An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The European Commission will require 19 large online platforms and search engines to comply with new online content regulations starting on August 25, European officials said. The EC specified which companies must comply with the rules for the first time, announcing today that it "adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services Act." Five of the 19 platforms are run by Google, specifically YouTube, Google Search, the Google Play app and digital media store, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram are on the list, as are Amazon's online store, Apple's App Store, Microsoft's Bing search engine, TikTok, Twitter, and Wikipedia. These platforms were designated because they each reported having over 45 million active users in the EU as of February 17. The other listed platforms are Alibaba AliExpress, Booking.com, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and German online retailer Zalando.

Companies have four months to comply with the full set of new obligations and could face fines of up to 6 percent of a provider's annual revenue. One new rule is a ban on advertisements that target users based on sensitive data such as ethnic origin, political opinions, or sexual orientation. There are new content moderation requirements, transparency rules, and protections for minors. For example, "targeted advertising based on profiling towards children is no longer permitted," the EC said. Companies will have to provide their first annual risk assessment on August 25, and their risk mitigation plans will be subject to independent audits and oversight by the European Commission. "Platforms will have to identify, analyze and mitigate a wide array of systemic risks ranging from how illegal content and disinformation can be amplified on their services, to the impact on the freedom of expression and media freedom," the EC said. "Similarly, specific risks around gender-based violence online and the protection of minors online and their mental health must be assessed and mitigated." The new requirements for the 19 platforms include:
- Users will get clear information on why they are recommended certain information and will have the right to opt-out from recommendation systems based on profiling;
- Users will be able to report illegal content easily and platforms have to process such reports diligently; - Platforms need to label all ads and inform users on who is promoting them;
- Platforms need to provide an easily understandable, plain-language summary of their terms and conditions, in the languages of the Member States where they operate.

Platforms will be required to "analyze their specific risks, and put in place mitigation measures -- for instance, to address the spread of disinformation and inauthentic use of their service," the EC said. They will also "have to redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety to minors."

More than half the public would like to see a ban on gambling advertising, according to a new poll taken as ministers prepare to unveil an overhaul of the industry. In the survey, carried out for the charity Gambling with Lives, 52% of respondents said they supported a ban on all gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and nearly two-thirds wanted new limits on online stakes. From a report: Ministers are expected to reject a blanket ban on gambling advertising in a white paper that could be published this week. The Premier League recently announced that its clubs would end shirt sponsorship by gambling firms by the end of the 2025/26 season.

Will Prochaska of Gambling with Lives, which supports families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, said: "This poll displays the strength of public sentiment on gambling advertising. The Premier League's decision to remove ads from shirts but leave them all over stadiums and across broadcasts, is a cynical attempt to avoid regulation. This data shows the public won't be tricked into thinking it's enough. If gambling reforms fail to significantly restrict gambling advertising, they'll be woefully out of step with a public that expects action." The Survation poll of 1,009 adults found that 68% of respondents thought under-18s should not be exposed to gambling advertising, 64% supported affordability checks for those wanting to bet more than $124 a month, and 60% saw gambling as a danger to family life.

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee in Sacramento is expected to consider a new bill called "The Delete Act," or SB 362, which aims to give Californians the power to block data tracking. "The onus is on individuals to try to protect their data from an estimated 2,000-4,000 data brokers worldwide -- many of which have no other relationship with consumers beyond the trade in their data," reports KQED. "This lucrative trade is also known as surveillance advertising, or the 'ad tech' industry." From the report: EFF supports The Delete Act, or SB 362, by state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the Peninsula. "I want to be able to hit that delete button and delete my personal information, delete the ability of these data brokers to collect and track me," said Becker, of his second attempt to pass such a bill. "These data brokers are out there analyzing, selling personal information. You know, this is a way to put a stop to it."

Tracy Rosenberg, a data privacy advocate with Media Alliance and Oakland Privacy, said she anticipates a lot of pushback from tech companies, because "making [the Delete Act] workable probably destroys their businesses as most of us, by now, don't really see the value in the aggregating and sale of our data on the open market by third parties... "It is a pretty basic-level philosophical battle about whether your personal information is, in fact, yours to share as you see appropriate and when it is personally beneficial to you, or whether it is property to be bought and sold," Rosenberg said.

An anonymous reader shared this recent report from Bloomberg: Amazon continued blocking sellers from offering lower prices on rival sites, despite assuring antitrust enforcers it ended its policy that artificially inflated prices for consumers, according to newly unsealed filings in California's antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce giant.

