MASHABLE - Google settles with 36 U.S. states and districts, agreeing to pay $700M over anticompetitive practices in its Play Store. The lawsuit focused on Google's restrictions on developers using competing app stores and its 30% commission fee on app purchases. As part of the settlement, Google will allow developers to integrate alternative in-app billing systems alongside Google Play's system, providing users with a choice. The settlement also includes financial compensation, with $630M allocated for consumer benefits and an additional $70M for the states. However, the impact of Google's 30% commission fee remains limited, leading to criticism from some quarters, including Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
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Google to Pay $700M in Play Store Settlement
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Bangladesh Seeks Google and Facebook Data Centers to Boost Bandwidth Usage
DHAKA TRIBUNE - The Bangladeshi government plans to approach Google and Facebook to establish data centers in the country. Currently, Bangladesh imports bandwidth from India, which provides benefits at a lower cost compared to submarine cables. By attracting tech giants, the government aims to increase the utilization of submarine cables for bandwidth.
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Russia Fines Google $364M for Hosting Anti-Russian Videos
GIZMODO - Google came under fire from Russian authorities yet again for the company's ongoing flubs in removing clips from Russian YouTube that promoted "extremism and terrorism," and anti-Russian propaganda centered on the country's ongoing war with Ukraine. Google's being charged ~$364M.
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Hangouts Will Shut Down This Fall as Google Moves People to Chat
CNET - Google Hangouts is shutting down in November. Google is prompting people still using Hangouts to migrate over to Chat as part of its plan to retire the aging messaging platform. Google is also encouraging users to use Google Takeout, the company's data exportation tool, to download their data before Hangouts ceases operation this November.
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France Fined Google $170M, Facebook $68M Over Cookie Consent Dark Patterns
TECH CRUNCH - CNIL said it fined Google ~$170M and Facebook ~$68M for breaching French law. In a clear breach of EU and French law, it found the pair do not offer an option for users to reject non-essential cookies as easily as the option they offer for them to accept all tracking.
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Google Is Fined $100M in Russia for 'Systematic Failure to Remove Banned Content'
WASHINGTON POST - A Russian court fined Google ~$100M for "systematic failure to remove banned content" - the largest such penalty yet in the country as Moscow attempts to rein in Western tech giants. The fine was calculated based on Google's annual revenue, which its 2020 turnover in the country exceeded $1.15B.
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Network-Based Platforms Must Be Regulated. But How?
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW - Much of the dominance of today's tech firms, from Amazon to Google to Facebook, arises from network effects. These platforms facilitate connections: they connect people to products, to friends, to apps...More connections, more value to each person.
The question of how much competition tech giants face is now at the center of worldwide policy debate. Traditional antitrust policy is ill-equipped to regulate network-based platforms. Some platforms are offered free to users, charging in data or attention.
Antitrust authorities err on the side of not intervening; Google and Facebook have gone on a shopping spree to acquire early-stage competitors that could have become a threat if left independent. But the tide may be turning.
A better understanding of these networks can help societies fully reap the benefits of digital innovation, while mitigating emerging harms.
by by Daniel Björkegren & Chiara Farronato
See full article at Harvard Business Review
Mark Brooks: Scale and complexity will continue to increase. The job of overseeing the scale and complexity of platforms at the Governmental level is not easy. Mistakes will be made. It is essential companies, leaders, take the macro-perspective more seriously, right now, or potentially face overzealous oversteps from Government interventions. Leaders should provide more transparency and education to users and Government stakeholders alike.ons. Leaders should provide more transparency and education to users and Government stakeholders alike.
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Facebook and Google Buy Land in Denmark for Potential Data Center Developments
DCD - Google has acquired 120K sqm of land in Taulov, in Denmark's Fredericia municipality, while Facebook has bought 212 hectares in Andrup, in the Esbjer municipality. Those acquisitions are for potential data center developments.
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2M Former Google+ Users Can Claim Their $2.15 Payout From Class-action Lawsuit
9TO5GOOGLE - Aug 5 - A privacy breach on Google+ resulted in a class-action lawsuit, and now, millions of former users are getting payouts. Google agreed to pay $7.5M to users of the defunct social network. Almost half of that money went to legal fees, but the rest is now being paid to ~1.72M people.
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Trump Files Lawsuits Against Google, Facebook and Twitter
CNET - July 8 - After being banned earlier in the year, former President Donald Trump said he's filed lawsuits accusing Google, Facebook, Twitter and their CEOs of First Amendment violations for alleged censorship. Lawsuits that allege censorship and that argue social media companies violate the First Amendment when they remove posts or ban users have repeatedly been rejected by courts across the country.
by Erin Carson & Queenie Wong
See full article at CNet
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Google and Snap in Talks To Invest in India's ShareChat
TECH CRUNCH - Jan 5 - ShareChat, a Bangalore-based social network that added Twitter as an investor in 2019, is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap, as well as several existing investors, including Twitter, three sources familiar with the matter. ShareChat has raised about $264 million to date and was valued at nearly $700 million last year. Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder, and chief executive of ShareChat, said the app was growing "exponentially" and that users were spending, on average, ~30 mins on the app each day. If the deal goes through, it would be the first investment from Snapchat's parent company into an Indian startup.
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Google Maps Turned Into Social Network
ANDROID POLICE - July 31 - Rolling out globally today, users on Google Maps who have shared photos, reviews, or lists publicly will be followable. The updated profiles look a lot like a Twitter or Facebook page, with a follow button and the number of followers the account has.
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Twitter Partners With Google To Make Tweets Searchable
MASHABLE - Feb 5 - Twitter has reached a deal with Google that will make its Tweets instantly searchable. It's unclear how the Google deal will affect deleted tweets. Twitter's deal with Google isn't the first of its kind: It already has deals in place with Bing and Yahoo, wherein the company shares user data.
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Google & Facebook To Have More Than 50% Of UK Digital Ad Market
THE GUARDIAN - Dec 3 - Advertising on websites, smartphones, video and social media will see UK operations make £4.1B in 2015, according to eMarketer. The UK operations of Google and Facebook will make a combined £4.1B in 2015, a 50.8% share of the total expected to be spent on ads next year. Facebook UK’s ad revenues are forecast to grow by 55% this year to £576M and by a further 29% next year to £743M.
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The Laborers Who Keep Beheadings Out Of Our Facebook Feed
WIRED - Oct 26 - Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer of MySpace who now runs online safety consultancy SSP Blue, estimates that the number of content moderators runs to 100K. That is about twice the total head count of Google and 14 times that of Facebook. This work is increasingly done in the Philippines where moderators can be hired for a fraction of American wages ($300 - $500 a month). Whisper, a mobile startup (valued at $200M) that lets users post photos and share secrets anonymously, works with outsourcing firm called TaskUs. Michael Heyward, Whisper’s CEO, sees moderation as an integral feature and a key selling point of his app. Whisper practices “active moderation,” when every single post is screened in real time; many other companies moderate content only if it’s been flagged by users, which is known as reactive moderating. Given that content moderators might very well comprise as much as half the total workforce, it’s worth pondering just what the long-term psychological toll of this work can be. Employees are given psychological tests to determine their mental baseline, then interviewed and counseled regularly to minimize the effect of disturbing images.
by Adrian Chen
See full article at Wired
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