ByteDance, as reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), had allegedly been led to choosing Oracle as its ‘trusted technology partner’ because one of Oracle’s founders, Larry Ellison, was a Trump supporter and that relationship could have been valuable if Trump had managed to hold on to the presidency.

Now, ByteDance will instead look to work with the Biden administration to seek a new structure for its US operations without the influence of a US company.

There had been a lot of confusion around what the deal between ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart would have meant.

It was initially stated that the new ‘TikTok Global’ US business would be owned 20 per cent by Oracle and Walmart and 80 per cent by ByteDance. However, Oracle announced that ByteDance would have no ownership at all in the business and that shares would only be distributed between itself and Walmart.

Either way, under the deal, ByteDance would not have transferred any of its algorithms to TikTok Global, as per Chinese law. Oracle would have only been able to conduct a security review of TikTok’s source code.

In India, where TikTok is already banned, ByteDance is said to be in talks to sell its operations to InMobi’s Glance, which serves news, movies, travel, sports, food, and games content on the lock screens of people’s smartphones, and recently secured a $145m investment from Google and Mithril Capital. Glance also owns rival video-sharing platform Roposo.

The post ByteDance shelves plans to sell TikTok US business to Oracle, Walmart appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The new law applies to any business doing business in California that collects consumers personal data, and which either, turns over more than $25m per annum; or buys or sells the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers or households; or earns more than half of its annual revenue from selling consumers personal information.

While that all sounds pretty straightforward, as with GDPR in Europe when that launched in 2018, there is much confusion among businesses about how the new law will apply to them, and how it will be interpreted and applied, with state Attorney General Xavier Becerra suggesting to the San Francisco Chronicle in December that it will be around six months before widespread enforcement of the law starts to happen.

Much depends on how rigid the state is in enforcing the law. Facebook said in a blog post in December: “We’re committed to clearly explaining how our products work, including the fact that we do not sell people’s data”, a statement that many people may find surprising.

Speaking to The Verge on Tuesday, James Steyer, CEO of children’s privacy advocacy organization Common Sense, took issue with Facebook’s stance, arguing that the company’s business model is based on collecting and monetizing its users’ data.
“As has unfortunately become the custom, Facebook is the single biggest outlier,” he said. “Becerra is going to have to focus on holding companies like Facebook to account.”

The post California Consumer Privacy Act tightens privacy laws in the state appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Signed by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, US Attorney General William Barr, Acting US Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, and Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, the letter raises concerns that Facebook’s encryption would protect those guilty of child sexual exploitation, terrorism, extortion, and other serious crimes from being investigated by law enforcement, impeding their roles and putting the public at risk.

The letter highlights an instance of when Facebook helped the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to save a child from abuse by locating chats between the young girl and an adult male. As such, Facebook is being urged to put measures in place to enable it to continue effectively aiding law enforcement.

The nations would also like to see Facebook go a step further and introduce a way for law enforcement to lawfully access the content exchanged by users behind the encryption. Before Facebook implements any of these things, however, the governments would like to be consulted by the social media giant on design decisions.

Though critical of Facebook’s plans to encrypt content right across its messaging services, the governments say they fully support strong encryption and “respect promises made by technology companies to protect users’ data”.

The release of the letter coincides with a world-first agreement signed by Barr and Patel which will enable UK law enforcement to go directly to US tech companies for access to data, rather than going through government, with appropriate authorisation. The US will have the same access to data from UK communication service providers under a US court order.

The ‘Bilateral Data Access Agreement’ is aimed at speeding up the process of requesting data about suspected criminals, which can take up to two years. Once in place, the hope is for the agreement to reduce the time taken down to weeks or days.

“Terrorists and paedophiles continue to exploit the internet to spread their messages of hate, plan attacks on our citizens and target the most vulnerable,” said Patel.

“As Home Secretary I am determined to do everything in my power to stop them. This historic Agreement will dramatically speed up investigations, allowing our law enforcement agencies to protect the public.”

Barr added: “This Agreement will enhance the ability of the United States and the United Kingdom to fight serious crime – including terrorism, transnational organised crime, and child exploitation – by allowing more efficient and effective access to data needed for quick-moving investigations.

“Only by addressing the problem of timely access to electronic evidence of crime committed in one country that is stored in another, can we hope to keep pace with twenty-first century threats.