The Seattle-based company planned to expand penalties on sellers who presented lower prices outside Amazon, even after it claimed in 2019 that it stopped punishing third-party merchants who posted better deals on Walmart, Target, eBay, and, in some instances, their own websites, according to previously redacted portions of the suit that were made public.
The newly unsealed filings include an internal document in which Amazon states point-blank that despite "the recent removal of the price parity clause in our Business Solutions Agreement... our expectations and policies have not changed."

"Many of the complaint's allegations are inaccurate," an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We look forward to presenting the facts to the court." California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking a court order blocking Amazon from continuing to engage in what he alleged is anticompetitive behavior, as well as compensation for consumers in the most populous U.S. state. A similar suit filed by Washington, D.C., was dismissed in 2021...

The 2022 suit came three years after Bloomberg reported that the company's policies were forcing sellers to charge more on competing sites like Walmart because Amazon would bury their products in search results if they offered lower prices elsewhere...

California's probe into Amazon's practices also highlighted concerns that ads on the platform are unhelpful for customers.

Amazon advertising revenue grew 19% in the fourth quarter, to $11.6 billion. The fast-growing revenue source helps prop up Amazon's otherwise low-margin online retail business that carries the high expense of operating warehouses around the country and delivering orders to shoppers' homes.
California's attorney general issued an official statement arguing that Amazon "has orchestrated the substantial market power it now enjoys through agreements at the retail and wholesale level that prevent effective price competition in the online retail marketplace." And it includes this fierce denunciation attributed directly to attorney general Bonta:

"As California families struggle to make ends meet, we're in court to stop Amazon from engaging in anticompetitive practices that keep prices artificially high and stifle competition. There is no shortage of evidence showing that the 'Everything store' is costing consumers more for just about everything. Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can't afford to say no. With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases. This perpetuates Amazon's market dominance, allowing the company to make increasingly untenable demands on its merchants and costing consumers more at checkout across California. We won't stand by while Amazon uses coercive contracting practices to dominate the market at the expense of California consumers, small business owners, and the economy."

Alphabet's Google asked a court late Thursday to toss out several allegations made by Epic, Match and U.S. state attorneys general about how the search and advertising giant runs its app store for Android phones. From a report: Google's motion is the company's latest bid to end costly and time-consuming antitrust lawsuits. It has also asked a federal court in Washington to dismiss claims in a 2020 antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. And it has asked a federal court in Virginia to dismiss a complaint that the federal government filed this year. read more read more "Google looks forward to vindicating itself at trial and defending the innovation that made Android successful," the company said in its filing, noting that it had brought a "targeted motion for partial summary judgment, which will narrow this sprawling antitrust case for trial." In its court filing in federal court in Utah on Thursday, Google asked that five claims be thrown out. Among them, it asked the court to toss out allegations that Google prohibited the distribution of other app stores and, thus, broke the law. Google argued it does not have a legal obligation to put other app stores in Android and, in fact, most Android phones come preloaded with more than one app store and others can be installed.

Google plans to introduce generative artificial intelligence into its advertising business over the coming months, as Big Tech groups rush to incorporate the groundbreaking technology into their products. From a report: According to an internal presentation to advertisers seen by the Financial Times, the Alphabet-owned company intends to begin using the AI to create novel advertisements based on materials produced by human marketers. "Generative AI is unlocking a world of creativity," the company said in the presentation, titled "AI-powered ads 2023." Google already uses AI in its advertising business to create simple prompts that encourage users to buy products. However, the integration of its latest generative AI, which also powers its Bard chatbot, means it will be able to produce far more sophisticated campaigns resembling those created by marketing agencies.

According to the presentation, advertisers can supply "creative" content such as imagery, video, and text relating to a particular campaign. The AI will then "remix" this material to generate ads based on the audience it aims to reach, as well as other goals such as sales targets. One person familiar with Google's presentation said they were worried the tool could spread misinformation, because text produced by AI chatbots can confidently state falsehoods. "It is optimized to convert new customers and has no idea what the truth is," the person said. Google told the FT it planned to put firm guardrails in place to prevent such errors, known as "hallucinations," when it rolls out its new generative AI features in the coming months.

Microsoft is heading further down the path of advertising its own services in Windows 11, with different ads now popping up in the Start menu. From a report: To be precise, this is Windows 11 preview build 23435, which was just released to the Dev channel. As Microsoft puts it: "We are continuing the exploration of badging on the Start menu with several new treatments for users logging in with local user accounts to highlight the benefits of signing in with a Microsoft account (MSA)." So, the translation of this is that 'badging' is essentially advertising ('badgering' would perhaps be more accurate), and it's something we've recently seen with Windows 11 urging users to perform a cloud backup (in OneDrive).

