Matt Damon's pitch to invest in crypto has disappeared from US television sets. Same goes for glitzy commercials starring LeBron James and Tom Brady. From a report: The drop in national TV marketing by the industry in the US has coincided with the selloff in Bitcoin and other crypto assets, according to the TV-ad measurement company ISpot.tv, which tracks the spots. Damon's commercial for Crypto.com, which ends with him uttering "fortune favors the brave," last aired in February during the Super Bowl. The four-month national campaign cost an estimated $65 million, according to ISpot, exceeding the outlays by others in investment services, including giants such as Fidelity and Vanguard, over the same stretch.

"Ad sellers shouldn't expect growth in this vertical the remainder of the year due to the crash in crypto valuations and emerging allegations of fraud among companies in the crypto market," said Eric Haggstrom, director of business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions, an industry researcher. "Crypto has been a boom and bust industry since its inception, and advertising budgets will follow the same trajectory." Spending by major crypto firms, including the trading platforms Crypto.com, Coinbase and FTX, fell to $36,000 in July in the US, according to ISpot. That's the lowest monthly total since January 2021 and is down from a high of $84.5 million in February, when the industry flooded the airwaves around the Super Bowl.

"Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue driver," reports Bloomberg.

The Verge writes that Apple "could eventually bring ads to more of the apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone and other Apple devices, including Maps, Books, and Podcasts." According to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has internally tested search ads in Maps, which could display recommendations when you search for restaurants, stores, or other nearby businesses. Apple already implements a similar advertising model on the App Store, as developers can pay to have their app promoted on a search page for a particular query, like "puzzle games" or "photo editor." As noted by Gurman, ads on Maps could work in the same way, with businesses paying to appear at the top of search results when users enter certain search terms.

Gurman believes that Apple could introduce ads to its native Podcasts and Books apps as well. [Gurman describes this as "likely".] This could potentially allow publishers to place ads in areas within each app, or pay to get their content placed higher in search results. Just like Maps, Podcasts and Books are currently ad-free.... Gurman mentions the potential for advertising on Apple TV Plus, too, and says the company could opt to create a lower-priced ad-supported tier, something both Netflix and Disney Plus plan on doing by the end of this year.
Bloomberg points out that Apple is already displaying ads inside its News app — where some of the money actually goes back to news publishers. ("Apple also lets publishers advertise within their stories and keep the vast majority of that money.")

And while you can disable ad personalization — which 78% of iOS users have done — Bloomberg notes that "Another ironic detail here is that the company's advertising system uses data from its other services and your Apple account to decide which ads to serve. That doesn't feel like a privacy-first policy."

Bloomberg's conclusion? "Now the only question is whether the customers of Apple — a champion of privacy and clean interfaces — are ready to live with a lot more ads."

An ongoing dispute over privacy between Apple and Facebook is roiling the digital economy, leading companies to shift billions in ad spending as users continue to limit the data available to advertisers. The feud took off last year, when Apple rolled out iOS 14.5, a version of its mobile operating system that made it easier than ever for iPhone and iPad users to opt out of letting apps like Facebook track their activity on their devices. The two companies weren't always at odds. In fact, they were almost business partners. From a report: In the years before the change, Apple suggested a series of possible arrangements that would earn the iPhone maker a slice of Facebook's revenue, according to people who either participated in the meetings or were briefed about them. As one person recalled: Apple officials said they wanted to "build businesses together." One idea that was discussed: creating a subscription-based version of Facebook that would be free of ads, according to people familiar with the discussions. Because Apple collects a cut of subscription revenue for apps in its App Store, that product could have generated significant revenue for the Cupertino, Calif., giant.

