Google agrees to pay Italian publishers for news

MILAN, Italy - Google announced on Wednesday it has signed licensing deals with numerous Italian media publishers to pay for news content, in the US tech giant's latest move to tamp down media anger over lost advertising revenue.

It follows an agreement struck with some French publishers earlier in the year over "neighboring rights", which were introduced by an EU directive two years ago and call for payment for showing snippets of news content as part of internet searches.

Wednesday's deal will give the Italian publishers access to the Google News Showcase program, which sees it pay outlets for a selection of enriched content.

"Signed on an individual basis, these agreements represent an important step in Google's relationship with Italian publishers by remunerating the publishers," Google said in a statement.

Google News Showcase will be available in Italy in the coming months, it added.

Fabio Vaccarono, CEO of Google Italy, said "these agreements represent an important step forward and confirm Google's commitment to Italian publishers".

Among the publishers who signed deals were the RCS MediaGroup, Il Sole 24 Ore, Monrif, Citynews, Caltagirone Editore, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Libero, Il Foglio, Il Giornale and Il Tempo.

The head of Il Sole 24 Ore, Giuseppe Cerbone, said "remuneration for news, including the rights related to the distribution of digital content, is a front on which our publishing group is engaged on the front line".

Urbano Cairo, CEO of the RCS MediaGroup, said "we are pleased to have signed this agreement, which governs the issue of related rights and acknowledges the importance of quality news and the prestige of our titles," which include the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Neighboring France was the first EU country to enact the "neighboring rights" law, but Google initially refused to comply. However after turbulent negotiations, the search giant sealed a deal with certain French publishers in January.

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at Google's failure to give them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news search results.

Australia has aggressively pushed to force digital companies to pay for news content, and last month Google struck a deal to make "significant payments" to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. 

Agence France-Presse

Super Bowl rakes in half a billion dollars in ads

Advertisers splurged more than half a billion dollars during the Super Bowl, smashing previous records for an event that is routinely one of the most-watched things on US television.

Some of corporate America's biggest names coughed up an eye-watering average of $5.6 million for a 30-second spot in American football's razzmatazz-filled final.

Car companies, fast food chains and delivery apps were among those clamoring to get their brands in front of the 96.4 million people who watched Tom Brady's resurgent Tampa Bay Buccaneers trounce young pretender Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs.

A must-watch for dedicated fans, the NFL final is also a major cultural event in the United States, with millions of Americans traditionally joining Super Bowl parties to drink and eat with friends.

Ahead of Sunday's game, health officials had advised against such gatherings in an effort to tamp down the coronavirus.

The audience was the smallest for the Super Bowl in 14 years, though it is still likely to set the overall event viewership record for this year.

The splashy half-time show, which this year featured The Weeknd and hundreds of dancers with bandaged faces, adds to the allure, and many advertisers compete to provide amusing or particularly memorable spots.

Highlights this year included Will Ferrell picking a fight with Norway on behalf of GM over electric vehicles.

Market research firm Kantar said brands paid a total of $545 million for the 96 in-game spots that aired over the four-and-a-half-hour CBS broadcast.

That figure is a fifth higher than the previous highest total garnered in the 2020 edition, when the Chiefs overcame the San Francisco 49ers in a thriller that went down to the final minutes.

Despite the ongoing fragmentation of audiences and the rise of streaming platforms, live sports -- and American football in particular -- remain a safe bet for viewership numbers in the United States.

 

Several mainstay names opted to stay away from this year's big game, including Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Audi and Hyundai.

Northwestern University marketing professor Tim Calkins said some brands had struggled to find the right message for the pandemic climate, explaining the move to the sidelines.

"This is a challenging year, because it's hard to get the tone right on the Super Bowl," Calkins said. 

"If you run a funny ad, it might seem inappropriate. If you run a very serious ad, it might seem discouraging. Given that, given all the chaos in the country, it's hard for these advertisers to figure out what to say at a big event like the Super Bowl."

The single biggest spender on Sunday's game was ViacomCBS itself, which spent $33 million to promote its new on-demand video service Paramount+, which is set to launch March 4.

Agence France-Presse

Google hit with third antitrust lawsuit, by new state coalition

SAN FRANCISCO - Dozens of US states on Thursday hit Google with its third antitrust suit in as many months, accusing the internet giant of abusing its internet search dominance to eliminate competition.

The suit by antitrust enforcers from 38 US states and territories is in line with, but goes beyond a case filed by the US Justice Department against Google earlier this year.

"Google’s anticompetitive actions have protected its general search monopolies and excluded rivals, depriving consumers of the benefits of competitive choices, forestalling innovation, and undermining new entry or expansion,” said Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser.

The suit came a day after a group of states led by Texas filed a separate antitrust suit, and asks to be consolidated with the federal case against Google.

Nebraska attorney general Doug Peterson called the antitrust assault on Google historic, saying the combined suits represented the biggest alliance since a case against Microsoft decades ago.

"This is really historic," Peterson said.

The suit charges that Google made deals to shut out competitors and set out to lock out rivals by getting its search and advertising systems into smart speakers, cars, smartphones and more.

"We are in a new time, a new era, and it is very critical that we in the field of enforcement in competition remain very engaged in the tech industry going forward," Peterson said.

CASES ON SEARCH, ADVERTISING

Several US states led by Texas filed a suit against Google on Wednesday over alleged anticompetitive practices, branding it an "internet Goliath" that had eliminated competition in online advertising and was harming consumers.

In the earlier case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton contended that Google rigged advertising auctions, taking advantage of its position serving up ads as well as online search results.

Amazon, Tripadvisor, Yelp and other internet firms involved in recommending products or services have long complained that Google favors its own offerings in general search results.

While Google ad revenue has continued to grow, its share of the booming US online ad market is ebbing under pressure from competitors such as Facebook, Amazon and others, according to eMarketer.

