Amazon Web Services preps ‘Bastion’ Cloud Service for advertisers
Amazon Web Services is preparing to unveil a cloud service to help companies improve the way they target ads to potential customers without violating data privacy laws. The new AWS service, Bastion, is known in tech industry parlance as a data clean room. It lets multiple companies pool data on existing or potential customers without any of them being able to view the entire pool.
AliPay, WeChat Pay team up with banks to trial credit card cash advances
The two platforms have already teamed up with a number of banks to undertake small-scale trials that will enable consumers to obtain cash advances with their credit cards from AliPay and WeChat Pay, instead of via bank ATMs or bank mobile apps. Domestic analysts say the move will add another channel of access for banks, and be beneficial to increasing consumer activity and transaction volumes.
Ad blocks can disappear from January
Google's Chrome Web Store is supposed to stop accepting Mv2 extension submissions in the near future. As of January 2023, Chrome will stop running extensions created using Mv2, with limited exceptions for enterprise versions of Chrome operating under the corporate policy. And by June 2023, even enterprise versions of Chrome will prevent Mv2 extensions from running.
Google will allow alternative payment systems for Play Store in more countries
Google announced it’s expanding the user choice billing program for Play Store — which lets users choose alternative payment systems for in-app purchases — to India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the European Economic Area. The company is calling all non-gaming developers globally to apply for this program, and if they qualify, they can use third-party payment systems in the above-mentioned regions.
Meta and Jio launch grocery shopping on WhatsApp in India
Meta and an e-commerce venture between India’s Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms are bringing grocery shopping to WhatsApp in what they said was a global-first end-to-end shopping experience on the popular instant messaging platform. If successful, a commerce engine could prove to be a major source of revenue for WhatsApp, which has largely avoided serving ads to app users. Customers in India will be able to browse JioMart’s entire grocery catalog on WhatsApp, add items to a cart and make payments via local payments rail UPI without ever leaving the service.