The companies also haggled over whether Apple was entitled to a piece of Facebook's sales from so-called boosted posts, said people familiar with the matter. A boost allows a user to pay to increase the number of people that see a post on Facebook or Instagram. Facebook, which considers boosts ads, has always contended that boosts are a form of advertising, in part because they are often used by small businesses to reach a bigger audience, said one of the people. Apple, which doesn't take a cut of advertising from developers, argued that Facebook boosts should be considered in-app purchases, according to a person familiar with the matter. Apple's standard terms would entitle it to take a 30% share of those sales.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has been rewriting websites its users visit, letting the company follow them across the web after they click links in its apps, according to new research from an ex-Google engineer. The Guardian reports: The two apps have been taking advantage of the fact that users who click on links are taken to webpages in an "in-app browser," controlled by Facebook or Instagram, rather than sent to the user's web browser of choice, such as Safari or Firefox. "The Instagram app injects their tracking code into every website shown, including when clicking on ads, enabling them [to] monitor all user interactions, like every button and link tapped, text selections, screenshots, as well as any form inputs, like passwords, addresses and credit card numbers," says Felix Krause, a privacy researcher who founded an app development tool acquired by Google in 2017.

Krause discovered the code injection by building a tool that could list all the extra commands added to a website by the browser. For normal browsers, and most apps, the tool detects no changes, but for Facebook and Instagram it finds up to 18 lines of code added by the app. Those lines of code appear to scan for a particular cross-platform tracking kit and, if not installed, instead call the Meta Pixel, a tracking tool that allows the company to follow a user around the web and build an accurate profile of their interests. The company does not disclose to the user that it is rewriting webpages in this way. No such code is added to the in-app browser of WhatsApp, according to Krause's research. [...] It is unclear when Facebook began injecting code to track users after clicking links. "We intentionally developed this code to honor people's [Ask to track] choices on our platforms," a Meta spokesperson told The Guardian in a statement. "The code allows us to aggregate user data before using it for targeted advertising or measurement purposes. We do not add any pixels. Code is injected so that we can aggregate conversion events from pixels."

They added: "For purchases made through the in-app browser, we seek user consent to save payment information for the purposes of autofill."

According to Bloomberg, the Department of Justice is preparing to sue Google as soon as next month, "capping years of work to build a case that the Alphabet unit illegally dominates the digital advertising market." From the report: Lawyers with the DOJ's antitrust division are questioning publishers in another round of interviews to refresh facts and glean additional details for the complaint [...]. Some of the interviews have already taken place and others are scheduled in the coming weeks [...]. They build on previous interrogations conducted during an earlier stage of the long-running investigation [...].

An ad tech complaint, which Bloomberg had reported was in the works last year, would mark the DOJ's second case against Google following the government's 2020 lawsuit alleging the tech titan dominates the online search market in violation of antitrust laws. Still undecided is whether prosecutors will file the case in federal court in Washington, where the search case is pending, or in New York, where state attorneys general have their own antitrust case related to Google's ad tech business [...].

After layoffs at Oracle, Business Insider spoke to current and former employees, learning that some marketing teams reportedly saw their headcount "slashed by anywhere from 30% to 50%."

One former marketing employee complained that "It's just a horrible environment left. It's complete chaos...." "The common verb to describe Oracle's Advertising and Customer Experience team is that they were obliterated," said a person who works at Oracle. Insider was unable to determine exactly how many ACX employees were cut, but one person familiar said it may have reached 80% of the division... "There's no marketing anymore," a senior marketing leader who was laid off on Monday told Insider. "We're not even supposed to say we're in marketing because there is no marketing division...." One recently laid off marketing leader told Insider that their team was cut in half, and no successor has been appointed to take their place. "My team is texting me; they still have no idea who they work for," the person said. "No one told them I was gone, so they're just floating in the wind...."

While the company is known for cutting workers every year, some employees said they were shocked by how many senior, experienced, and high-performing staffers were let go on Monday. For example, Oracle's code base is so complicated that it can take years before engineers are fully up to speed with how everything works, and workers with over a decade of experience were cut, some employees said.