The market tracker expected Google this year to command just shy of 30 percent of the US ad market set to total about $42.4 billion.

Google software not only crawls the internet and indexes what it finds, it determines which results to provide for queries and what ads are displayed.

The California-based internet giant also handles auctions for ads competing to be displayed. 

Google's long-running business model coupling a free search engine and free services like email and YouTube with paid advertising is being put to the test in a landmark antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department.

The US government filed its blockbuster lawsuit in October accusing Google of maintaining an "illegal monopoly" in online search and advertising. 

The country's biggest antitrust case in decades, it opens the door to a potential breakup of the Silicon Valley titan.

Agence France-Presse

Advertising slump during virus crisis hits media jobs

PARIS - Media redundancies, partial layoffs and managerial wage cuts are on the rise as advertising markets implode, despite customers showing an ever stronger appetite for information on the coronavirus crisis.

FIRST PRESS VICTIMS

In Britain, The Guardian announced 180 redundancies in response to tumbling ad revenues, while The Economist magazine has said it is laying off 90 people.

US media have likewise not been immune to the market consequences of the crisis.

Conde Nast, publisher of the likes of Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker, has announced it is laying off 100 of its 6,000 staff.

Vox Media, home of The Verge and New York Magazine, has said 72 of its employees will be laid off or furloughed.

The New York Times has laid off 68 employees from its sales teams.

The McClatchy group, which publishes some 20 newspapers including the Miami Herald, was sold to an investment fund, Chatham, after going into receivership.

According to a New York Times analysis, the pandemic has seen 36,000 media workers either laid off, furloughed, or forced to take a wage cut in a sector that had already endured years of belt-tightening.

More than 50 local newsrooms across the United States, some of which had been operating for over a century, have been shuttered, according to a list updated by the Poynter site.

In France, the already fragile regional daily La Marseillaise was hit hard by the lockdown and placed in judicial liquidation.

Le Parisien is planning to cut 30 jobs and its regional editions.

Anticipating three years of losses, the sports daily L'Equipe reduced its employees' salaries and days off, after many of the world's sporting competitions sat idle for months.

WEB IN CRISIS

Online news portals are also struggling.

The Vice Media group is to fire 55 US-based and 100 foreign-based staff, according to a note sent by the group's CEO Nancy Dubac to employees, which was published by US media.

Beyond the problems caused by the coronavirus crisis, she also accused media tech platforms of "not just taking a larger slice of the pie, but almost the whole pie," threatening online news streams and thousands of journalists' jobs.

News and entertainment site Buzzfeed announced in March it was cutting salaries by between five and 25 percent and would also end coverage of news in Britain and Australia, having already left France.

For some media, the coronavirus crisis is a chance to speed up the transition to a more stable, subscription-based publishing model.

That is the case of financial news provider Quartz, whose Japanese owner Uzabase says it plans to cut some 40 percent of staff, mainly advertising posts.

NO ESCAPE FOR BROADCAST

Broadcasting has not escaped the crisis cull. In Britain, the BBC has announced it will cut 520 jobs out of a total of 6,000 employees, mainly in its regional programs.

Journalists will cover fewer stories and work in centralized teams instead of focusing on a particular program, the BBC news director said.

In the United States, NBC Universal has lopped 20 percent off top salaries, while the giant ViacomCBS plans to lay off 10 percent of its 35,000 employees, in television production as well as in its amusement parks, according to Bloomberg.

In France, BFMTV/RMC has announced plans to slash its use of freelancers and consultants.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook rejects call to share revenue with Australian media

SYDNEY -- Facebook on Monday rejected calls from the Australian government and news companies that it share advertising revenue with the media, suggesting it would rather cut news content from its platform.

The US tech giant said in a submission to Australia's competition watchdog that news represents a "very small fraction" of the content in an average user's news feed.

"If there were no news content available on Facebook in Australia, we are confident the impact on Facebook’s community metrics and revenues in Australia would not be significant," it said in a thinly veiled threat to boycott local news companies.

"Given the social value and benefit to news publishers, we would strongly prefer to continue enabling news publishers’ content to be available on our platform," it said.

In an effort being closely watched around the world, Australia is set to unveil plans to force Facebook and Google to share advertising revenue they earn from news featured in their services.

The initiative has been strongly pushed by Australia's two biggest media companies, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Nine Entertainment.

They argue that the crisis roiling the news industry worldwide is mainly because of Google, Facebook and other large tech firms capturing the vast majority of online advertising revenues, without fairly compensating media companies for advertisements placed against news content.

The loss of advertising dollars that previously flowed to newspapers has forced cutbacks and bankruptcies across the sector, a process exacerbated by the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In Australia, News Corp, Nine and other media have both announced major cuts in editorial staff, with more than 170 newsrooms and newspapers suspended or shuttered in recent years.

Australia's competition regulator, the ACCC, has estimated that Google and Facebook together earn some Aus$6 billion (US$4 billion) a year from advertising in the country.

Leading news publishers have demanded the two companies pay at least 10 percent of that money each year to local news organisations.

Google last month rejected the demand, saying it made barely Aus$10 million a year from news-linked advertising.

The two companies' positions bode ill for negotiations the ACCC hopes to pursue between the tech firms and Australian media companies over a mandatory "code of conduct" governing issues such as revenue sharing, curbing disinformation, data sharing and protecting user privacy.

The ACCC has until the end of July to draw up the final code, which the government has said it will quickly implement.

Agence France-Presse

Google rescinds offers to thousands of contract workers

OAKLAND, Calif. — Google, facing an advertising slump caused by the pandemic, has rescinded offers to several thousand people who had agreed to work at the company as temporary and contract workers.

“We’re slowing our pace of hiring and investment, and are not bringing on as many new starters as we had planned at the beginning of the year,” Google said in an email to contracting agencies last week that was seen by The New York Times. The company told the firms that it “will not be moving forward to onboard” the people that the agencies had recruited to work at Google.