“This Agreement will make the citizens of both countries safer, while at the same time assuring robust protections for privacy and civil liberties.”

The agreement has no bearing on the ability of companies to use encryption though, hence the open letter to Facebook.

The post UK, US and Australia call on Facebook to create backdoor to encrypted messages appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

In reaching almost $50bn, growth in digital ad spend increased by 23 per cent from the $40.3bn reported for the first half of 2017, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC US.

“This landmark figure cements digital advertising—whether display, search or mobile video—as one of the most powerful mechanisms of all time for brands to build relationships with consumers,” said Randall Rothenberg, IAB CEO. “It’s a truth upon which direct-to-consumer brands have built their businesses, and from which all businesses can benefit.”

Within the significant growth of digital advertising, mobile now accounts for 63 per cent of all digital ad revenue – advertisers spending $30.9bn on mobile media in the first half of 2018, an increase of 42 per cent over the same period last year.

Mobile search now accounts for 59 per cent of total search revenue and grew 37 per cent to $13.5bn, while mobile display now accounts for 74 per cent of all display ad revenue with its 45 per cent increase to $11.7bn.

Meanwhile, video revenue grew 35 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $7bn – with 60 per cent of the spend going to mobile video – and audio spend increased 31 per cent to reach $931m for the first half of the year. Social media revenue hit $13.1bn for H1 2018, up 38 per cent YoY.

“As consumers and advertisers appetite for video shows no sign of slowing, its interesting to see that one third of video inventory was purchased programmatically in H1 2018,” said Anna Watkins, UK managing director at Oath.

“Advertisers are using sight, sound and motion to engage consumers through mobile more than ever and are increasingly looking to the performance of algorithms to tell them whats working, where and when.

“With the onset of AR and VR experiences in formats like native, mobile devices are an expanding canvas for creatives, allowing brands to create fantastic, interactive experiences. This is only likely to be spurred on by the introduction of 5G as seamless experiences become the new norm and buffering or load times for this kind of content become a thing of the past.”

The post US digital ad spend reaches almost $50bn for first half of 2018 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of US adults who own mobile phones has stayed at 95 per cent since 2016. Within this, much like two years ago, 77 per cent of those own smartphones, and 69 per cent use social media. Internet usage grew slightly from 88 to 89 per cent, as did tablet usage from 51 to 53 per cent. The only decline recorded came in the number of PC owners, which fell from 78 to 73 per cent between 2016 and 2018.

Though it may seem there is no more room to grow for the above technologies, many non-users are prevented from embracing new technologies because financial issues. Notably, desktop or laptop computer and tablet ownership is at its highest in households with an income of over $75,000. Meanwhile, others are unable to embrace new technologies due to limited access to high speed internet and older people say they sometimes lack confidence with new technologies.

Amongst smartphone users, the percentage of people that consider themselves to be ‘smartphone-only’ internet users has increased from 12 to 20 per cent since 2016. And adults using Instagram has increased from 28 to 35 per cent, despite overall social media usage plateauing.

The post Mobile phone and internet usage appears to have peaked in the US appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The pilot program will expand the existing protections Facebook has put in place for those associated with US political campaigns. It will enable federal and state-wide candidates, as well as staff members and representatives, to add additional security protections – including two-factor authentication – to their pages and accounts by applying for the program at politics.fb.com/campaignsecurity. Once enrolled, users will be able to add others from their campaign or committee.

Facebook says it will use what it learns from this midterm election pilot and apply it to other elections in the US and around the world, but it hopes that participants in the pilot don’t have any reason to use the expanded protections.

The post Facebook further expands security for political staff ahead of US midterms appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) is aimed at assessing whether improvements need to be made to the system. The alerts – carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), alongside the Federal Communications Commission (FFC) – are set to arrive at 2:18pm EDT and 2:20pm EDT.

The WEA test, lasting approximately 30 minutes, will come first and be sent to all mobile phones connected to wireless providers participating in WEA. It will use a special tone and vibration on devices and users cannot opt out of the test.

The message will have the headline “Presidential Alert” and will read: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

The WEA system was created to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, and other critical situations.

This will be followed by the EAS test which is set to last around one minute and will be similar to the EAS text messages that the US population is already used to.  