Other employees who were laid off in recent months have said they're furious they were cut before their restricted stock units were scheduled to vest, costing them tens of thousands of dollars in expected compensation. "It's just deplorable," said a recently-laid off marketing leader whose primary compensation package included stock. "I know there were people on medical leave laid off. I know people on parental leave that were laid off."
The article points out that in June Oracle also reported $191 million on restructuring costs for the previous fiscal year — and another $431 million for the year before. ("Oracle did not respond to requests for comment from Insider at the time of publication.")

A recently laid-off marketing employee told the site that "We've been kind of working like zombies the last couple of weeks because there's just this sense of 'What am I doing here?"

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SpzToid for sharing the article.

Visa and Mastercard said Thursday card payments for advertising on Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek would be suspended after a lawsuit stoked controversy over whether the payments giants could be facilitating child pornography. CNBC reports: A federal judge in California on Friday denied Visa's motion to dismiss a lawsuit by a woman who accuses the payment processor of knowingly facilitating the distribution of child pornography on Pornhub and other sites operated by parent company MindGeek. Visa CEO and Chairman Al Kelly said in a statement Thursday that he strongly disagrees with this court and is confident in his position. "Visa condemns sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse," Kelly said. "It is illegal, and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity. Our rules explicitly and unequivocally prohibit the use of our products to pay for content that depicts nonconsensual sexual behavior or child sexual abuse. We are vigilant in our efforts to deter this, and other illegal activity on our network."

Kelly said the court decision created uncertainty about the role of TrafficJunky, MindGeek's advertising arm, and accordingly, the company will suspend its Visa acceptance privileges until further notice. During this suspension, Visa cards will not be able to be used to purchase advertising on any sites, including Pornhub or other MindGeek-affiliated sites, Kelly said. "It is Visa's policy to follow the law of every country in which we do business. We do not make moral judgments on legal purchases made by consumers, and we respect the rightful role of lawmakers to make decisions about what is legal and what is not," Kelly said. "Visa can be used only at MindGeek studio sites that feature adult professional actors in legal adult entertainment."

Separately, Mastercard told CNBC it's directing financial institutions to suspend acceptance of its products at TrafficJunky following the court ruling. "New facts from last week's court ruling made us aware of advertising revenue outside of our view that appears to provide Pornhub with indirect funding," a statement from Mastercard said. "This step will further enforce our December 2020 decision to terminate the use of our products on that site." At that time, Visa also suspended sites that contained user-generated content and acceptance on those sites has not been reinstated.

Kenya's national cohesion watchdog threatened to suspend Facebook from the country Friday if it doesn't mitigate hate speech ahead of the country's general elections next month. From a report: The regulator has given the company one week to remediate the problem, which included Facebook's approval of ads advocating for ethnic cleansing. Human rights organizations and the Facebook whistleblower are calling on Facebook to immediately suspend all advertising in Kenya and take other emergency steps. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), a Kenyan agency founded to mitigate ethnic violence and promote national healing in the wake of the 2007-08 post-election crisis, told reporters on Friday that Facebook was "in violation of the laws of our country."

A Chinese government entity responsible for public relations attempted to open a stealth account on TikTok targeting Western audiences with propaganda, according to internal messages seen by Bloomberg. From a report: The attempt, which met with push-back from TikTok executives, highlights the internal tensions within the fast-growing social media app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which has constantly attempted to distance itself from Chinese state influence. In an April 2020 message addressed to Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok's head of government relations for the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Israel, a colleague flagged a "Chinese government entity that's interested in joining TikTok but would not want to be openly seen as a government account as the main purpose is for promoting content that showcase the best side of China (some sort of propaganda)."