The move affected more than 2,000 people globally who had signed offers with the agencies to be a contract or temp worker, according to three people familiar with the decision, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly on the matter.

Google employs more than 130,000 contractors and temp workers, a shadow workforce that outnumbers its 123,000 full-time employees. Google’s full-time staff are rewarded with high salaries and generous perks, but temps and contractors often receive less pay, fewer benefits and do not have the same protections, even though they work alongside full timers.

The coronavirus crisis has underscored that disparity. Google announced in April that it was extending its employee paid leave policy to 14 weeks from 8 weeks for caretakers, including parents looking after children whose schools are closed. For employees working from home, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, said Tuesday that they could spend $1,000 for equipment and furniture like standing desks and ergonomic chairs.

Many of the contract and temp candidates who had agreed to work at Google before the pandemic took hold in the United States were let go without any severance or financial compensation. This came after weeks of uncertainty as Google repeatedly postponed their start dates during which time they were not paid by Google or the staffing agencies.

Some of the would-be contractors left stable, full-time jobs once they received an employment offer at Google and are now searching for work in a difficult labor market. Some, who are Americans, said the rescinded offers have complicated and, in some cases, delayed their ability to receive unemployment benefits because they left their last jobs voluntarily, according to several of the workers facing this dilemma.

In mid-April, Pichai told employees in a memo that the company planned to “significantly” slow the pace of hiring this year, with the exception of several strategic areas. A company spokeswoman said at the time that Google intended to bring on the people who it had already hired but who had not started.

But this did not seem to apply to contractors or temp workers for Google and Alphabet, which has a market capitalization of near $1 trillion. It made $6.8 billion in profit in the first three months of 2020, despite what it called “a significant and sudden slowdown” in advertising.

“If these people were promised jobs at Alphabet, which is worth a trillion dollars, it seems like the company has a responsibility to take them on,” said Ben Gwin, who works as a data analyst in a Google office for HCL America, a contracting agency. “It’s not like Google can’t afford it.”

Gwin led a unionization effort for contract technical workers at Google’s offices in Pittsburgh last year.

“As we’ve publicly indicated, we’re slowing our pace of hiring and investment, and as a result are not bringing on as many new people — full time and temporary — as we’d planned at the beginning of the year,” said Alex Krasov, a Google spokeswoman.

Ruth Porat, chief financial officer for Alphabet, told analysts last month that the company was cutting expenses by not hiring as many new employees as initially projected. She did not address contract or temp workers.

Google has taken some steps to help its temp and contract workers. In March, the company said it would extend the assignments of temp workers whose jobs were scheduled to end from March 20 to May 15 by 60 days.

The company also said it would continue to pay contract workers affected by office closures such as people who serve food in the company’s cafeterias. And it established a fund to allow contingent workers to take paid sick leave if they exhibit coronavirus symptoms or cannot come to work because they are quarantined.

Like many technology companies, Google depends on a large number of temps, vendors and contractors to perform a wide variety of jobs, including cafeteria workers, maintenance workers, recruiters, content moderators and software testers. For the company, these workers cost less than full-time employees, and Google has no long-term obligation to them, making it easy to hire them or eliminate their positions.

Last year, 10 Democratic senators called on Google to convert its temporary and contract workers to full-time employees, saying the company should stop its “anti-worker practices” and treat all of its workers equally.

Google pays staffing companies to find the workers and provide them with salaries and benefits as their employer. But Google interviews prospective candidates and signs off on hiring, deciding where they work, what they do and when to fire them.

When Google pulled the offers to prospective workers, the company told the staffing companies, which included firms like Accenture, Cognizant and Adecco, that “we’ll look to you to have the conversations with the individuals who won’t be onboarded.” Google said it was “hopeful” that the “agencies will be able to find other assignments” for the candidates.

It was not immediately clear which countries were most affected in the decision, but some of the workers are in the United States, India and the Philippines. This was the second wave of rescinded job offers for temps and contract workers. Google had pulled offers for several dozen temp workers in April.

Joli Holland was one of the candidates whose job offers was rescinded in mid-April. She was working as a lead teller at Wells Fargo when Adecco contacted her about a recruiter position working at Google in Mountain View, California. After a few rounds of interviews, she was offered the position with a start date of March 23.

She was hopeful that she would get her foot in the door with a temporary job and land a full-time position at Google. Before she gave her two-week notice to Wells Fargo, she checked with Adecco about whether the job at Google was safe given the growing concerns about the coronavirus. Holland said she was assured that everything “should be fine.”

Another candidate whose offer was rescinded expressed similar concerns to another recruiter at Adecco. This person, who asked not to be identified because they still wanted to work at Google and were worried about being blacklisted for speaking out, said the recruiter said “Google always does the right thing, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Mary Beth Waddill, a spokeswoman for Adecco, said the company did not intend to mislead anyone about their career prospects, “especially given the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our standard practice is to advise in writing that placement on assignment is not guaranteed.”

A few days before Holland was set to start, she was told that her start date at Google would be pushed back to April 6. Then it was postponed to April 13 and again to April 20, a Monday. On the Friday before she was set to begin her job, Holland said she was told that the company was rescinding all temp worker offers. She did not receive any money while she waited to start at Google, nor did she get any severance.

“I’m disappointed, because not a lot of people are hiring right now,” she said. She had not filed for unemployment because she left her last job voluntarily. Still, Holland said she still hoped to work for Google because it would still be a great opportunity.

“I am disappointed, but it hasn’t completely soured me on the company,” she said. “I’d still like to work there.”

-Daisuke Wakabayashi, The New York Times-

Coca-Cola suspends product ads to fund COVID-19 response

MANILA- Coca-Cola Philippines said Friday it would put on hold advertising of its products to use the money for COVID-19 relief efforts.

