Meet Spot, a beautifully designed mobile app to control your cryptocurrencies. Spot looks like a portfolio-tracking app. But the company has built a strong foundation to add more features in the coming months. Spot wants to be your unique gateway to the world of cryptocurrencies. “Spot’s vision isn’t to build a portfolio tracker — we went a bit overboard with this feature,” co-founder and CEO Edouard Steegmann told me. “Eventually, we want to become the app to manage all your cryptos, a sort of Revolut but with a crypto DNA.” When you first install the app, you can connect it to your existing wallets by adding public addresses. Even if you store your tokens on a hardware wallet, Spot can read the public details of your wallet to show them in the app. “We have our own nodes on Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Stellar and others to recover the amount on your wallet,” Steegmann said. Data is also cross-checked with third-party services to make sure that everything is fine. Spot also lets you connect to an exchange account using API keys. Right now, the app supports Binance, Kraken, Bitfinex and Poloniex, but the company already plans to add more exchanges. The app then gives you a detailed overview of your holdings across all services and wallets. You can see detailed charts, and discover which token is performing better than the rest. It’s also one of the most well-designed mobile apps I’ve seen this year — the animations and interactions are gorgeous. But Spot doesn’t rely on an API to get pricing information for each token. “We’ve rebuilt CoinMarketCap from the ground up, and we’re one of the few companies that have done it,” Steegmann said. The company stores pricing information for dozens of tokens across 150 exchanges. That’s a lot of pairings. If you tap on the Spot logo at the top of the app, you can see the maximum value of your portfolio if you cash out on exchanges with the highest prices for your tokens. The company makes sure that there’s enough volume to show you coherent prices. Spot thinks that controlling your own data is too important to rely on API calls. When you have your own data, you don’t have any API rate limits, you don’t have a major dependency and you can scale more calmly. Up next, you’ll be able to trade directly in the app. The company isn’t going to build its own exchange, but you can expect to buy and sell tokens on a third-party exchange without having to visit the website. “We think that many things will be tokenized and that there’s no user-friendly interface to transfer, receive, buy and sell,” Steegmann said. The company raised a $1.2 million round (€1.056 million to be exact) from Kima Ventures and business angels, including Eric Larchevêque and Thomas France from Ledger, Jean-Daniel Guyot, Thibaud Elzière, Eduardo Ronzano, Nicolas Steegmann, Sébastien Lucas and Nicolas Debock. Disclosure: I own small amounts of various cryptocurrencies. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/21/spot-is-a-cryptocurrency-app-to-control-all-your-wallets-and-exchange-accounts/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181302119276 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com
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WhatsApp chat groups are being used to spread illegal child pornography, cloaked by the app’s end-to-end encryption. Without the necessary number of human moderators, the disturbing content is slipping by WhatsApp’s automated systems. A report reviewed by TechCrunch from two Israeli NGOs details how third-party apps for discovering WhatsApp groups include “Adult” sections that offer invite links to join rings of users trading images of child exploitation. TechCrunch has reviewed materials showing many of these groups are currently active. TechCrunch’s investigation shows that Facebook could do more to police WhatsApp and remove this kind of content. Even without technical solutions that would require a weakening of encryption, WhatsApp’s moderators should have been able to find these groups and put a stop to them. Groups with names like “child porn only no adv” and “child porn xvideos” found on the group discovery app “Group Links For Whats” by Lisa Studio don’t even attempt to hide their nature. And a screenshot provided by anti-exploitation startup AntiToxin reveals active WhatsApp groups with names like “Children ” or “videos cp” — a known abbreviation for ‘child pornography’.