The messages indicate that some of ByteDance's most senior government relations team, including Kanter and US-based Erich Andersen, Global Head of Corporate Affairs and General Counsel, discussed the matter internally but pushed back on the request, which they described as "sensitive." TikTok used the incident to spark an internal discussion about other sensitive requests, the messages state. "We declined to offer support for this request, as we believed the creation of such an account would violate our Community Guidelines," said a TikTok spokeswoman, who downplayed the incident as an informal request from a friend of an employee. TikTok has rules against "coordinated inauthentic behavior," where accounts conceal their true identity to exert influence or sway public opinion, and against political advertising, the spokeswoman said.

Facebook parent company Meta has just reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2022, and it was another quarter of shrinking profits. Engadget reports: Total revenue of $28.8 billion was only down one percent compared to Q2 one year ago, but net income dropped 36 percent to $6.7 billion. Making almost $7 billion in profit is not a bad quarter for anyone, but the size of the decline compared to a year ago is pretty significant. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, this is the first-ever drop in revenue for Meta / Facebook -- so even though we're only talking one percent, it's still noteworthy.

Revenue from advertising and Meta's "family of apps" was essentially flat year-over-year, and Reality Labs (home to hardware like the Meta Quest and other metaverse-related initiatives) actually grew 48 percent year-over-year to $452 million. But Reality Labs accounted for a $2.8 billion loss this quarter, a 15 percent larger loss than Q2 one year ago. At this rate, it seems likely that Reality Labs will lose Meta more than the $10 billion it cost the company in 2021. Indeed, the company said it expects Reality Labs revenue to be lower in the third quarter. [...] In June, Meta said that it had 2.88 billion daily active users in its family of apps (which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) and 3.65 billion monthly active users, both of which are up four percent compared to a year ago. Facebook-specific growth was smaller, though -- average daily and monthly users only increased three percent and one percent, respectively. Further reading: FTC Files To Block Meta's Virtual Reality Deal

Snap announced plans to "substantially reduce" hiring and shake up its strategy as it posted bleak second-quarter results, blaming tough macroeconomic conditions but also stating it was "not satisfied with the resultsâ... regardless of the current headwinds." From a report: The social media company lost about a quarter of its value on Thursday after posting the results, which chief executive Evan Spiegel said "do not reflect our ambition." Revenues at the Los Angeles-based social media company increased 13 per cent to $1.11bn in the three months to the end of June, just shy of analysts' consensus of $1.13bn. Net losses stood at $422mn, a drop of 178 per cent year-on-year and far greater than analyst estimates of losses of $340mn, according to data compiled by S&P Capital IQ.

[...] Spiegel said that Snap planned to focus on product innovation, diversifying revenue and investment in its direct response advertising business in order to address the slowdown. In a letter to investors on Thursday, Snap said that brands were slashing digital advertising budgets due to the wider economic slowdown and inflationary pressures, as well as privacy changes by Apple that have made it harder to target advertising and measure the success of campaigns. It also said business had been hurt by increased competition, as new entrants such as Chinese-owned TikTok take market share.

After Netflix reported losing subscribers for the first time in over a decade last quarter, the company's Q2 earnings report revealed (PDF) the number of worldwide subscribers dipped by 1 million, including a drop of 1.28 million in the US and Canada alone. The Verge reports: That's better than its projection of losing 2 million worldwide, but the subscriber shortfall in the US and Canada is double the 600,000 drop it reported for Q1. Netflix now reports it has 73.28 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada, and 220.67 million worldwide.

Revenue increased 9 percent year over year from $7.3 billion in 2021 to $7.97 billion this quarter. Although the streamer ran into a couple of hiccups in recent months, including two separate layoffs affecting hundreds of workers, there was some good news. The season 4 release of Stranger Things boosted the series to the second most-watched show on the service, trailing behind the Korean-language hit Squid Game, which Netflix announced in June will be returning for a second season. Last week, Netflix announced a partnership with Microsoft on a new lower priced ad-supported subscription plan that it expects to launch by early next year. Netflix execs remain optimistic about the prospect of an ad-supported tier, noting that "over the long run, we think advertising can enable substantial incremental membership (through lower prices) and profit growth (through ad revenues)."