The beverage giant in a statement said it would re-channel P150 million for the provision of protective equipment for health workers, and delivery of food packs to families most vulnerable to the pandemic.

“Starting today, commercial advertising of Coca-Cola and all our brands in the Philippines will be put on hold. All our committed advertising space and budgets will be redirected towards supporting COVID-19 relief and response efforts for the most affected communities,” it said in a statement.

Coca-Cola said it would also provide beverages to health workers and support for small retailers affected by the economic fallout due to the pandemic.

The Philippines, as of Thursday, had 230 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 18 fatalities, while 8 patients have recovered.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Facebook keeps policy protecting political ads

SAN FRANCISCO — Defying pressure from Congress, Facebook said on Thursday that it would continue to allow political campaigns to use the site to target advertisements to particular slices of the electorate and that it would not police the truthfulness of the messages sent out.

The stance put Facebook, the most important digital platform for political ads, at odds with some of the other large tech companies, which have begun to put new limits on political ads.

Facebook’s decision, telegraphed in recent months by executives, is likely to harden criticism of the company heading into this year’s presidential election.

Political advertising cuts to the heart of Facebook’s outsize role in society, and the company has found itself squeezed between liberal critics, who want it to do a better job of policing its various social media platforms, and conservatives, who say their views are being unfairly muzzled.

The issue has raised important questions regarding how heavy a hand technology companies like Facebook — which also owns Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp — and Google should exert when deciding what types of political content they will and will not permit.

By maintaining a status quo, Facebook executives are essentially saying they are doing the best they can without government guidance and see little benefit to the company or the public in changing.

In a blog post, a company official echoed Facebook’s earlier calls for lawmakers to set firm rules.

“In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in the post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”

Other social media companies have decided otherwise, and some had hoped Facebook would quietly follow their lead. In late October, Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, banned all political advertising from his network, citing the challenges that novel digital systems present to civic discourse. Google quickly followed suit with limits on political ads across some of its properties, though narrower in scope.

Reaction to Facebook’s policy broke down largely along party lines.

The Trump campaign, which has been highly critical of any attempts by technology companies to regulate political advertising and has already spent more than $27 million on the platform, largely supported Facebook’s decision not to interfere in targeting ads or to set fact-checking standards.

“Our ads are always accurate so it’s good that Facebook won’t limit political messages because it encourages more Americans to be involved in the process,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign. “This is much better than the approaches from Twitter and Google, which will lead to voter suppression.”

Democratic presidential candidates and outside groups decried the decision.

“Facebook is paying for its own glowing fake news coverage, so it’s not surprising they’re standing their ground on letting political figures lie to you,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said on Twitter.

Warren, who has been among the most critical of Facebook and regularly calls for major tech companies to be broken up, reiterated her stance that the social media company should face tougher policies.

The Biden campaign was similarly critical. The campaign has confronted Facebook over an ad run by President Donald Trump’s campaign that attacked Joe Biden’s record on Ukraine.

“Donald Trump’s campaign can (and will) still lie in political ads,” Bill Russo, the deputy communications director for Biden, said in a statement. “Facebook can (and will) still profit off it. Today’s announcement is more window dressing around their decision to allow paid misinformation.”

But many Democratic groups willing to criticize Facebook had to walk a fine line; they have pushed for more regulation when it comes to fact-checking political ads, but they have been adamantly opposed to any changes to the ad-targeting features.

On Thursday, some Democratic outside groups welcomed Facebook’s decision not to limit micro-targeting, but still thought the policy fell short.

“These changes read to us mostly as a cover for not making the change that is most vital: ensuring politicians are not allowed to use Facebook as a tool to lie to and manipulate voters,” said Madeline Kriger, who oversees digital ad buying at Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC.

Other groups, however, said Facebook had been more thoughtful about political ads than its industry peers.

“Facebook opted against limiting ad targeting, because doing so would have unnecessarily restricted a valuable tool that campaigns of all sizes rely on for fundraising, registering voters, building crowds and organizing volunteers,” said Tara McGowan, chief executive of Acronym, a non-profit group that works on voter organization and progressive causes.

Facebook has played down the business opportunity in political ads, saying the vast majority of its revenue came from commercial, not political, ads. But lawmakers have noted that Facebook ads could be a focal point of Trump’s campaign as well as those of top Democrats.

Facebook’s hands-off ad policy has already allowed for misleading advertisements. In October, a Facebook ad from the Trump campaign made false accusations about Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The ad quickly went viral and was viewed by millions. After the Biden campaign asked Facebook to take down the ad, the company refused.

“Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” Facebook’s head of global elections policy, Katie Harbath, wrote in the letter to the Biden campaign.

In an attempt to provoke Facebook, Warren’s presidential campaign ran an ad falsely claiming that the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, was backing the reelection of Trump. Facebook did not take the ad down.

Criticism seemed to stiffen Zuckerberg’s resolve. Company officials said he and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s president, had ultimately made the decision to stand firm.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University in October, Zuckerberg said he believed in the power of unfettered speech, including in paid advertising, and did not want to be in the position to police what politicians could and could not say to constituents. Facebook’s users, he said, should be allowed to make those decisions for themselves.

“People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society,” he said.

Facebook officials have repeatedly said significant changes to its rules for political or issue ads could harm the ability of smaller, less well-funded organizations to raise money and organize across the network.

Instead of overhauling its policies, Facebook has made small tweaks. Leathern said Facebook would add greater transparency features to its library of political advertising in the coming months, a resource for journalists and outside researchers to scrutinize the types of ads run by the campaigns.

Facebook also will add a feature that allows users to see fewer campaign and political issue ads in their news feeds, something the company has said many users have requested.

There was considerable debate inside Facebook about whether it should change. Late last year, hundreds of employees supported an internal memo that called on Zuckerberg to limit the abilities of Facebook’s political advertising products.