Better manual investigation of these group discovery apps and WhatsApp itself should have immediately led these groups to be deleted and their members banned. While Facebook doubled its moderation staff from 10,000 to 20,000 in 2018 to crack down on election interference, bullying, and other policy violations, that staff does not moderate WhatsApp content. With just 300 employees, WhatsApp runs semi-independently, and the company confirms it handles its own moderation efforts. That’s proving inadequate for policing at 1.5 billion user community. The findings from the NGOs Screen Savers and Netivei Reshe were written about today by The Financial Times, but TechCrunch is publishing the full report, their translated letter to Facebook translated emails with Facebook, their police report, plus the names of child pornography groups on WhatsApp and group discovery apps the lead to them listed above. A startup called AntiToxin Technologies that researches the topic has backed up the report, providing the screenshot above and saying it’s identified more than 1300 videos and photographs of minors involved in sexual acts on WhatsApp groups. Given that Tumblr’s app was recently temporarily removed from the Apple App Store for allegedly harboring child pornography, we’ve asked Apple if it will temporarily suspend WhatsApp but have not heard back. Uncovering A NightmareIn July 2018, the NGOs became aware of the issue after a man reported to one of their hotlines that he’d seen hardcore pornography on WhatsApp. In October, they spent 20 days cataloging over 10 of the child pornography groups, their content, and the apps that allow people to find them. The NGOs began contacting Facebook’s head of policy Jordana Cutler starting September 4th. They requested a meeting four times to discuss their findings. Cutler asked for email evidence but did not agree to a meeting, instead following Israeli law enforcement’s guidance to instruct researchers to contact the authorities. The NGO reported their findings to Israeli police but declined to provide Facebook with their research. WhatsApp only received their report and the screenshot of active child pornography groups today from TechCrunch. WhatsApp tells me it’s now investigating the groups visible from the research we provided. A Facebook spokesperson tells TechCrunch “Keeping people safe on Facebook is fundamental to the work of our teams around the world. We offered to work together with police in Israel to launch an investigation to stop this abuse.” A statement from the Israeli Police’s Head of the Child Online Protection Bureau Meir Hayoun notes that: “In past meetings with Jordana, I instructed her to always tell anyone who wanted to report any pedophile content to contact the Israeli police to report a complaint.” A WhatsApp spokesperson tells me that while legal adult pornography is allowed on WhatsApp, it banned 130,000 accounts in a recent 10-day period for violating its policies against child exploitation. In a statement, WhatsApp wrote that:
But it’s that over-reliance on technology and subsequent under-staffing that seems to have allowed the problem to fester. AntiToxin’s CEO Zohar Levkovitz tells me “Can it be argued that Facebook has unwittingly growth-hacked pedophilia? Yes. As parents and tech executives we cannot remain complacent to that.” Automated Moderation Doesn’t Cut ItWhatsApp introduced an invite link feature for groups in late 2016, making it much easier to discover and join groups without knowing any members. Competitors like Telegram had benefited as engagement in their public group chats rose. WhatsApp likely saw group invite links as an opportunity for growth, but didn’t allocate enough resources to monitor groups of strangers assembling around different topics. Apps sprung up to allow people to browse different groups by category. Some usage of these apps is legitimate, as people seek communities to discuss sports or entertainment. But many of these apps now feature “Adult” sections that can include invite links to both legal pornography sharing groups as well as illegal child exploitation content. A WhatsApp spokesperson tells me that it scans all unencrypted information on its network — basically anything outside of chat threads themselves — including user profile photos, group profile photos, and group information. It seeks to match content against the PhotoDNA banks of indexed child pornography that many tech companies use to identify previously reported inappropriate imagery. If it find a match, that account, or that group and all of its members receive a lifetime ban from WhatsApp. If imagery doesn’t match the database but is suspected of showing child exploitation, it’s manually reviewed. If found to be illegal, WhatsApp bans the accounts and/or groups, prevents it from being uploaded in the future, and reports the content and accounts to the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children. The one example group reported to WhatsApp by the Financial Times was already flagged for human review by its automated system, and was then banned along with all 256 members. To discourage abuse, WhatsApp says it limits groups to 256 members and purposefully does not provide a search function for people or groups within its app. It does not encourage the publication of group invite links and the vast majority of groups have six or fewer members. It’s already working with Google and Apple to enforce its terms of service against apps like the child exploitation group discovery apps that abuse WhatsApp. Those kind of groups already can’t be found in Apple’s App Store, but remain available on Google Play. We’ve contacted Google Play to ask how it addresses illegal content discovery apps and whether Group Links For Whats by Lisa Studio will remain available, and will update if we hear back. But the larger question is that if WhatsApp was already aware of these group discovery apps, why wasn’t it using them to track down and ban groups that violate its policies. A spokesperson claimed that group names with “CP” or other indicators of child exploitation are some of the signals it uses to hunt these groups, and that names in group discovery apps don’t necessarily correlate to the group names on WhatsApp. But TechCrunch then provided a screenshot showing active groups within WhatsApp as of this morning with names like “Children ” or “videos cp”. That shows that WhatsApp’s automated systems and lean staff are not enough to prevent the spread of illegal imagery.