In this new preview build, the prodding stick is being employed to nudge those who haven't enlisted for a Microsoft Account (who remain using a local account) into signing up for an MSA. Compared to the previous cloud backup prompt on the Start menu, it's even clearer that this is advertising because it's fully selling the benefits of having a Microsoft account. For example, Microsoft tells you how hooking your Windows 11 installation into an MSA will ensure that your PC is kept backed up and more secure, or that it'll keep your settings synced across multiple devices.

Online tax-filing services from TurboTax and H&R Block "want to blab your tax return secrets," warns the Washington Post. "Why? To help them make more money." If you prepare your taxes online with TurboTax or H&R Block software, at some point you'll see a message that I found confusing. "We can help you do more," TurboTax says. In this case, that "help" is funneling the private information from your tax return to Intuit — the company that owns TurboTax, Credit Karma and accounting software QuickBooks. H&R Block offers to "personalize your H&R Block experience."

If you say yes, you're going to see email and other marketing from Intuit and H&R Block or its business partners that are tailored to what's in your tax return.

That might include how much money you make, how much you owe in student loans, the size of your tax return and your charitable contributions. For example, a credit card company might pay Intuit's Credit Karma to show offers to high-income people. Intuit knows that information from your tax return. The Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler wrote last year about how these two companies grab for your secret tax return information. He dubbed it "the Facebook-ization of personal finance."

In a way, the tax prep companies are more aggressive than Facebook. What they're doing is mission creep. You might already be paying TurboTax and H&R Block to prepare or file your tax return. Now they also want your permission to pass along your secrets to make even more money off you.

The French Competition Authority is likely to move forward soon with an antitrust investigation into Apple over complaints tied to 2021 changes to its app tracking policies, Axios reported, citing sources. From the report: A formal investigation would mark the first major government move taken globally against Apple related to privacy rule changes that upended the digital advertising world. French regulators are favoring issuing a formal "Statement of Objections" to parties involved in the matter in coming weeks, sources told Axios.

That step would signal to groups that issued initial complaints about Apple's actions and Apple that the authority found evidence of illegal anticompetitive behavior in its initial review of the complaints it received. The 2020 complaint argues that Apple's app tracking changes did not adequately adhere to European Union privacy rules and that Apple failed to hold itself to the same ad targeting standards that it forced on its competitors because it targeted iOS users with ads from app tracking data. The complaint was filed jointly by four French advertising trade groups -- IAB France, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), SRI and UDECAM.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved a final consent order in its first-ever enforcement action over a case involving "review hijacking," or when a marketer steals consumer reviews of another product to boost the sales of its own. TechCrunch reports: In this case, the FTC has ordered supplements retailer The Bountiful Company, the maker of Nature's Bounty vitamins and other brands, to pay $600,000 for deceiving customers on Amazon where it used a feature to merge the reviews of different products to make some appear to have better ratings and reviews than they otherwise would have had if marketed under their own listings. The case exposes how sellers have been exploiting an Amazon feature that allows sellers to request the creation of "variation" relationships between different products and SKUs. The feature is meant to help marketers and consumers alike as it creates a single detail page on Amazon.com that shows similar products that are different only in narrow, specific ways, the FTC explains -- like items that come in a different color, size, quantity or flavor. For instance, a t-shirt may have a dozen SKUs associated with one another because the shirt comes in a wide variety of colors.

For shoppers, it's helpful to see all the options on one page so you can pick the item that best matches your needs and budget. In the case of supplements, the feature could be used to combine the same products by merging various SKUs featuring different quantities of the item in question, like bottles with 50, 100 or 200 pills, for example. However, The Bountiful Company exploited Amazon's feature to merge its newer products with older, well-established products which had different formulations, the FTC said. The FTC cited and screenshotted more than a dozen examples from 2020 and 2021 in its original complaint (PDF) against the vitamin and supplement maker, which in 2021 sold its core brands -- including Nature's Bounty and Sundown -- to Nestle. As a result of these product merges, consumers who happened across any of the newer products would believe them to be better received than they were in reality, as they were benefiting from the merged ratings and reviews of other, differentiated items.

"Boosting your products by hijacking another product's ratings or reviews is a relatively new tactic, but is still plain old false advertising," Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said this February when the consent order was first announced ahead of its public comment period and finalized version. With today's decision, Bountiful will have to pay the Commission $600,000 as monetary relief for consumers. It's also prohibited from making similar types of misrepresentations and barred from using "deceptive review tactics that distort what consumers think about its products or services," the FTC said in a unanimous 4-0 decision.

