Facebook fined £500,000 for Cambridge Analytica scandal

BBC

Facebook has been fined £500,000 by the UK’s data protection watchdog for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said Facebook had let a “serious breach” of the law take place.

The fine is the maximum allowed under the old data protection rules that applied before GDPR took effect in May.

The ICO said Facebook had given app developers access to people’s data “without clear consent”.

In July, the ICO notified the social network that it intended to issue the maximum fine.

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Google Lens comes to Google Images for searching – and shopping – inside photos

Tech Crunch

Google this morning announced it’s bringing its A.I.-powered Lens technology to Google Image Search. The idea, explains the company, is to allow web searchers to learn more about what’s in a photo – including, in particular, items they may want to shop for and buy. For example, a photo of a well-decorated living room might have a sofa you like, but the photo itself wouldn’t have necessarily informed you who made the sofa or where it was for sale.

Google Lens – yes, acting very much like Pinterest – will now be able to help with that.

You’ll be able to tap on “dots” that appear within the photo, which designate items Google Lens has identified, or you can use your finger to “draw” around an object in the photo to trigger Google Images to search for related information. Google then searches across the web, including for other images, web pages, and even videos where this object may appear.

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Taboola And Vivo Partner To Compete With Apple News

Mobile Marketing Magazine

Discovery platform Taboola has announced a strategic partnership with smartphone manufacturer Vivo in a deal that will see new platform Taboola News integrated directly into Android devices, providing owners with a personalised news feed for Vivo’s 100m+ customers.

Taboola will deliver a fully personalised content experience for Vivo’s customers, helping the mnaufacturer to drive engagement and monetisation, while also providing a significant new audience source to content publishers in India and South East Asia, where Vivo has a strong presence.

The platform will deliberately mimic an ‘Apple News’-style experience for Android users, with consumers able to access a personalised feed of content services and news aggregation, while also aiming to support publishers and journalists. The platform, which will be accessible directly from Vivo homescreens, will surface relevant content from premium publishers throughout Asia, including NDTV, India Today, China Daily, Kapook and OhBulan.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook takes aim at Facebook and Google over privacy policies

The Drum

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has taken aim at the “surveillance” practices of tech rivals like Facebook and Google, saying that mass data collection means information is being “weaponised against [people] with military efficiency”.

During a speech to privacy officials in Brussels on Wednesday (25 October) Cook extolled the importance of legislation to protect individual rights. His comments come against the backdrop of Europe’s implementation of stricter data protection rules like GDPR and the forthcoming e-privacy directive.

“We see painfully how technology can harm, rather than help,” Cook said, adding: “Platforms and algorithms that promise to improve our lives can actually magnify our worst human tendencies.”

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Lego, Facebook and Just Eat on why video mobile matters

The Drum

As technology gets smaller and continues to evolve, storytellers in the industry must learn to adapt their craft to suit the smaller screen. Creating video with mobile in mind should be essential at this point in the digital era, but you’d be surprised how few marketers adopt this as their main marketing strategy.

If you’re considering re-evaluating your strategy or you want to prioritise mobile video, head to The Drum’s webinar held in partnership with Spredfast, to find out what opportunities are available for marketers in mobile and how they get gain a maximum impact on the platform.

Video is a growing medium; it currently represents almost 50% of all mobile data traffic, et it’s predicted to continue expanding and is expected to reach 75% in as little as three years.

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India Mobile Congress 2018 Day 1 Highlights: India’s Road To 5g Development Discussed

FirstPost

The India Mobile Congress is in its second edition and it is India’s premier mobile technology conference. IMC brings together mobile, internet and technology companies on one platform. It is taking place in New Delhi from 25-27 October.

The event is South Asia’s largest digital forum and this year’s theme will be “New Digital Horizons Connect, Create, Innovate”.

MC 2018 will see some of the biggest names in the tech industry and top ministers taking to the stage to speak about future roadmaps in the telecom sector. We can expect the talking points to revolve around the onset of 5G technology and the infrastructure needed to make it a reality in India.

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Disinformation and fake news spreads over WhatApp ahead of Brazil’s presidential election

Independent

Over the past few months, the 120 million Brazilians who use WhatsApp, the smartphone messaging application owned by Facebook, have been deluged with political messages.

The missives, spread through the country by the millions, have targeted voters before Brazil’s fiercely contested presidential election. A final runoff between a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, and Fernando Haddad, the leftist Workers’ Party candidate, will be on 28 October.

One popular WhatsApp message displayed the name of a presidential candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, next to the number 17. When Brazilians vote, they punch in a number for a candidate or party in an electronic voting machine.

But the information in the photo was wrong. The number 17 was for Bolsonaro’s party. Da Silva was no longer even in the race.

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Social shopping spurs half of UK and US consumers to convert, with big boost expected around Black Friday purchases

Internet Retailing

Half of UK and US consumers are now converting through social media – with that number expected to hit a two thirds around Black Friday.

So finds a global study of 111,899 internet users by GlobalWebIndex, which finds that 49% of UK and 53% of US consumers are now converting through social platforms. The most popular platform is Facebook, through which 39% of UK respondents stated they have made a purchase.

The same research highlights that when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, social shopping tendencies are amplified by as much as 66% in the UK, with only a quarter of respondents able to say they wouldn’t purchase through social media after seeing a sales offer during the discount weekend.

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Report points to surge in mobile, phishing fraud

Mobile Payments Today

IDology, a provider of solutions for identity verification, authentication and fraud prevention, has released its Sixth Annual Fraud Report, confirming the growing importance of balancing customer friction and fraud prevention.

The report reveals a surge in mobile and phishing fraud schemes, a focus on artificial intelligence and the rise of machine learning as developing categories in identity verification, Additionally, the report highlights the strategic role of identity verification in the quest to retain and attract customers and increase revenue.

According to the study, mobile fraud increased 117 percent over the previous year, with businesses reporting a 63 percent increase in mobile fraud. All types — including porting, spoofing, hacking and fraudulent change events — are on the rise, according to the study. Caller ID spoofing, porting and SMS interception increased 74 percent, 69 percent and 50 percent, respectively, year over year.

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Africa’s first ‘true’ cryptocurrency set to be released in 2019

Citizen Digital

A new mobile phone cryptocurrency network is underdevelopment and is set to be released in 2019, a South African banker has announced.

Shaun Burrow who resides in Mauritius said his virtually free digital platform dubbed DéMars (DMC) will deliver financial services to unbanked adults in developing markets like Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Burrow, two thirds of the left out group own mobile phones and this presents a lot of opportunities.

“I was simply blown away to learn that 1.7 billion adults don’t have access to basic financial services,” he said.

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