The situation also raises questions about the tradeoffs of encryption as some governments like Australia seek to prevent its usage by messaging apps. The technology can protect free speech, improve the safety of political dissidents, and prevent censorship by both governments and tech platforms. However, it can also make detecting crime more difficult, exacerbating the harm caused to victims. WhatsApp’s spokesperson tells me that it stands behind strong end-to-end encryption that protects conversations with loved ones, doctors, and more. They said there are plenty of good reasons for end-to-end encryption and it will continue to support it. Changing that in any way, even to aid catching those that exploit children, would be require a significant change to the privacy guarantees it’s given users. They suggested that on-device scanning for illegal content would have to be implemented by phone makers to prevent its spread without hampering encryption. But for now, WhatsApp needs more human moderators willing to use proactive and unscalable manual investigation to address its child pornography problem. With Facebook earning billions in profit per quarter and staffing up its own moderation ranks, there’s no reason WhatsApp’s supposed autonomy should prevent it from applying adequate resources to the issue. WhatsApp sought to grow through big public groups, but failed to implement the necessary precautions to ensure they didn’t become havens for child exploitation. Tech companies like WhatsApp need to stop assuming cheap and efficient technological solutions are sufficient. If they want to make money off of huge user bases, they must be willing to pay to protect and police them. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/20/whatsapp-pornography/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181279195231 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com App Store Review guidelines hint that users will soon be able to gift in-app purchases not just apps12/20/2018 Apple will allow iOS users to gift in-app purchases, not just paid apps, according to a change to the company’s App Store Review Guidelines spotted this week. This means developers may soon have the tools to allow users to purchase virtual goods or even subscriptions through their app, which can then be gifted to others. The changes to the company’s App Store guidelines were first discovered on Wednesday by MacRumors, which confirmed both the prior and current wording as follows: Before: “Apps should not directly or indirectly enable gifting of in-app purchase content, features, or consumable items to others.” After: “Apps may enable gifting of items that are eligible for in-app purchase to others. Such gifts may only be refunded to the original purchaser and may not be exchanged.” It’s unclear at this time how the change will be implemented, from the developer’s side. It’s likely Apple will soon share more information with its developer community to inform them of how to get started. The move makes a lot of sense, given the App Store’s larger shift away from paid apps towards in-app purchases and more recently, subscriptions, as a way for developers to monetize their businesses. Gamers would often like to receive in-app currency or other virtual goods as gifts. Meanwhile, subscriptions have become so popular they’re expected to contribute heavily to both iOS and Android app stores’ growth next year. Combined, the app stores are forecast to pass $122 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie. However, some subset of apps have been abusing subscriptions, by making it difficult for consumers to even use their “free” app without committing to a subscription, or tricking users into free trials that convert in just days, among other things. Apple will need to get a good handle on the bad actors before rolling out in-app gifting of subscriptions more broadly. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/20/app-store-review-guidelines-hint-that-users-will-soon-be-able-to-gift-in-app-purchases-not-just-apps/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181274058991 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com WhatsApp is making group calls easier with a change to the way its mobile app works. Before, users would have to start a 1:1 video call, then add participants – there wasn’t an option to begin a group call at once, the company says. Now, the design has been updated so you can start group calls with just a couple of taps. In the new design, you can go to the group whose members you want to call, then tap on the phone icon at the top right corner of the screen to get started. From the next screen, you’ll tap the contacts within the group you want to call, then tap the voice or video button – depending on what type of call you want to make. The company added a new way to make group calls from the Calls tab, as well. With the update, you can tap the new Call icon on the top right corner of the screen, pick the contacts you want to call, and again pick either the voice or video icon. WhatsApp currently supports calling up to four people at one time. That’s fewer than is supported on other top mobile messaging services – like Apple’s FaceTime, which was updated in October to support 32 people (up from only 2 people before); or Messenger, which can support up to 50 people in a call, for example. However, WhatsApp’s group call feature itself is still fairly new – it was officially rolled out at the end of July this year. For a smaller group, it’s still a useful way to connect with friends and family without having to tap into your cellular plan’s voice minutes. Calls are also end-to-end encrypted, which makes it a good option for privacy seekers – that is, if you believe that any app owned by Facebook can fit that description. WhatsApp warns that all members should have a good internet connection before using the group calling feature, as the quality of the call will depend on the contact with the weakest connection. The update is available now to iPhone users and is rolling out “soon” on Android. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/whatsapp-makes-group-calls-easier-but-calls-still-limited-to-four-people/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181257309241 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com A coalition of 22 consumer and public health advocacy groups, led by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), have today filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission asking them to investigate and sanction Google for how its Google Play Store markets apps to children. The complaint states that Google features apps designed for very young children in its Play Store’s “Family” section, many of which are violating federal children’s privacy law, exposing kids to inappropriate content and disregarding Google’s own policies by luring kids into making in-app purchases and watching ads. Google Play ‘Family’ section Google first introduced its “Designed for Families” program back in 2015, which gives developers of kid-friendly apps meeting certain guidelines additional visibility in the Play Store. This includes a placement in the Family section, where apps are organized by age appropriateness. To qualify, “Family” apps must abide by specific content policies, Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement and the Designed for Families DDA Addendum. The apps also must meet the Designed for Families program requirements. Legal compliance with federal privacy laws, including COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule), are among the requirements. COPPA is designed to protect children under the age of 13 by giving parents control over what information sites and apps can collect from their kids. Above: Google Play store showcases children’s content in its own dedicated sections COPPA violations But the new FTC complaint claims that Google is not verifying COPPA compliance when it accepts these apps and, as a result, many are in continual violation of the law. “Our research revealed a surprising number of privacy violations on Android apps for children, including sharing geolocation with third parties,” said Serge Egelman, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement shared by the group. “Given Google’s assertion that Designed for Families apps must be COPPA compliant, it’s disappointing these violations still abound, even after Google was alerted to the scale of the problem,” he added. TechCrunch asked the coalition if it had some idea about how many apps were in violation of COPPA, and were told the groups don’t know an exact number. “From our survey — and more comprehensive analyses like the PET Study — it seems fairly prevalent,” Lindsey Barrett, Staff Attorney at Georgetown’s Institute for Public Representation, told us. “The PET Study found that 73 percent of the kids apps in the Play store transmitted sensitive data over the internet, and we saw apps sending geolocation without notice and verifiable parental consent, and sending personal information unencrypted,” Barrett said. “Further, under COPPA, children’s PII cannot be used for behavioral advertising. Yet, many of the children’s apps we looked at were sending information to ad networks which say their services should not be used with children’s apps,” she added. Other harms The apps also engage in other bad behaviors, like regularly showing ads that are difficult to exit or showing those that require viewing in order to continue the current game, according to the complaint. Some apps pressure kids into making in-app purchases — in one example, the game characters were crying if the kids didn’t buy the locked items, it notes. Others show ads for alcohol and gambling, despite those being barred by Google’s Ad Policy. Above: disturbing images from TabTale apps The coalition additionally called out some apps for containing “graphic, sexualized images” like TutoTOONS “Sweet Baby Girl Daycare 4 – Babysitting Fun,” which has more than 10 million downloads. (The game has a part where kids change a baby’s diaper, wipe their diaper area, then rub powder all over the baby’s body.) Others model harmful behavior, like TabTale’s “Crazy Eye Clinic,” which teaches children to clean their eyes with a sharp instrument, and has more than one million downloads. (The game is currently not available on Google Play and its webpage is down.) The complaint also broadly takes issue with apps that use common SDKs like those from Unity or Flurry (disclosure: Flurry and TechCrunch share a corporate parent) to collect device identifiers from the children’s apps. “Nearly three-quarters of the apps in the Family section transmit device identifiers to third parties,” reads the complaint. “There is no way for us to know for sure what the device identifiers are used for. Since many of the apps send device identifiers to third parties that specialize in monetizing apps and/or engaging in interest-based (behavioral) advertising, it seems unlikely that this information is being used solely to support internal operations,” it says. Above: Strawberry Shortcake Puppy Palace was called out for aggressive monetization efforts. Strawberry tells kids to buy things to keep the puppy happy — the implication is if you don’t pay, you’re making puppies sad. The groups say that Google has been aware of all these problems for some time, but hasn’t taken adequate steps to enforce its criteria for developers. As a result, the consumer advocacy groups are urging the FTC to investigate the Play Store’s practices. The coalition had previously asked the FTC to investigate developers of children’s apps aimed at preschoolers who were using manipulative advertising. But today’s complaint is focused on Google. “Google (Alphabet, Inc.) has long engaged in unethical and harmful business practices, especially when it comes to children,” explained Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “And the Federal Trade Commission has for too long ignored this problem, placing both children and their parents at risk over their loss of privacy, and exposing them to a powerful and manipulative marketing apparatus. As one of the world’s leading providers of content for kids online, Google continues to put the enormous profits they make from kids ahead of any concern for their welfare,” Chester said. Apple was not similarly called out because a similar analysis has not yet been done on its app marketplace, Josh Golin, executive director at CCFC told us. In Google’s case, he explained, two major studies found widespread issues with the Play Store apps for kids. One from Berkeley researchers found widespread COPPA non-compliance; the other, by University of Michigan researchers, found children’s play experience was often completely interrupted and undermined by aggressive marketing tactics. The complaint comes at a time where there is increased scrutiny as to how tech companies are misusing and abusing consumer data and violating privacy. Kids game have already been the subject of some concern. And this morning, an NYT investigation into Facebook revealed it had shared more of users’ personal data than disclosed with major tech companies, following a year of data scandals. The issue of data privacy is an industry-wide problem. Tech companies’ failures on this front will likely lead to increased regulation going forward. Not all the named developers were immediately available to comment this morning. We’ll update if comments are provided. (Update: TutoToons says they removed the inappropriate content from the app after becoming aware of the complaint. They urged parents and child advocacy groups to reach out to them directly in the future.) Google says it’s taking the complaint seriously. It has removed thousands of apps from its Designed for Families program this year, and rejects a third of applications. “Parents want their children to be safe online and we work hard to protect them. Apps in our Designed for Families program have to comply with strict policies on content, privacy and advertising, and we take action on any policy violations that we find,” a Google spokesperson says. “We take these issues very seriously and continue to work hard to remove any content that is inappropriately aimed at children from our platform,” they added. The full complaint is below. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/consumer-advocacy-groups-call-on-ftc-to-investigate-kids-apps-on-google-play/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181251938901 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Google says mobile-first indexing is now used for over half the web pages in its search results12/19/2018 Google announced today it’s now using mobile-first indexing for over half the web pages shown in its search results globally – a significant milestone in Google’s move to favor mobile sites over desktop sites in its search results. The plans for the project have been in the works for years. The company had first detailed its efforts around mobile-first indexing back in 2016, where it explained the impacts to how its search index operates. It said it would shift over to using the mobile version of a website’s content to index its pages, as well as to understand its structured data and show snippets from the site in Google’s search results. Its reasoning behind the change is simple: most people today search Google from a mobile device, not a desktop computer. But Google’s ranking systems for the web were originally built for the desktop era. They still typically look at the desktop version of the page’s content to determine its relevance to the user. This, obviously, causes problems when the desktop site and the mobile site are not in sync. Before responsive web design became more commonplace, many site owners built a separate, simpler and sometimes less informative version of their site for their mobile web visitors. These users may have been guided to the site because of Google Search. But once there, they couldn’t find what they were looking for because it was only available on the desktop version of the web page. In December 2017, Google said it had begun to transition a small handful of sites to mobile-first indexing. Earlier this year, Google announced it had begun to officially roll out its “mobile-first” indexing of the web, following a year and a half of testing and experimentation. At the time, it said it would first move over the sites already following the best practices for mobile-first indexing. It also noted it would favor the site’s own mobile version of its webpage over Google’s fast-loading AMP pages. Sites who are shifted are notified through a message in Search Console and then see increased visits from the smartphone version of Googlebot, which crawls the mobile version of their site. Site owners can also check their server logs, where they can track the increased requests from Googlebot Smartphone. Google additionally offers a URL inspection tool, which site owners can use to check how a URL from their site – like the homepage – was last crawled and indexed. Google today notes that sites that don’t use responsive web design are seeing two common problems when Google tries to move them over to mobile-first indexing. Some don’t use structured data on their mobile sites, even though they use it on the desktop. This is important because it helps Google to understand the website’s content and allows it to highlight pages’ content in its search results, through its “fancier” features like rich results, Knowledge Graph results, enhanced search results, carousels and more – basically any time you see more engaging search results that offer more than just a list of blue links. The company also said that some mobile sites were missing alt-text for images, which makes it harder for Google to understand the images’ content. At the time of the initial wave of sites being shifted over, Google had said that the mobile-friendly index wouldn’t directly impact how content is ranked, but it did say that a site’s mobile-friendly content will help it “perform better” in mobile search results. Mobile-friendliness has also long been one of many factors in determining how a site is ranked, but it’s not the only one. Google didn’t say what it will do to sites that are never properly updated for the mobile web, but it seems that – at some point – their ranking could be impacted. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/google-says-mobile-first-indexing-is-now-used-for-over-half-the-web-pages-in-its-search-results/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181249648401 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com As Facebook colonized the rest of the web with its functionality in hopes of fueling user growth, it built aggressive integrations with partners that are coming under newfound scrutiny through a deeply reported New York Times investigation. Some of what Facebook did was sloppy or unsettling, including forgetting to shut down APIs when it cancelled its Instant Personalization feature for other sites in 2014, and how it used contact syncing to power friend recommendations. But other moves aren’t as bad as they sound. Facebook did provide Spotify and Netflix the ability to access users messages, but only so people could send friends songs or movies via Facebook messages without leaving those apps. And Facebook did let Yahoo and Blackberry access people’s News Feeds, but to let users browse those feeds within social hub features inside those apps. These partners could only access data when users logged in and connected their Facebook accounts, and were only approved to use this data to provide Facebook-related functionality. That means Spotify at least wasn’t supposed to be rifling through everyone’s messages to find out what bands they talk about so it could build better curation algorithms, and there’s no evidence yet that it did. Thankfully Facebook has ditched most of these integrations, as the dominance of iOS and Android have allowed it to build fewer, more standardized, and better safeguarded access points to its data. And it’s battened down the hatches in some ways, forcing users to shortcut from Spotify into the real Facebook Messenger rather than giving third-parties any special access to offer Facebook Messaging themselves. The most glaring allegation Facebook hasn’t adequately responded to yet is that it used data from Amazon, Yahoo, and Huawei to improve friend suggestions through People You May Know — perhaps its creepiest feature. The company needs to accept the loss of growth hacking trade secrets and become much more transparent about how it makes so uncannily accurate recommendations of who to friend request — as Gizmodo’s Kashmir Hill has documented. In some cases, Facebook has admitted to missteps, with its Director of Developer Platforms and Programs Konstantinos Papamiltiadis writing “we shouldn’t have left the APIs in place after we shut down instant personalization.” In others, we’ll have decide where to draw the line between what was actually dangerous and what gives us the chills at first glance. You don’t ask permission from friends to read an email from them on a certain browser or device, so should you worry if they saw your Facebook status update on a Blackberry social hub feature instead of the traditional Facebook app? Well that depends on how the access is monitored and meted out. The underlying question is whether we trust that Facebook and these other big tech companies actually abided by rules to oversee and not to overuse data. Facebook has done plenty wrong, and after repeatedly failing to be transparent or live up to its apologies, it doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. For that reason, I don’t want it giving any developer — even ones I normally trust like Spotify — access to sensitive data protected merely by their promise of good behavior despite financial incentives for misuse. Facebook’s former chief security officer Alex Stamos tweeted that “allowing for 3rd party clients is the kind of pro-competition move we want to see from dominant platforms. For ex, making Gmail only accessible to Android and the Gmail app would be horrible. For the NY Times to try to scandalize this kind of integration is wrong.” But countered that by noting that “integrations that are sneaky or send secret data to servers controlled by others really is wrong.” Even if Spotify and Netflix didn’t abuse the access Facebook provided, there’s always eventually a Cambridge Analytica. Tech companies have proven their word can’t necessarily be trusted. The best way to protect users is to properly lock down the platforms with ample vetting, limits, and oversight so there won’t be gray areas that require us to put our faith in the kindness of businesses. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/all-out-of-faithbook/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181245137521 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android despite Europes antitrust action12/18/2018 Mobile licensing changes made by Google this fall, when it tweaked terms for OEMs wanting to license its Android smartphone platform on devices destined for the European market, don’t appear to be offering succour to search rivals — despite being triggered by an antitrust ruling intended to reset the competitive playing field. The European Commission found the search giant guilty of anti-competitive practices related to its Android platform this summer, slapping the company with a $5BN fine. The decision required Google cease practices judged to be illegally skewing the market and do so within 90 days. It was the second such major EC antitrust finding against Google, after last year’s Google Shopping ruling, when the company was warned that having been found dominant in search it had a “special responsibility” to avoid breaching antitrust rules in any market it plays in. Google disputes the Commission’s findings of competitive abuse in both cases, and has lodged legal appeals. But the nature of competition law demands action in the meanwhile, given the threat of punitive penalties for any continued breach. So in October Google responded to the Commission’s Android ruling by updating its regional compatibility agreement to provide a route for OEMs to unbundle key services from the Android OS — rather than requiring its suite of Google apps be pre-loaded for devices to get the Play Store. However it also incorporated licensing fees for some unbundled configurations (e.g. Android + Play Store). At the same time it said it would not charge any fee to include search or Chrome. And it said it was offering incentives for OEMs to place its eponymous, market dominating search engine (and/or browser) prominently on their devices — despite one of the behaviors the Commission judged illegal being payments Google had made to certain large manufacturers and mobile carriers to exclusively pre-install Google Search. The Commission did not prescribe specific remedies for the anticompetitive behaviours it pegged to Android — saying it’s “Google’s sole responsibility to make sure that it changes its conduct in a way that brings the infringements to an effective end”. Though it warned it would closely monitor the company’s conduct, noting that any finding of continued non-compliance would risk fresh fines — of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of Alphabet for each day of non-compliance. The key word there is “effective” — in terms of what the Commission is watching for. Meanwhile Google’s dominant position in search naturally makes it the smartphone consumer’s go-to choice — which in turn means there’s a natural incentive for device makers not to ditch Google as the search default. At least for mainstream devices. But Google’s new European licensing terms for Android appear to be piling additional pressure on OEMs not to switch even for more experimental and/or regional device launches, according to privacy-focused search engine Qwant. The suggestion is Google’s licensing changes have essentially blocked the launch of an Android device with Qwant search rather than Google as the default. Pay to installIts experience suggests Google’s initial ‘remedy’ — far from delivering an “effective end” to the competitive infringements the Commission found — is actively steering OEMs away from search alternatives and rival companies. Qwant, a French startup, launched its non-tracking search offering back in 2013, and has been on a growth tear on its home turf in recent months — winning over high profile users in the public sector as concern has risen about Silicon Valley’s intrusive grip on user data. The French National Assembly and the French Ministry of the Armed Forces Minister announced this fall they’d switch to Qwant instead of Google as their default. Of course the startup is still a minnow compared to Google. But it’s growing: Qwant tracks queries rather than users (given it doesn’t track people), and it says it generated 2.6BN queries in 2016; which grew to 9BN last year; and is now on track to end this year with around 18BN queries. “So if we think about it that means that last year we were three days of Google; this year six days of Google — not so bad!” says co-founder Eric Leandri. “In France we have now more than 6% of the market,” he continues. “In Germany something like 2%. And we are still growing. We do growth of 20% by month for the last four months. The growth in our revenue is two digit too, by month.” Earlier this year it had been hoping to make additional regional marketshare gains by securing a deal to be pre-loaded on Android smartphones destined for European markets. A spokesman tells us it has a framework agreement with Huawei. (The Chinese Android OEM is second only to Samsung in global marketshare terms, according to analysts.) The Commission’s antitrust ruling opened the door to this possibility, given it banned Google from prohibiting OEMs from launching non-Google approved Android forks. So after the ruling things were looking good for Qwant, with the startup on the cusp of securing a device deal for a few European countries, as Leandri tells it. He blames Google’s licensing changes for putting the kibosh on a launch they’d been expecting to be able to announce in November. Early that month the startup pinged us to trail forthcoming news — of “a major partnership that will allow us to accelerate in the smartphone market” — only to go silent. A few weeks later it got in touch again to say it had had to postpone the announcement. “We are very near to one or two deals to be by default or in the list of search engines in some Android cell phone made by a very large Asian manufacturer… Just for Europe, and just for some countries in Europe but we are talking about 10 million or 20 million of cell phones,” says Leandri now. “And when we have won the bid against Google in October then Google start to say that in Europe you have to pay $40 for Android. So now if you install Qwant you have to pay $40 and if you install Google they give you some cash.” “Before it was impossible to bid against Google because Google was blocking everything. Now you can — but now the solution of Google is you have to pay $40 if you don’t install Google by default with Chrome just on the bar. You know the bar that is fixed on Android. And this is again an abuse of their dominant position,” he adds. “Because if I want, for example, 10 million smartphones, the