Facebook owner Meta intends to commercialize its proprietary generative artificial intelligence by December, joining Google in finding practical applications for the tech. From a report: The company, which began full-scale AI research in 2013, stands out along with Google in the number of studies published. "We've been investing in artificial intelligence for over a decade, and have one of the leading research institutes in the world," Andrew Bosworth, Meta's chief technology officer, told Nikkei in an exclusive interview on Wednesday in Tokyo. "We certainly have a large research organization, hundreds of people." Meta announced in February that it would establish a new organization to develop generative AI, but this is the first time it has indicated a timeline for commercialization. The technology, which can instantly create sentences and graphics, has already been commercialized by ChatGPT creator OpenAI of the U.S. But Bosworth insists Meta remains on the technology's cutting edge.

"We feel very confident that ... we are at the very forefront," he said. "Quite a few of the techniques that are in large language model development were pioneered [by] our teams. "[I] expect we'll start seeing some of them [commercialization of the tech] this year. We just created a new team, the generative AI team, a couple of months ago; they are very busy. It's probably the area that I'm spending the most time [in], as well as Mark Zuckerberg and [Chief Product Officer] Chris Cox." Bosworth believes Meta's artificial intelligence can improve an ad's effectiveness partly by telling the advertiser what tools to use in making it. He said that instead of a company using a single image in an advertising campaign, it can "ask the AI, 'Make images for my company that work for different audiences.' And it can save a lot of time and money."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: For years, online alcohol recovery startups Monument and Tempest were sharing with advertisers the personal information and health data of their patients without their consent. Monument, which acquired Tempest in 2022, confirmed the extensive years-long leak of patients' information in a data breach notification filed with California's attorney general last week, blaming their use of third-party tracking systems developed by ad giants including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Pinterest. When reached for comment, Monument CEO Mike Russell confirmed more than 100,000 patients are affected.

In its disclosure, the companies confirmed their use of website trackers, which are small snippets of code that share with tech giants information about visitors to their websites, and often used for analytics and advertising. The data shared with advertisers includes patient names, dates of birth, email and postal addresses, phone numbers and membership numbers associated with the companies and patients' insurance provider. The data also included the person's photo, unique digital ID, which services or plan the patient is using, appointment information and assessment and survey responses submitted by the patient, which includes detailed responses about a person's alcohol consumption and used to determine their course of treatment.

Monument's own website says these survey answers are "protected" and "used only" by its care team. Monument confirmed that it shared patients' sensitive data with advertisers since January 2020, and Tempest since November 2017. Both companies say they have removed the tracking code from their websites. But the tech giants are not obligated to delete the data that Monument and Tempest shared with them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is "exploring" putting ads in the responses given by Bing Chat, its new search agent powered by OpenAI's GPT-4. Microsoft confirmed this is happening, albeit in an experimental form, in a blog post published today. Here's the relevant bit from the very end after "a bit of context" explaining no one should be surprised: "We are also exploring additional capabilities for publishers including our more than 7,500 Microsoft Start partner brands. We recently met with some of our partners to begin exploring ideas and to get feedback on how we can continue to distribute content in a way that is meaningful in traffic and revenue for our partners.

As we look to continue to evolve the model together, we shared some early ideas we're exploring including:

- An expanded hover experience where hovering over a link from a publisher will display more links from that publisher giving the user more ways to engage and driving more traffic to the publisher's website.
- For our Microsoft Start partners, placing a rich caption of Microsoft Start licensed content beside the chat answer helping to drive more user engagement with the content on Microsoft Start where we share the ad revenue with the partner. We're also exploring placing ads in the chat experience to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response."

After launching My Ad Center last fall, Google is now introducing the Ads Transparency Center as a "searchable hub of all ads served from verified advertisers." 9to5Google reports: The Ads Transparency Center will let you view all the advertisements a company has run using Google's networks. Each ad includes the date it last ran, format (text, video, etc.), and what region (country) it was shown in: "For example, imagine you're seeing an ad for a skincare product you're interested in, but you don't recognize the brand, or you're curious to understand if you recognize other ads from this brand. With the Ads Transparency Center, you can look up the advertiser and learn more about them before purchasing or visiting their site."

You can search by advertiser (with approximate ad quantity noted) or website, with filters for topics, time, and country. Once an advertiser is selected, Google will show the feed of ads with the ability to select for more details. You'll be able to access it directly here or from the My Ad Center, which lets you customize advertising that appears in Search, Discover, Shopping, and YouTube.

Toronto-based Feroot Security "found that so-called tracking pixels from the TikTok parent company were present in 30 U.S. state-government websites across 27 states," reports the Wall Street Journal, "including some where the app has been banned from state networks and devices." The review was performed in January and February. The presence of that code means that U.S. state governments around the country are inadvertently participating in a data-collection effort for a foreign-owned company, one that senior Biden administration officials and lawmakers of both parties have said could be harmful to U.S. national security and the privacy of Americans.

