Advertising

AT&T to Pay $60 Million to Resolve FTC Allegations It Misled Consumers with ‘Unlimited Data’ Promises

AT&T Mobility, LLC, will pay $60 million to settle litigation with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the wireless provider misled millions of its smartphone customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds.

Zuckerberg’s power to hurt President Trump

Top Republicans are privately worried about a new threat to President Trump’s campaign: the possibility of Facebook pulling a Twitter and banning political ads. Facebook says it won't, but future regulatory pressure could change that.

Twitter, Facebook Divergence on Political Ads Shows Tension in Regulating Speech

Twitter and Facebook are staking out starkly different positions about how to handle political ads, but it is unclear how either approach will prevent the spread of misinformation. Some social-media websites have banned ads related to candidates, political parties and legislation. But blocking issues-based advertising, such as ads from advocacy groups or trade organizations, can be hard to enforce, tech executives and media buyers say.

Facebook's political ad exemption policy is a danger to our democracy

Facebook's hands-off policy toward political ads poses a danger to our democracy. Giving politicians free rein to spread lies using political ads shows a disregard for the role Facebook and other social media platforms play in disseminating information to voters and how political candidates can abuse these policies to spread disinformation. First, it's important to understand the unique role Facebook and other social media platforms play when it comes to advertising. Facebook's business model is based on collecting as much data on its users as possible.

Twitter to ban all political ads amid 2020 election uproar

Twitter will ban all advertisements about political candidates, elections and hot-button policy issues such as abortion and immigration, a significant shift that comes in response to growing concerns that politicians are seizing on the vast reach of social media to deceive voters ahead of the 2020 election. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said paying for political speech has the effect of “forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people.” “While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politi

Why We Need to Continue the Fight for an Open Internet

The open internet is a founding principle of the web. It is an environment that allows all players to interact directly with audiences and consumers while ensuring fair and transparent access to data and measurement. It is an ideal that should unite all of us: citizens, governments and committed web companies.

[Jean-Baptiste Rudelle is chief executive officer, chairman and co-founder of Criteo]

Mark Zuckerberg and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on Capitol Hill

Sixty different politicians had five minutes each to grill Zuckerberg about whatever they wanted, and they jumped at the opportunity to try and test him. Congress came across as prepared, serious, and thoughtful. While the hearing was supposed to be about Facebook’s push to create a new digital currency called Libra, about half of the back and forth centered on other topics, from its controversial political ads policy to Facebook’s record on diversity to particular congresspeople’s pet

Forty-six attorneys general have joined a New York-led antitrust investigation into Facebook

Forty-six attorneys general have joined a New York-led antitrust investigation into Facebook, raising the stakes in a sweeping bipartisan probe of the tech giant that could result in massive changes to its business practices.

Why platforms should pay for polluting our civic discourse

Targeted online ads and data harvesting are incredibly lucrative for the platforms but harmful for local newsrooms and the communities they’re supposed to serve. The shift in eyeballs and ad dollars to the platforms has hastened the collapse of the traditional advertising marketplace that once helped sustain quality local journalism. This collapse has led to widespread layoffs, which has meant less of the content that readers are willing to pay for, which has resulted in more cutbacks and the continuation of a vicious cycle.

Sen Elizabeth Warren escalates Facebook ad feud

A days-long feud between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Facebook intensified over the weekend as she openly accused the company of "taking money to promote lies." Facebook fired back via another social media platform, Twitter, where the company compared itself to broadcast television stations that ran a Trump ad and are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The "FCC doesn't want broadcast companies censoring candidates' speech," Facebook said.

Facebook Reaches Proposed Settlement in Video Measurement Lawsuit

Facebook could pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit from advertisers over miscalculated video metrics. The legal battle began in 2016 after Facebook disclosed it had incorrectly calculated the average viewing time for video ads on its platform. For two years, the tech giant had only counted video views that lasted at least three seconds, ignoring those of shorter durations and artificially pushing the average length of a view higher.

Google Draws House Antitrust Scrutiny of Internet Protocol

Congressional antitrust investigators are scrutinizing plans by Google to use a new internet protocol because of concerns that it could give the company a competitive advantage by making it harder for others to access consumer data. Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee asked Google for information about its “decision regarding whether to adopt or promote the adoption” of the protocol, which the company said is aimed at improving internet security.

A Tax on Silicon Valley Is A Dumb Way to Solve Digital Divide, But Might Be A Smart Way To Protect Privacy.