guy has to pay $400M to Google. Do you really think they will pay $400M to Google just to install Qwant?” Google’s rebuttal of the Commission’s antitrust finding for Android has focused on claims that its approach of free licensing combined with a bundle of Google services has generally enabled competition to thrive in the mobile app ecosystem, as well as claiming lower prices are a “classic hallmark… of robust competition”. Yet Qwant’s experience offers a clear counterpoint, underlining how challenging it remains to try to compete with Google’s core search business when the same company also dominates the smartphone market and can just throw the levers of Android’s licensing terms to configure how much ‘appetite’ OEMs have for investing in alternative search defaults (given tiny hardware profit margins in the Android space). After Qwant won over Huawei to building a device with its search engine in prime position, Leandri says it was Google’s changes to the licensing terms for Android that threw a spanner in the works. “After that pressure then the manufacturer doesn’t know how to react now,” he says, confirming he believes there’s currently no chance for the device to be launched. Not without further changes to how Android operates in the market — i.e. further regulatory intervention. “So we will work a lot with the European Commission to stop that,” he adds. “But again, again my question is why Google goes that way?” We reached out to Google to ask about the fees it would charge an OEM wanting to launch an Android device with Google Play but without Google search as the default in Europe. We also asked how charging a fee for Android if OEMs don’t also bundle Google services can help increase competition, per the Commission’s intention. At the time of writing Google had not responded to our questions. We also reached out to Huawei for comment and will update this story with any response. Even if Qwant and Huawei get their way, and European buyers in a handful of countries are able to choose to buy an Android device with a little search localization as its differentiating out-of-the-box twist, Leandri isn’t under any illusions that a majority of consumers will still switch back to Google of their own accord — given its dominance of search. He reckons those who’d stick with a non-Google search choice might be as low as a third or 40%. But his point is that, as it stands, Qwant doesn’t even have the chance to try competing against the Google Goliath on its own terms. And he argues that’s simply not fair. “Google has billions to make advertisement to ask people to switch, right. And they can even do advertisement on the Play Store for zero because they control the Play Store. Why they don’t come back to a normal market where we are all on the same line and they just compete with advertisement, with pushing their products, with a better proposition of value. It’s crazy, it’s crazy!” he says. “They have 95% of the market, and on that market they expect that if they don’t have the search by default there then they don’t do money with the Play Store. This is bullshit. They do billions of euros with the app on the Play Store each year. With the 30% that they take on the apps. So this is not true. This is not true, sorry. “So right now this is our goal and my main work actually is just to obtain the right to have a fair competition — a simple, fair competition.” “I don’t want to dismantle Google. I don’t want Google to be fined 10BN. I don’t care. The only thing I want is to have the right to have a fair competition,” he adds. We asked the European Commission to respond to Qwant’s experience, and for an update on its monitoring of Google’s compliance with the Android antitrust ruling. A spokeswoman declined to comment on an individual case but we understand the Commission has been sending questionnaires to market players as part of its compliance monitoring. It’s clear the regulator’s intention with the Android decision was to expand consumer choice by creating opportunities for competition that didn’t exist before — including for rival search and browser providers to be able to compete on the merits with Google when it comes to pre-loading their products on Android devices. So if the Commission’s monitoring efforts confirm instances where competition is being blocked, as appears the case here with Qwant, further interventions will surely follow. Leandri also points out that Google made much the same arguments vis-a-vis ‘fair competition’ more than a decade ago — when it called for the then computing incumbent, Microsoft, not to stand in the way of Internet upstarts by bundling MSN search into its Internet Explorer web browser. “The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” said Marissa Mayer in 2006, then Google’s vice president for search products. “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.” “I totally agree with what they say in 2006! Just exchange Microsoft for Google and that’s it!” he says now, adding: “We have to fight because there is not a lot of other way. But I stop fighting tomorrow as soon as I have a fair competition. “I’m not waiting for the Commission to make the competition. Right now the percentage of growth that I have in France it’s not based on the Commission who has won or not. It’s based on our value proposition.” Leandri is also president of the Open Internet Project, a European organization whose members lobby for regulatory action to rein in what they view as Google’s abusive dominance of digital markets, and which was also involved in the Google Shopping complaints — though he points out that in the Android case three of the five complainants are American. “We are the only European. So the problem is not only for a small startup in Europe. Who, y’know, complained because ‘Google is so cool’. And we are so dumb. And so ridiculous. But the problem is for Oracle, it’s for the Fair Search. It’s not for kids.” from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/google-still-claimed-to-be-blocking-search-rivals-on-android-despite-europes-antitrust-action/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181228265916 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com If you’re reading this the year it was written, you’re almost certainly not getting it over 5G. If you’re reading this in the future, congrats, you made it. And hey, remember polar bears? 5G is the latest buzzword to send the mobile industry into a tizzy. This one’s got a particular weight to it, too, given that smartphone sales have started flagging for the first time ever. The fact is that 5G has the power to be a truly transformational technology for smartphones and beyond — assuming we’re not all sick of talking about it by the time it gets here. The first buds have finally begun to show. This morning, AT&T announced that it’s flipping the 5G switch this Friday. And you can take advantage of it if you live in parts of Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio or Waco. And if you pick up the compatible mobile hotspot. That’s already a lot of very important caveats, but Verizon was quick to “clarify” things. The carrier (which, for the record, owns TechCrunch), sent me the following unsolicited statement from Verizon spokesperson Kevin King, upon reading our story. “Welcome to the 5G party, begun by Verizon on October 1, 2018.” Hey, cool, dude.