The EAS message will read: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Emergency Alert System. This system was developed by broadcast and cable operators in voluntary cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and local authorities to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency an official message would have followed the tone alert you heard at the start of this message. A similar wireless emergency alert test message has been sent to all cell phones nationwide. Some cell phones will receive the message; others will not. No action is required.”

There is a possibility that the test could be rescheduled, should something like a major weather event occur. If so, the test will be pushed to Wednesday 3 October.

The post Trump administration to text every US mobile phone on Thursday appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The library has teamed up with Mother in New York, an advertising and creative agency, to launch what it’s calling ‘Insta Novels’. Through the initiative, classic pieces of literature are being turned into animated, digital versions illustrated by a variety of artists.

The first literary classic available on the library’s Instagram account – @nypl – is part one of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which has been illustrated by Magoz. Over the next few months, the library will add two other classics to its Instagram account in the form of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, illustrated by Buck, and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, illustrated by César Pelizer.

All the stories will added to the ‘Highlights’ section of the library’s Instagram account, becoming a digital bookshelf as more are added.

To read the digitised pieces, users tap on the relevant story then rest their thumb on the lower right part of the screen to hold the page, and lift their thumb to turn the page. Or they can let the book play through on its own and see the animation in full.

The post New York Public Library turns literary classics into Insta Stories appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed nearly 750 US teenagers, YouTube is now the most popular platform, with 85 per cent regularly using the video hosting service. Instagram and Snapchat make up the top three, with 72 per cent and 69 per cent respectively. Only 51 per cent say they use Facebook.

Other social networks also made the list, but in much smaller numbers. 32 per cent of teens use Twitter, while only nine per cent use Oath-owned Tumblr and seven per cent are on Reddit.

The survey showed that most US teenagers aged 13 to 17 owned or had access to a smartphone, with 45 per cent describing themself as online “almost constantly”. Teens are split on whether this online life is good for them, with 31 per cent describing social media as mostly positive, 24 per cent calling it mostly negative, and 45 per cent saying it has neither a positive nor negative effect overall.

While Facebook manages to remain in the top three services used thanks to Instagram, it faces worse news when looking at which platforms are used most often. Snapchat tops this chart, with 35 per cent of teens saying it is their preferred platform, with YouTube close behind at 32 per cent. Instagram comes in a distant third with 15 per cent, while Facebook has 10 per cent.

There are significant demographic differences to take into account too. Teens from lower-income households are more likely to use Facebook than those from affluent households; 70 per cent of teens from households with an income of $30,000 (£22,500) or less use the social network, compared to just 36 per cent of those from households earning $75,000 or more.

Girls are more likely than boys to say Snapchat is their most used service (42 per cent vs. 29 per cent) while boys are more inclined to identify YouTube as their platform of choice (39 per cent vs. 25 per cent). Splits on racial lines also exist, with Snapchat proving more popular with white teens (41 per cent) than Hispanic (29 per cent) or black teenagers (23 per cent).

When it comes to smartphone ownership or access, however, there is almost no variation. 95 per cent own or have access to a smartphone overall, a figure that only drops to 93 per cent in households with incomes under $30,000. 97 per cent of girls own or have access to a smartphone, while that falls to 93 per cent for boys, but when broken down by race, there is only a percentage point difference between white, black and Hispanic teens.

Those stats stand in contrast to desktop or laptop ownership and access. While still relatively high at 88 per cent, that figure drops to 82 per cent for Hispanic teens (compared to 90 per cent for white teens and 89 for black teens) and for households with incomes under $30,000, sits at only 75 per cent. If marketers want to reach all of Americas teens, it seems that smartphones really are the way to do it.

The post US teens are ditching Facebook for other social platforms appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

In an executive order, Trump claims there is “credible evidence” to suggest that Singapore-based Broadcom may use the acquisition to “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States”.

Though Broadcom can appeal the order, it’s highly unlikely the decision will be reversed, and the idea world’s biggest technology sector takeover can now be put to the rest.

Trump’s decision is another sign of his ‘America first’ mantra and the growing fears around espionage from foreign entities – namely China.

It follows similar concerns that were raised by the US Senate and House intelligence committees surrounding deals between Chinese smartphone maker Huawei and AT&T and Verizon earlier this. The deals that were in place would have seen Huawei phones become available in the US through the carriers. However, under pressure from the government, both Huawei and AT&T made the decision to pull out of their respective deals.

The post Donald Trump kills off Broadcoms takeover bid for Qualcomm appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.