On Dec. 30, Andrew Bosworth, the head of Facebook’s virtual and augmented reality division, wrote on his internal Facebook page that, as a liberal, he found himself wanting to use the social network’s powerful platform against Trump.

But Bosworth said that even though keeping the current policies in place “very well may lead to” Trump’s reelection, it was the right decision. Dozens of Facebook employees pushed back on Bosworth’s conclusions, arguing in the comments section below his post that politicians should be held to the same standard that applies to other Facebook users.

For now, Facebook appears willing to risk disinformation in support of unfettered speech.

“Ultimately, we don’t think decisions about political ads should be made by private companies,” Leathern said. “Frankly, we believe the sooner Facebook and other companies are subject to democratically accountable rules on this, the better.”


2020 The New York Times Company

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Bloomberg takes on Trump with a $10 million Super Bowl ad

Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has secured a 60-second advertising slot to air nationally during this year’s Super Bowl telecast, an ad buy that will most likely cost at least $10 million.

Bloomberg campaign officials confirmed the buy Tuesday and said they would be paying “market rate,” although they would not specify the cost of the ad. But executives at Fox, which is broadcasting the game Feb. 2, have said they were seeking “north of $5 million” per 30-second ad.

The Bloomberg campaign said its Super Bowl ad would be a new spot that has not yet aired.

"The biggest point is getting under Trump’s skin," said Michael Frazier, a spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign. By "taking the fight to Trump," Frazier said, "the ad is part of Mike’s strategy of running a national campaign that focuses on states where the general election will be decided, parts of the country that are often overlooked."

Bloomberg’s campaign has continued to set records for political ad spending by a presidential candidate, having already dropped nearly $170 million on television and digital advertising, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm. Bloomberg, a billionaire media owner and former mayor of New York, is funding his campaign with his own money and is not soliciting donations.

"We have the means to raise a national campaign unlike any other candidate," Frazier said.

Bloomberg has made targeting President Donald Trump a core element of his ad strategy. Before he announced his candidacy, he pledged to spend $100 million on ads criticizing the president. And since he launched his bid, his campaign has unloaded a barrage of Facebook attack ads in general-election swing states, seeking to erode support for Trump by highlighting what Bloomberg calls broken promises on infrastructure, health care and dysfunction in Washington.

The Super Bowl ad is a show of financial force rarely seen in presidential politics. Although some campaigns have made local advertising buys during past Super Bowls, a national buy has often been out of reach, given the expense. It is also usually viewed as wasteful to pay to reach a 50-state audience rather than buying ads in the swing states where campaigns would prefer to target their message.

But Bloomberg is running an unconventional primary campaign with a heavy national emphasis, choosing to avoid the four states that vote first in February and instead focusing his efforts on Super Tuesday on March 3, when 14 states will vote.

"It’s actually smart for Bloomberg," said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. "Bloomberg is running a national campaign, and the most efficient way to reach a lot of people in a national campaign is buying an ad in a top-rated show. And as expensive as it is, it’s cheaper than buying the ads market by market."

The Bloomberg campaign has rapidly expanded its payroll to 800 staff members over the past month, with 500 organizers on the ground across the 14 Super Tuesday states. The expansion, first reported by NBC News, gives Bloomberg another leg up on his Democratic rivals; former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, for example, has roughly 400 staff members on its national payroll.


2020 The New York Times Company

source: news.abs-cbn.com

UK watchdog 'concerned' over dominant digital giants

LONDON—Britain must consider tighter regulation of "digital giants" like Google and Facebook because they could squeeze out potential internet rivals and hurt traditional media, the competition watchdog said Wednesday.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), revealing interim findings of a market study into online platforms and digital advertising, said the average Briton spent 3 hours and 15 minutes online per day—and more than a third of this was on Google or Facebook apps and sites.

"Big is not necessarily bad and these platforms have brought very innovative and valuable products and services to the market," the watchdog said in a statement.

"But the CMA is concerned that their position may have become entrenched with negative consequences for the people and businesses who use these services everyday."

The regulator added that Google accounted for more than 90 percent of all UK search advertising revenues, totalling more than £6.0 billion.

And it found that Facebook accounted for nearly half of all UK display advertising revenues, totalling more than £2.0 billion.

"A lack of real competition to Google and Facebook could mean people are already missing out on the next great new idea from a potential rival," the CMA continued.

"It could also be resulting in a lack of proper choice for consumers and higher prices for advertisers that can mean cost rises for goods and services such as flights, electronics and insurance bought online.

"The market position of Google and Facebook may potentially be undermining the ability of newspapers and other publishers to produce valuable content as their share of revenues is squeezed by large platforms."

The CMA aims to publish its full findings in July 2020 after a consultation period.

"There is a strong argument for the development of a new regulatory regime," it said.

"This could include rules governing the behavior of online platforms and giving people greater control over their own data.

"The most likely outcome at the end of this study will be recommendations to the new (UK) government as it decides whether and how to regulate the digital sector.

"On the other hand, the CMA stands ready to act directly through any or all of its own powers if, ultimately, these issues are not addressed in other ways, whether domestically or internationally."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump ramps up Facebook ads against impeachment

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is countering impeachment efforts against him with a new surge in Facebook ads, while his Democratic rivals are saying little on the subject on the social media site or the campaign trail.

Trump ran more than 2,500 ads mentioning "impeach" or "impeachment" in the week through Dec. 5, more than his campaign did in the prior 2 weeks combined, according to a Reuters analysis of data published by Facebook Inc.

The ads criticize the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry in the US House of Representatives as producing "baseless LIES" and ask for money to support Trump's bid to win another four-year term in November 2020.

The torrent of messages is a sign of Trump's belief that the impeachment effort will backfire on Democrats, energizing his base and winning over independents skeptical of the process. Public opinion polls show support for impeachment is concentrated among Democrats.