Now Verizon’s sweet party guy announcement brings to mind this tweet from foul-mouthed T-Mobile CEO John Legere, “I cannot begin to explain how important 5G is going to be for this country, so I have to say congrats to Verizon on delivering its 5G* Home Service today. It doesn’t use global industry standards or cover whole blocks and will never scale… but hey, it is first, right?!” The fact is that standards can be a tricky thing. Verizon launched something called 5G TF, not to be confused with 5G NR, more commonly accepted as the industry’s 5G standard. That’s led many to label VZW’s as something other than “true 5G.” AT&T, meanwhile, is using NR, but an early version of the spec, which will eventually be upgraded via firmware. Verizon, meanwhile, has been transitioning toward the standard. Being first accounts for a lot in this industry, especially with the backdrop of slowing device sales. But the reality for most consumers is that ubiquitous 5G is still a ways off here in the States. And while hardware makers like OnePlus, LG and Samsung have been falling all over themselves to announce a 5G smartphone or two, many consumers who shell out that extra premium are going to be spending a fair amount of time on LTE. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/the-5g-wars-have-entered-the-petty-stage/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181228265801 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Bumble has come up with a new way for its dating app and related businesses to generate revenue. The company this week launched filters — a way to sift through potential matches by a set of specific criteria. For example, Bumble Date users can now filter matches by astrological sign or relationship type, among other things, while those on Bumble BFF or Bumble Bizz can filter matches by interests or industry, respectively. The new feature is meant to save users time by limiting their selection of potential matches to those who are more relevant to their own interests. A dating app user may want to filter out those who are only looking for casual situations, while a business user may want to filter matches based on whether they’re looking for a job, mentor or collaborator, Bumble explains. And on Bumble’s friend-finding platform, Bumble BFF, people may want to filter for people who enjoy the same things they do — like fitness or photography. “We’ve been working internally and with our users to create just the right mix of filters that allow for deeper, more meaningful connections and we’re very pleased with what we’ve developed,” said Alexandra Williamson, Bumble chief of brand, in a statement about the launch. “Whether you’re looking for a new job in media, a new mom friend or a date with a Sagittarius who loves live music, Bumble Filters enable you to tailor your experience in a way that ultimately gives you more control of the kinds of relationships you’re looking to build,” she said. Filtering matches by specific criteria isn’t anything new to dating apps. Other more traditional dating sites, like Match and OkCupid, have offered ways to filter matches, too. But Bumble’s more direct rival Tinder has focused less on filtering and more on speed of moving through matches. It doesn’t let users specify preferences beyond some basics — like location, distance, gender and age. Whether or not filtering actually helps in delivering a good match, however, is less clear. But it’s certainly something people want. Today, many women on dating apps ask men for their height, for instance — so often, in fact, that men began volunteering this information on their profiles, even if the profile doesn’t have a field for height. Often, sober people don’t want to match with people who say they drink regularly. Non-smokers generally want to date the same. And so on. But over-filtering could lead to users missing out — after all, how important is the star sign, really, or whether they have pets? (Allergies notwithstanding, of course.) On the dating side of Bumble, the new filters include height, exercise, star sign, education, drinking, smoking, pets, relationship type, family plans, religion and political leaning. Bumble BFFs can filter for drinking, smoking, exercise and pets, too, as well as type of friendship, relationship status, whether they have kids or if they’re new to the area. And Bumble Bizz users can filter by industry, networking relationship type, education and years of experience. Bumble hopes filters will be an additional stream of revenue for its business, which it said in September was on track for a revenue run rate to $200 million per year. Bumble now claims 46 million users. The company says all users will receive two free filters in Bumble Date, Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz, but additional filters will have to be purchased through Bumble Boost — the premium upgrade that also allows you to see who liked you, extend your matches and rematch expired connections. (Boost’s pricing varies based on the time frame — a week, a month, etc. Its weekly plan is $8.99/week, currently.) Bumble’s filters are available on both iOS and Android. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/bumble-now-lets-you-filter-potential-matches-on-bumble-date-bizz-and-bff/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/181228265706 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com |
AuthorMy name is Alan and I love to read ebooks. Archives
November 2020
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