitter that Google Chrome now has a “mute site” instead of a “mute tab” button. That means that the site’s audio will NOT play when you’ve selected that option. And your browser stores your choice so you only set it once per site.

To mute a website while using Google Chrome: hover over the tab at the top of the browser page, press right-click once, and scroll down. Silence is that easy!

Facebook Gets Comment Voting

You’ve probably seen comment sections that allow you to see “Top Comments first”. Facebook is testing a “downvote” comment link on comments left on personal pages. It’s available only on a small sample of pages. Sites like Reddit and Imgur already have this function, as does blog comment platform Disqus. 

Facebook is adamant that this is to downvote comments only. The fabled thumbs-down dislike button still does not exist.

Hoax Alert: Facebook didn’t limit your content to 26 people

If you haven’t seen the downvote link yet, you’ve probably seen a post from one of your Facebook friends asking you to comment on their post because Facebook has limited the newsfeed to 26 people. It’s a hoax that got new life when a version appeared that read, “I checked Snopes and…”  Read Snopes calling foul on the whole thing.

Monday Coffee Break

It’s over now, but The Washington Post captured the collision of SEO and Philadelphia Eagles fandom. Google’s quest to “organize the world’s information” sometimes goes astray. Sometimes it is deliberately led astray. For a brief time, Eagles quarterback Nick Foles was the answer to the search query, “who owns the New England Patriots” in a nod to Philadelphia’s Super Bowl win.

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