The company also recently began its crackdown on password sharing by creating an "extra member" fee for users who share accounts with people they don't live with. "The extra member fee of about $2 to $3 per month was implemented in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, with Netflix saying it would evaluate the rollout before making changes in other countries," reports Ars Technica.

Denmark is effectively banning Google's services in schools, after officials in the municipality of Helsingor were last year ordered to carry out a risk assessment around the processing of personal data by Google. TechCrunch reports: In a verdict published last week, Denmark's data protection agency, Datatilsynet, revealed that data processing involving students using Google's cloud-based Workspace software suite -- which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and Google Drive -- "does not meet the requirements" of the European Union's GDPR data privacy regulations. Specifically, the authority found that the data processor agreement -- or Google's terms and conditions -- seemingly allow for data to be transferred to other countries for the purpose of providing support, even though the data is ordinarily stored in one of Google's EU data centers.

Google's Chromebook laptops, and by extension Google Workspace, are used in schools across Denmark. But Datatilsynet focused specifically on Helsingor for the risk assessment after the municipality reported a "breach of personal data security" back in 2020. While this latest ruling technically only applies to schools in Helsingor for now, Datatilsynet notes that many of the conclusions it has reached will "probably apply to other municipalities" that use Google Chromebooks and Workspace. It added that it expects these other municipalities "to take relevant steps" off the back of the decision it reached in Helsingor. The ban is effective immediately, but Helsingor has until August 3 to delete user data. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement: "We know that students and schools expect the technology they use to be legally compliant, responsible, and safe. That's why for years, Google has invested in privacy best practices and diligent risk assessments, and made our documentation widely available so anyone can see how we help organizations to comply with the GDPR.

Schools own their own data. We only process their data in accordance with our contracts with them. In Workspace for Education, students' data is never used for advertising or other commercial purposes. Independent organizations have audited our services, and we keep our practices under constant review to maintain the highest possible standards of safety and compliance."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The Trump administration's immigration enforcers used mobile location data to track people's movements on a larger scale than previously known, according to documents that raise new questions about federal agencies' efforts to get around restrictions on warrantless searches. The data, harvested from apps on hundreds of millions of phones, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to obtain data on more than 336,000 location data points across North America, the documents show. Those data points may reference only a small portion of the information that CBP has obtained.

These data points came from all over the continent, including in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Denver, Toronto and Mexico City. This location data use has continued into the Biden administration, as Customs and Border Protection renewed a contract for $20,000 into September 2021, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed another contract in November 2021 that lasts until June 2023. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the records from DHS through a lawsuit it filed in 2020. It provided the documents to POLITICO and separately released them to the public on Monday.

The documents highlight conversations and contracts between federal agencies and the surveillance companies Babel Street and Venntel. Venntel alone boasts that its database includes location information from more than 250 million devices. The documents also show agency staff having internal conversations about privacy concerns on using phone location data. In just three days in 2018, the documents show that the CBP collected data from more than 113,000 locations from phones in the Southwestern United States -- equivalent to more than 26 data points per minute -- without obtaining a warrant. The documents highlight the massive scale of location data that government agencies including CBP and ICE received, and how the agencies sought to take advantage of the mobile advertising industry's treasure trove of data. "It was definitely a shocking amount," said Shreya Tewari, the Brennan fellow for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "It was a really detailed picture of how they can zero in on not only a specific geographic area, but also a time period, and how much they're collecting and how quickly."

Two members of the U.S. Congress urged America's Federal Trade Commission "to address deceptive practices in the Virtual Private Network industry," reports the Verge: With abortion becoming illegal or restricted in several states, more people are looking to conceal their messages and search history, as police can use this information to prosecute someone seeking the procedure. In their letter, Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Senator Ron Wyden ask the FTC to clamp down on VPN providers that engage in deceptive advertising, or make false assertions about the range of their service's privacy. The lawmakers cite research from Consumer Reports that indicate 75 percent of the most popular VPNs "misrepresented their products" or made misleading claims that could give "abortion-seekers a false sense of security." Eshoo and Wyden also call attention to reports accusing various VPN services of misusing user data, as well as "a lack of practical tools or independent research to audit VPN providers' security claims...."