Administrators who manage government websites use such pixels to help measure the effectiveness of advertising they have purchased on TikTok.... The presence of the TikTok tracking code on government websites underlines the challenge for those who deem the China-owned app a potential data-security threat. Lawmakers in both parties are considering a nationwide ban, but simply uprooting the app from U.S. smartphones wouldn't stop all data-tracking activities....

Feroot found that the average website it studied had more than 13 embedded pixels. Google's were far and away the most common, with 92% of websites examined having some sort of Google tracking pixel embedded. About 50% of the websites the firm examined had Microsoft Corp. or Facebook pixels. TikTok had a presence in less than 10% of sites examined.

Twitch announced plans to lay off 400 employees at the company. It comes just days after longtime Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said that he would step down from the company to spend time with his family. TechCrunch reports: The layoffs will affect 400 employees at the company and were characterized as an effort to improve Twitch's business outlook in the long term. The reduction is part of Twitch parent company Amazon's plans to let go of 9,000 workers across divisions including its AWS cloud and advertising units.

"Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations," new Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote. "In order to run our business sustainably, we've made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce." While Twitch is still a platform on the upswing, both in terms of its community and its massive cultural impact, the company likely struggled to match its early pandemic highs -- a familiar story we're seeing play out across the tech industry. Further reading: What's Different About These Tech Industry Layoffs?

Amazon is cutting another 9,000 jobs, chief executive Andy Jassy wrote to employees in a memo on Monday. The move, which impacts roles in AWS, PXT, Advertising and Twitch, comes weeks after the e-commerce group said it would eliminate 18,000 jobs. Jassy: As part of our annual planning process, leaders across the company work with their teams to decide what investments they want to make for the future, prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses. For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount. The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers' lives and Amazon as a whole.

Gizmodo reports that Amazon "is thinking about releasing a web browser, a boring-sounding project that could have massive implications." The company has sent a survey to users asking detailed questions, including which features would "convince you to download and try" a "new desktop/laptop browser from Amazon...."

The survey asked a variety of questions. Most telling was the last question: "Imagine that there is a new desktop/laptop browser from Amazon available to do. Select which of the following you would most like to know more about." The survey went on to list topics such as privacy, syncing passwords across devices, and shopping features.... Users were asked to rate the importance of features including text to speech, extensions, the availability to sync data across desktop and mobile devices, and — notably — blocking third party cookies.

Amazon seems to be seriously considering a web browser of its own, and it comes at a time when it would have an unusual impact on the advertising business. The ad industry is bracing for cataclysmic change as Google moves closer to killing third-party cookies in Chrome, the world's most popular web browser, which would kneecap one of the primary ways businesses track consumers for ads.... Part of what makes Amazon so attractive to marketers is the fact that the company sits on a treasure trove of data about what consumers are buying and what their shopping habits are like. If Amazon could match that information with the data collection that comes from a web browser, it could tip the scales of internet advertising in favor of the retail giant.
One thing Amazon asked users is whethered they'd be convinced to download and try a browser if it offered "AI-enabled tab, history, and bookmarks management to automatically sort these into categories for quick search and retrieval."

The Brazilian government is studying whether to regulate Internet platforms with content that earns revenue such as advertising, its secretary for digital policies, Joao Brant, said on Friday. Reuters reports: The idea would be for a regulator to hold such platforms, not consumers, accountable for monetized content, Brant told Reuters. Another goal is "to prevent the networks from being used for the dissemination and promotion of crimes and illegal content" especially after the riots by supporters of former far-right President JairBolsonaro in Brasilia in January, fueled by misinformation about the election he lost in October.

Brant said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government also intends to make companies responsible for stopping misinformation, hate speech and other crimes on their social media platforms. Platforms would not be held responsible for content individually, but for how diligent they are in protecting the "digital environment," he said in an interview. Brant did not detail what the regulatory body would look like, but said the government wants to regulate monetized content and prevent the platforms from spreading misinformation.

Meta on Friday launched its subscription service in the U.S., which would allow Facebook and Instagram users pay for verification in the same vein as Elon Musk-owned Twitter. From a report: The Meta Verified service will give users a blue badge after they verify their accounts using a government ID and will cost $11.99 per month on the web or $14.99 a month on Apple's iOS system and Google-owned Android, Meta said in a statement. The service, which Meta said it was testing in February, follows in the footsteps of Snapchat as well as messaging app Telegram and marks the latest effort by a social media company to diversify its revenue away from advertising.