What sort of a tax on Silicon Valley (and others) might make sense from a social policy perspective? What about a tax on the sale of personal information, including the use of personal information for ad placement? To be clear, I’m not talking about a tax on collecting information or on using the information collected. I’m talking a tax on two-types of commercial transactions; selling information about individuals to third parties, or indirectly selling information to third parties via targeted advertising. It would be sort of a carbon tax for privacy pollution.

50 US states and territories announce broad antitrust investigation of Google

Attorneys general for 50 US states and territories officially announced an antitrust investigation of Google (CA and AL are the only states that have not signed onto the probe), embarking on a wide-ranging review of a tech giant that the officials said may threaten competition, consumers and the continued growth of the web.

States to Launch Google, Facebook Antitrust Probes

State attorneys general are formally launching separate antitrust probes into Facebook and Alphabet’s Google unit starting the week of Sept 9, putting added pressure on tech giants already under federal scrutiny. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her office was organizing a bipartisan, multi-state probe into social media company Facebook. “We will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising,” she said.

Big Tech’s ‘Innovations’ That Aren’t

What passes for innovation by Big Tech today isn’t fundamentally new products or new services, but ever more sophisticated exploitation of people. It’s time we demanded more of Big Tech than it demands of us. That's why I’ve proposed banning the “dark patterns” that feed tech addiction. I’ve introduced legislation to provide consumers a legally enforceable right to browse the internet privately, without data tracking. I’ve advocated stepping up privacy safeguards for children and requiring tech companies to moderate content without political bias as a condition of civil immunity.

AT&T, FTC reach settlement over data throttling lawsuit

AT&T has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over a 2014 lawsuit related to the carrier’s data throttling practices and disclosures. A court filing shows AT&T has approved final terms of the deal, and the parties are requesting a 90-day stay through November 21 so FTC Commissioners can vote on the settlement.

Google Chrome proposes 'privacy sandbox' to reform advertising evils

Google's Chrome team proposed a "privacy sandbox" that's designed to give us the best of both worlds: ads that publishers can target toward our interests but that don't infringe our privacy. It's a major development in an area where Chrome, the dominant browser, has lagged competitors. Browsers already include security sandboxes, restrictions designed to confine malware and limit its possible damage.

YouTube Plans to End Targeted Ads to Kids to Comply With FTC

Apparently, to satisfy regulators, YouTube officials are finalizing plans to end “targeted” advertisements on videos kids are likely to watch. The move could immediately dent ad sales for the video giant -- though not nearly as much as other proposals on the table. The Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether YouTube breached the Children’s Online Privacy Act (COPPA). The agency reached a settlement with YouTube, but has not released the terms. It is not clear if YouTube’s changes to ad targeting are a result of the settlement. The plans could still change, apparently.

Facebook unveils long-promised tool to limit what data it receives from third-party apps and websites. But will not allow users to delete info.

Facebook unveiled its long-awaited feature allowing users to limit businesses, apps, and other groups that collect data about them on the Web and pass that information to the tech giant — a move that may disappoint people who thought they would be able to delete that information from Facebook in full. The social media giant said the new tools to control “Off-Facebook Activity” are designed to “shed more light” on a form of online tracking — around shopping habits, web-browsing histories and other activities — that determines some of the ads people see on Facebook.

Sponsor: 

Federal Election Commission

Date: 
Thu, 08/22/2019 - 15:00

Agenda includes consideration of Internet Ad Disclaimers Rulemaking Proposal for REG 2011–02 (Internet Communication Disclaimers and Definition of ‘‘Public Communication’’)



How the Trump Campaign Used Facebook Ads to Amplify His ‘Invasion’ Claim

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has harnessed Facebook advertising to push the idea of an “invasion” at the southern border, amplifying the fear-inducing language about immigrants that he has also voiced at campaign rallies and on Twitter. Since Jan, President Trump’s re-election campaign has posted more than 2,000 ads on Facebook that include the word “invasion” — part of a barrage of advertising focused on immigration, a dominant theme of his re-election messaging.

5 key takeaways about the state of the news media in 2018

Some key findings about the state of the news media in 2018:

FTC approves settlement with Google over YouTube kids privacy violations

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission has finalized a settlement with Google in its investigation into YouTube for violating federal data privacy laws for children. The settlement — backed by the agency’s three Republicans and opposed by its two Democrats — finds that Google inadequately protected kids who used its video-streaming service and improperly collected their data in breach of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which prohibits the tracking and targeting of users younger than 13, the people said.