"We urge the Federal Trade Commission to take immediate action... to curtail abusive and deceptive data practices in companies providing VPN services to protect internet users seeking abortions." Eshoo and Wyden also ask that the FTC develop a brochure that informs anyone seeking an abortion about online privacy, as well as outlines the risks and benefits of using a VPN.

CNN reports: An "unsubscribe" option that's a little too hard to find. A tiny box you click, thinking it simply takes you to the next page, but it also grants access to your data. And any number of unexpected charges that appear during checkout that weren't made clearer earlier in the process. Countless popular websites and apps, from retailers and travel services to social media companies, make use of so-called "dark patterns," or gently coercive design tactics that critics say are used to manipulate peoples' digital behaviors.

The term "dark patterns" was coined by Harry Brignull, a U.K.-based user experience specialist and researcher of human-computer interactions. Brignull began noticing that when he reported to one of his clients that most test subjects felt deceived by an aspect of their website or app design, the client seemed to welcome the feedback. "That was always intriguing for me as a researcher, because normally the name of the game is to find the flaws and fix them," Brignull told CNN Business. "Now we're finding 'flaws' that the client seems to like, and want to keep."

To put it in the parlance of Silicon Valley, he realized it was a feature, not a bug....

Brignull, for his part, said he has spent time testifying as an expert witness in some class action lawsuits related to dark patterns in the UK. "The scams don't work when the victim knows what the scammer is trying to do," Brignull said. "If they know what the scam is, then they're not going to get taken in — and that's why I've enjoyed so much exposing these things, and showing it to other consumers."
The article notes that America's Federal Trade Commission "is ramping up its enforcement in response to 'a rising number of complaints about the financial harms caused by deceptive sign-up tactics, including unauthorized charges or ongoing billing that is impossible cancel.'"

Netflix: In April we announced that we will introduce a new lower priced ad-supported subscription plan for consumers, in addition to our existing ads-free basic, standard and premium plans. Today we are pleased to announce that we have selected Microsoft as our global advertising technology and sales partner. Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering. More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members. It's very early days and we have much to work through. But our long term goal is clear. More choice for consumers and a premium, better-than-linear TV brand experience for advertisers. We're excited to work with Microsoft as we bring this new service to life.

The number of users on Wish has plummeted, and its stock price has dropped. Former employees point to an emphasis on short-term growth over customer service. From a report: There were unbelievable bargains on "bestdeeal9," a store hosted on the e-commerce platform Wish, including a $2,700 smart TV being sold for $1 and a gaming computer advertised for $1.30. But none of the offers were real, and Wish knew it. The company, an online novelty emporium that had more than $2 billion in sales last year by dangling hard-to-believe discounts, created "bestdeeal9" as an experiment. Listings that had been removed for violating Wish policies were reposted on "bestdeeal9" and used in part to track whether shoppers complained when their orders never arrived. Employees working on the project repeatedly pushed executives to take down the store, arguing that it was both illegal and unethical, according to three employees familiar with the project who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss company matters. More than 213,000 people made purchases from the store, according to an internal document reviewed by The New York Times, though the document did not say how many received their items.

