U.S. backs down on TikTok
The Commerce Department said Thursday it wouldn’t enforce its order that would have effectively forced the Chinese-owned TikTok video-sharing app to shut down, in the latest sign of trouble for the Trump administration’s efforts to turn it into a U.S. company.
The Commerce Department’s action delayed implementation of an order, set to take effect on Thursday, that would have barred companies from providing internet-hosting or content-delivery services to TikTok.
The Chinese-owned app TikTok has been labeled a national-security threat by the U.S., but it isn’t unique in the data it collects.
Disney shares rise after reporting 73 million paid Disney+ subscribers, losses not as drastic as expected
Disney reported more than 73 million paid subscribers to its Disney+ streaming service by the end of the fourth quarter in its earnings report Thursday.
The company exceeded expectations on revenue and showed less drastic losses than anticipated.
The Covid-19 pandemic has most significantly impacted Disney’s parks division due to local restrictions that have forced temporary closures or limited capacity.
Group of 165 Google critics calls for swift EU antitrust action
A group of 165 U.S. and UK companies as well as peers in 21 EU countries have called on EU antitrust enforcers to take a tougher line against Google, saying the U.S. tech giant unfairly favours its own services on its web searches.
Google, a unit of Alphabet, has refuted assertions that it unfairly favours its own services. It says that its users are not locked in and that competition to its services is just one click away on the internet.
Google announced Google Ads API v6
Here are a few highlights:
- The API now has Change History similar to the Google Ads UI with ChangeEvent including what interface and who made the changes.
- Users can now manage user access in Google Ads accounts.
- Maximize conversion value and maximize conversions are now available as portfolio bidding strategies, which includes Search.
Facebook and Google quietly extend bans on political advertising
Facebook said in an email to advertisers that they should “expect this temporary pause to last another month.”
Google told advertisers that it would enact a ban for at least seven days after the election. It is confirmed that the blackout is still in effect, but Google would not share further details on when it might lift the ban.
Alibaba sets ‘Singles Day’ sales record
Chinese technology company, under regulatory shadow, reaps $75.1 billion in sales in annual shopping event.
Chinese consumers stayed glued to their phones Wednesday, spending billions of dollars on items such as Taylor Swift-branded jackets, Apple Inc. iPhones and prepaid beach vacations, in a test of Chinese consumer confidence after the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic.
By the end of Nov. 11, also known as Singles Day, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the Chinese technology giant, said it had raked in the equivalent of a record $75.1 billion.
Digital economy to take 55% share of GDP by 2025, report says
The size of Chinese digital economy could hit 80 trillion yuan ($12 trillion) by 2025, accounting for 55 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to a new report.
The country's digital economy is expected to grow by around 15 percent annually between 2020 and 2025, said the report published by Shenzhen-based think tank China Development Institute on Tuesday.
The new economy is projected to provide jobs to nearly 380 million people by 2025, it said. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fully demonstrated the strong vitality of digital economy and showed that digitalization is the "biggest certainty" in the future.
Zoom lied about using end-to-end encryption and is lightly spanked by the FTC
Announced on Monday, a settlement between video conferencing app Zoom and the FTC revealed that since 2016, Zoom had been lying about providing 'end-to-end, 256-bit encryption' to protect the security of users' communication. The truth was that Zoom was actually giving users a lower level of security. As the FTC said on Monday, "Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to access the content of its customers' meetings, and secured its Zoom Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised."
Pornhub’s ad network has a demand-side platform
It’s becoming a whole lot easier to buy ads on porn sites. TrafficJunky, which is the ad network for Pornhub, RedTube and other adult entertainment properties’ parent company, MindGeek, created its own demand-side platform (DSP). TrafficJunky wants to attract more sophisticated advertisers
Amazon expands in Brazil, riding e-commerce boom set off by COVID-19 distancing
Amazon said on Monday it had opened three more logistics centers in Brazil to take advantage of the boost the COVID-19 pandemic has given to e-commerce in South America's largest economy.
The new units are already operating in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul and the capital city of Brasilia. They increase the number of Amazon logistics centers in Brazil to eight, expanding its reach to all corners of the vast country.
The expansion, which adds 75,000 square meters (807,000 square feet) of distribution space, is Amazon's biggest since it began operating in Brazil in 2012. It will create 1,500 direct jobs, the company said in a statement.
5 experts break down what Biden's win could mean for the advertising and tech industries, from a privacy czar to more antitrust action
Business Insider spoke to five experts who predicted that a Biden administration has big implications for the advertising industry.
They anticipated a nationwide data privacy law and the creation of a consumer privacy protection bureau like the one Vice President-elect Kamala Harris established in California.
More antitrust actions against the big tech platforms are also expected.
Some said to expect further scrutiny of how cable providers collect data on users and anticompetitive e-commerce practices.