Leading Democrats vying to challenge Trump next year have supported the impeachment process but ran only a handful of ads mentioning impeachment in recent weeks, according to the Reuters analysis of the most recent Facebook data available which was gathered by researchers at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering.

They have focused instead on issues like healthcare, gun laws and climate change.

That could change if the Republican-led Senate takes up the impeachment matter next month and dismisses the charges, said Nicholas Valentino, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.

"Dismissal will be a highly mobilizing tool" for Democrats, Valentino said.

House Democrats unveiled formal impeachment charges on Tuesday that accuse Trump of "betraying" the country by abusing power in an effort to pressure Ukraine to probe a political rival and then obstructing Congress' investigation into the scandal.

While the House appears likely to approve impeachment, the Republican-controlled Senate is expected to dismiss the charges.

Trump has denied wrongdoing. He again ripped into Democrats at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, calling the probe a hoax.

"The ONLY thing stopping Democrats from carrying out their impeachment WITCH HUNT is Patriotic Americans standing with President Trump," according to the text of an ad Trump's Facebook page ran on Dec. 3. Other anti-impeachment ads by Trump solicit supporters' phone numbers and email addresses.

In contrast, Democrats' recent Facebook ads have referred to impeachment only sparingly.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, mostly has focused her ads on strengthening gun laws, fighting corruption and raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

Her proposal for universal health insurance coverage was the key topic at a town hall in Las Vegas on Monday. Impeachment did not come up.

Former Vice President Joe Biden's ads have focused on gun violence and his recent bus tour in early voting state Iowa. Biden launched new ads on Nov. 21 asking Facebook users to take a poll on whether Trump should be impeached.

Several Facebook ads for Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has been rising in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, asked viewers to think about what he described as pressing issues.

"These big issues, from the economy to climate change, will not have taken a vacation during the impeachment process," according to the text of 3 ads launched on Dec. 1.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google shifts rules for political ads, pressuring Facebook

WASHINGTON -- Google's tightening of its political ad policy could help reduce the spread of misinformation on election campaigns, but at a cost for lesser-known candidates.

The move by Google placing restrictions on how advertisers can target specific groups of voters also adds to the pressure on Facebook to modify its hands-off policy on political ads.

Google announced Wednesday it would not allow political advertisers to use "microtargeting" which can be based on user browsing data, political affiliation or other factors, for its ads, including on YouTube.

Instead it will limit targeting to general categories such as age, gender or postal code location. The changes will be enforced in Britain within a week and in the rest of the world starting in January.

Google also sought to clarify its policy by indicating it does not allow "false claims" in advertising, political or otherwise.

"There are no carve-outs," Google vice president Scott Spencer said.

"It's against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim -- whether it's a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died."

The move follows a ban by Twitter on most kinds of political ads, and comes amid growing pressure on internet platforms to curb the spread of misinformation around political campaigns.

FACEBOOK ISOLATED

Senator Ron Wyden welcomed the Google move, saying it could reduce the number of deceptive ads which are sent to small segments of users, including from foreign entities.

"Targeted influence campaigns are more effective and more cost-effective than blanket propaganda, and far harder to identify and expose," Wyden said.

"Now that Google and Twitter have taken responsible steps to guard against shadowy political influence campaigns, Facebook should do the same."

Karen Kornbluh, director of the digital innovation democracy initiative at the German Marshall Fund, called Google's move "a critically important step in taking this political disinformation weapon off the table," but warned that the different rules for various platforms could lead to confusion.

Michelle Amazeen, a Boston University professor who follows political advertising, said Google's actions were "small steps in the right direction that serve to chip away at the tsunami of disinformation fostered by the current architecture of digital-social media platforms."

Analysts noted that Facebook, which has rejected efforts to fact-check political speech or ads, will be pressured to make a similar move that could have even more far-reaching consequences.

Facebook said in a tweet late Wednesday it was "looking at different ways we might refine our approach to political ads," without elaborating.

SHIFTING DIGITAL STRATEGIES

But political strategists from both parties warned that the changes by Google are likely to help well-financed and incumbent candidates and may not have the intended effect.

"This change won't curb disinformation, but it will hinder campaigns and others who are already working against the tide of bad actors to reach voters with facts," said Tara McGowan, founder of the progressive advocacy group ACRONYM which has launched a $75 million digital campaign.

Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, said new candidates would be hampered in their ability to raise funds and build voter lists -- a key element on online campaigns even before the "persuasion" phase.

"The big disappointment on this is you're going to have campaign spending go to platforms that are less transparent that will allow you to target voters more narrowly. The dollars won't go away."

Mark Jablonowski, managing partner and chief technology officer of the digital consultancy DSPolitical, which works with Democrats, said Google's efforts create a patchwork of different rules that would favor incumbents.

"In the absence of sensible, implementable federal regulations, companies like Google have adopted misguided policies that will do little more than benefit incumbents, the wealthy, and those who rely on targeting largely monolithic Republican constituencies," he said.

President Donald Trump's campaign director Brad Parscale responded to the Google action by tweeting that "political elites & Big Tech want to rig elections.. Won't stop until they control all digital political speech."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google tightens political ads policy to thwart abuse

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google on Wednesday updated how it handles political ads as online platforms remain under pressure to avoid being used to spread misleading information intended to influence voters.

The internet company said its rules already ban any advertiser, including those with political messages, from lying in ads. But it is making its policy more clear and adding examples of how that prohibits content such as doctored or manipulated images or video.

"It's against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim -- whether it's a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died," Google ads product management vice president Scott Spencer said in an online post.

Examples of banned ad material included ads or links to information making demonstrably false claims that could undermine voter trust or participation in elections.

"Of course, we recognize that robust political dialogue is an important part of democracy, and no one can sensibly adjudicate every political claim, counterclaim, and insinuation," Spencer said.