Tarek Fahmy, then the senior vice president of engineering in charge of the project, ended it in 2020 after it operated for several months, the employees said. Mr. Fahmy, who has since left Wish, did not respond to requests for comment. Wish declined to comment on "bestdeeal9." Several employees said "bestdeeal9" is indicative of the kind of practices -- giving priority to short-term growth over customer service -- that initially turned Wish into an advertising and retail behemoth but have now left it desperately trying to right itself. Since its founding in 2010, Wish had many of the hallmarks of a classic Silicon Valley success story: started by a young coder and his college friend, rumored to have turned down a $10 billion acquisition offer from Amazon and described by Recode as an app "that could be the next Walmart." It developed a reputation as the dollar store of the internet, shipping odd gimcracks and thingamajigs directly from vendors in China. It blitzed shoppers with viral online ads for $1 plastic tongue clamps, $3 "leather face diapers" for cats and a $2 handful of worms.

[...] Peter Szulczewski, the company's former chief executive, once compared Wish's success to Donald J. Trump's 2016 election victory, explaining that both the company and the candidate had appealed to "the invisible half" of Americans who were routinely overlooked by political pundits and Silicon Valley elites. But Wish squandered its early promise, according to interviews with nine former employees. Deceptive experiments like "bestdeeal9" drove customers away, as did low product standards and unreliable shipping. When the rising cost of ads forced it to scale back its marketing, the company struggled to attract new shoppers. Wish is now scrambling to turn itself around. The company declined to make its newly hired crop of executives available but said in a statement that "over the past six months, Wish has undergone a massive transformation." The company said: "We have already seen significant traction and remain committed to executing against our priorities and building a long-term platform for growth."

Twitter removes more than 1 million spam accounts each day, executives told reporters in a briefing on Thursday, providing new insight into efforts to reduce harmful automated bots as billionaire Elon Musk has demanded more details from the social media company. Reuters reports: The briefing comes after Musk threatened to halt a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter unless the company showed proof that spam and bot accounts were fewer than 5% of users who see advertising on the social media service. Musk previously tweeted that one of his biggest priorities after acquiring Twitter is to "defeat the spam bots or die trying."

On a conference call, the company reiterated that spam accounts were well under 5% of users who are served advertising, a figure that has been unchanged in its public filings since 2013. Human reviewers manually examine thousands of Twitter accounts at random and use a combination of public and private data in order to calculate and report to shareholders the proportion of spam and bot accounts on the service, Twitter said. The company said it does not believe a calculation of such accounts could be performed externally because it would require private information, but declined to comment on the type of data it would provide to Musk.

A Google-backed ad company called Glance is looking to launch in the US, and it brings media content, news, and casual games to Android lock screens. Android Police reports: If you're not familiar with Glance, you can count yourself lucky. The lock screen platform is part of the pre-installed software on many, if not most, Android phones sold in India and other Asian markets, and it has also made its way to the EU on a few select brands. Glance says that since it was launched in 2019, it has become part of over 400 million sold smartphones. The service has taken it upon itself to monetize the lock screen, pushing news and ad feeds right into people's faces before they even unlock their phones. It's a subsidiary of Indian advertising behemoth InMobi, focusing on mobile-first ads.

According to a TechCrunch report, the service is looking to launch in the US within the next two months. The company is negotiating with US carriers to look into partnerships and to become part of the out-of-the-box experience of "several smartphone models by next month." In contrast to Asia, where the company is working directly with smartphone manufacturers, Glance seems to focus on carriers in the US. This makes sense, given the iron grip mobile operators have on the smartphone market.

Based on my experience with Glance on a few Vivo review units (like the Vivo X80 Pro), the lock screen feed tries hard to become part of your routine. Occasional notifications and swipe suggestions on the lock screen nudge you to interact with it. Once you give in and open the feed, it will override your lock screen wallpaper with its content, making you change back to your preferred wallpaper manually. [...] As for the US launch, there is no word on what exactly the feed is going to look like. We would expect a healthy middle ground between the Indian and the European version in the beginning as to not put off people, though it wouldn't be surprising if the company quickly turns things up given that consumer protection is weaker in the US than in the EU. One thing is certain: An entry in the US market will give Glance the opportunity to access users with more money to spend than many in Asian countries. This should allow Glance to ask advertisers for higher prices, allowing the company to grow even faster.