"So we expect that the number of political ads on which we take action will be very limited - but we will continue to do so for clear violations."

Google's main formats for political advertising are ads posted along with search query results, those shown at video viewing service YouTube, and display ads that appear on websites.

Google will also limit targeting of political ads to general categories such as age, gender, or postal code level location.

"Political advertisers can, of course, continue to do contextual targeting, such as serving ads to people reading or watching a story about, say, the economy," Spencer said.

"This will align our approach to election ads with long-established practices in media such as TV, radio, and print, and result in election ads being more widely seen and available for public discussion."

Google will begin enforcing the changes in Britain within a week and throughout the EU by the end of the year, then in the rest of the world starting January 6, according to Spencer.

SPEECH VS TRUTH

Snap this week confirmed that it checks political ads at Snapchat to make sure they are not deceptive or misleading and thus enforce its ban on such material.

The strategy seems to be a middle ground between Facebook's controversial tolerance of proven lies in political ads and Twitter's decision to ban them all together.

Snap policies prohibit political ads that are deceptive or misleading, with an in-house team reviewing such paid messages to make sure they don't break the rules.

Twitter last week said its ban on political ads will exempt "cause-based" messages on topics related to social or environmental issues.

The San Francisco-based messaging platform plans to bar all paid political messages starting Friday, while addressing concerns expressed by activists for social causes.

"Ads that educate, raise awareness, and/or call for people to take action in connection with civic engagement, economic growth, environmental stewardship, or social equity causes are allowed," Twitter said in its new policy.

"However, they may not reference prohibited political advertisers or political content."

Twitter said the move was aimed at countering the spread of misinformation by politicians.

The political ban has drawn mixed reactions: some argue it puts pressure on Facebook to follow suit or take other steps to curb the spread of misinformation from politicians; others say a ban will be difficult to enforce.

Social media platforms have been challenged by President Donald Trump's campaign and its use of ads that contain claims which critics say have been debunked by independent fact-checkers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said political advertising is not a major source of revenue but adds that he believes it is important to allow everyone a "voice," and that banning political ads would favor incumbents.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Twitter to ban political ads

Twitter Inc. will ban political advertising on its platform next month, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday, as social media platforms face pressure to block attempts to steer elections with false information.

"We've made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally," said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a statement. "We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought."

Social media companies, including Twitter rival Facebook Inc face growing pressure to stop selling ads that spread inaccurate information.

Facebook has pledged efforts to deal with misinformation on its platform after Russian propaganda on that platform before the 2016 U.S. presidential election was seen to affect the outcome of that race, which was won by Donald Trump.

But Facebook made a decision to not fact-check ads run by politicians, drawing ire from Democratic candidates running in the 2020 presidential election such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company's policy, saying it did not want to stifle political speech.

Twitter's ban takes effect starting Nov. 22. Dorsey wrote on Twitter that paying for ads forces "targeted political messages on people" with a power that "brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions." 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Facebook tightens rules for political ads in Singapore

Facebook on Thursday introduced strict criteria for political ads on the social network in Singapore to prevent the spread of misinformation as the city-state gears up for elections.

Faced with criticism the site has been used to manipulate polls, Facebook has been tightening rules on such adverts around the world, from the United States to India.

Those advertising in Singapore about elections and politics on Facebook or its Instagram app will now have to first confirm their identity and location, and disclose who is responsible for the ad, the social network said.

They must also provide information such as a phone number, email or website, said Katie Harbath, Facebook's public policy director.

In addition, the new requirements will apply to those wanting to run ads related to social issues such as immigration and crime -- topics that are hotly debated by Singaporeans on Facebook.

"To enable healthy discourse in Singapore, we've taken steps to reduce the spread of misinformation, help prevent foreign interference in elections, and, more recently, to bring greater transparency and authenticity to advertising," she said.

Speculation has been mounting that Singaporeans could head to the polls soon after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong convened a committee to review electoral boundaries this month, typically the first step towards a vote.

Facebook came under fire from Singapore authorities earlier this year in the run-up to the passage of new legislation to combat "fake news", with the government accusing tech giants of being unable to police themselves.

The law requires social media platforms to carry corrections or remove content the government deems to be false, but activists have warned it could be used to silence critics ahead of the elections.

Facebook is a major investor in Singapore. The firm has its Asia headquarters in the city-state and last year announced plans to build a $1 billion data center there, its first in the region.

The Singapore government has long been accused of clamping down on civil liberties and free speech, and targeting their political opponents.

The People's Action Party, which has ruled Singapore uninterrupted for more than five decades, is not seen as being at risk of losing power at the polls to a divided opposition.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Advertising execs point to five ways Google stifles business

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK - US authorities investigating Alphabet Inc's Google for anti-competitive behavior have recently begun probing the company's $116 billion-a-year advertising business.

Attorneys general for 50 US states and territories along with the US Department of Justice appear to be acting on accusations from rivals, lawmakers and consumer advocacy groups that the biggest seller of online ads engages in unfair tactics. Google disputes its dominance.

"Ad tech is a very crowded field, and Google competes with hundreds of companies, including household names like Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, News Corp and Verizon," company spokesman Josh Zeitz said. "Publishers and advertisers mix and match technology partners to meet their different needs, creating both competition and innovation."

Later, in response to this story, Google reiterated in a blog post that its services foster competition.

"Our tools and platforms make it easy for advertisers and publishers of all sizes to choose whom they want to work with in this open, interconnected ad system," Google Vice President Sissie Hsiao wrote.

Here are 5 common concerns about Google raised by 10 ad industry executives, most speaking on the condition of anonymity.

SEARCH AND YOUTUBE

About 80 percent of Google's ad revenue and most of its profits come from ads within Google search results, YouTube, Gmail and other internet services the company owns. Rivals say that Google controls these properties in a way that hinders advertising competition.

For instance, the only technology system for buying ads on YouTube, the world's largest video streaming website, is Google's ad buying tool. Services such as Facebook Inc maintain similar control, in part to limit too widely sharing users' data. But as YouTube increasingly dominates online video, rival tools for placing ads in video streams become less attractive to advertisers because they can only access smaller audiences.

"It's incredibly difficult to compete with the monopoly search and video sites," said Brian O'Kelley, founder and former CEO of ad tech company AppNexus, in an interview in June.

ACQUISITIONS

The remaining 20 percent of Google’s ad revenue is from what is commonly referred to as its “display business.” Google boosted this operation by acquiring seller tools such as DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2008 and AdMob for $750 million in 2010 and then buyer services including Invite Media for a reported $81 million in 2010.

The combination of deals gave Google unprecedented positioning in every facet of how ads end up on websites and smartphone apps around the world. Though US regulators approved the deals, their worst-case predictions about Google being too powerful have come true, rivals say.

To poach big customers from Google, smaller firms say they would need the cash to diversify their businesses and develop a complete suite of services. But drawing investment has been challenging because of the looming threats of Google and increased data privacy regulation.

BUNDLING

Google's variety of ad tools enable it to bundle them in a way that rivals say they cannot afford to match. For instance, websites and app owners, together known as publishers, over the years have become reliant on Google's DoubleClick ad serving tool. Nearly free to use for publishers, it is the only system of its kind that can receive real-time bids from Google's ads marketplace, known in the industry as AdX.

The popular marketplace, which matches up ad buyers with publishers, is where Google collects high fees.

Rivals said when using the Google ad-buying tool, advertisers get some key consumer data for free, early access to some purchasing options and potentially additional benefits if transacting through AdX. Google's packages for buyers and sellers to boost use of AdX are viewed as anti-competitive by rivals.

"The ubiquity of Google’s ad server provides virtually total control over which ads are shown and monetized for the majority of the Internet," said Romain Job, chief strategy officer at competitor Smart AdServer. "This control of the ad server is strategically critical to Google."

LAST LOOK

Google has allowed publishers using DoubleClick to sell ad space on various marketplaces, not just AdX. But for many years, Google’s AdX widely held a special advantage: At the last second it could give its customers the opportunity to outbid competing advertisers trying to purchase through other, non-Google, marketplaces.

This "last look" was one of several ways rivals allege Google favored itself. Google last week announced that the elimination of "last look" as part of move to a new sales system.

But publishers and rivals still wonder whether Google may be using its vantage point over the whole ecosystem to keep prices down for advertisers and make itself outperform other marketplaces by analyzing their matchmaking strategies and copying them. Among specific concerns is that just being part of Google enables AdX to glean more information than rival exchanges about consumers, making AdX more attractive to advertisers.

CHROME

The newest area of concern is how Google may be using its Chrome internet browser, which has about 50 percent market share in the United States, to restrict most advertising systems, beside its own, from building profiles on consumers as they browse the web.

The restrictions, many of which remain proposals subject to change, largely spare Google because consumers often sign into their Google accounts when using Chrome. That enables a form of tracking that it is not possible for ad tech firms that do not offer any services directly to users.

Google has said its initiative is aimed at helping users curb tracking, as they demand greater privacy protections. Other browser makers have adopted more stringent restrictions, but Google has said its striving for a middle ground between violating users' privacy and violating antitrust rules.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Samsung in hot water over splashy Australian phone ads

SYDNEY - Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Australian unit for allegedly misleading consumers by promoting water-resistant Galaxy smartphones as suitable to use in swimming pools and the surf.

The world's largest smartphone maker did not know or sufficiently test the effects of pool or saltwater exposure on its phones when ads showed them fully submerged, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lawsuit says.

The case is the first filed by a major regulator and could result in multi-million dollar fines. It centers on more than 300 advertisements in which Samsung showed its Galaxy phones being used at the bottom of swimming pools and in the ocean.

"The ACCC alleges Samsung's advertisements falsely and misleadingly represented Galaxy phones would be suitable for use in, or for exposure to, all types of water ... when this was not the case," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement on Thursday.

Samsung said it stood by its advertising, complied with Australian law and would defend the case.

The South Korean electronics giant has spent heavily on advertising to rebuild public faith in its premium smartphones following the costly recall of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 devices in 2016.

It is due to announce preliminary quarterly earnings on Friday, when it is widely expected to flag a profit plunge due to falls in chip prices.

HOT WATER

Samsung's water resistance claims came under heavy scrutiny as early as 2016 when influential US magazine Consumer Reports said the Galaxy S7 phone - which appears dunked in a fish tank in commercials - had failed an immersion test.

The company attributed that to a manufacturing defect, affecting a small number of phones, which it soon fixed. But customers online continued reporting problems, forum comments show.

Some consumers damaged their phones when exposing them to water and Samsung had refused to honor warranty claims, the ACCC said in the lawsuit, though Samsung said it complied with all of its warranty obligations under Australian law.

The regulator also said Samsung's advice to some Galaxy model users that the phones were not suitable for beach or pool use suggested the firm considered water could cause damage.

"Samsung showed the Galaxy phones used in situations they shouldn't be to attract customers," Sims said.

"Samsung's advertisements, we believe, denied consumers an informed choice and gave Samsung an unfair competitive advantage."

The ACCC alleges law breaches occurred in more than 300 advertisements. If proven, each breach after 1 Sept. 2018 can attract a fine of up to A$10 million ($7 million), triple the benefit of the conduct or as much as 10% of annual turnover.

Breaches prior to 1 Sept. 2018 can attract penalties as high as A$1.1 million. Rival Sony settled a US class action over similar claims for its Xperia smartphone range in 2017, promising refunds where the phones had failed. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com