Data Privacy Is The Price Of The Latest Antitrust Proposals

from the when-policies-conflict dept

In the wake of data breaches at Target and Equifax where hackers compromised the personal information of millions of Americans and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, customers and policymakers are increasingly worried about the privacy and security of our personal information online. Unfortunately, policymakers often confuse these privacy and data security concerns with broader anti-tech fervor against America’s leading technology businesses. But simply put, kitchen-sink anti-tech responses could exacerbate, not ease, concerns regarding data privacy and security.

Sen. Klobuchar’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act proposed in the Senate this month provides a clear example of how “solutions” driven by animosity towards “Big Tech” could undermine consumer privacy. Lawmakers who are currently pushing antitrust proposals to attack tech businesses are creating a scenario where companies might be unable to undertake the privacy and security features that their consumers trust and rely on.

This latest legislation would undermine existing privacy features and lead to more risky sharing with third-parties which has been at the heart of many privacy scandals. By making it illegal for the tech giants covered by the law to “restrict or impede” a business user’s access to data created through the platform or to limit portability, the result is simple—this will likely undermine companies’ attempts to improve consumer privacy such as Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency. In most cases, this bill also requires companies to share their data with rivals, even those that might have ill-intentions against the company, its consumers, or even the United States. 

Thanks to the requirements in the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, malicious businesses, including foreign companies, could exploit its data portability loophole and gain access to user information. It opens up businesses to the very actions at the heart of other previous data privacy scandals and dilutes their ability to respond with what consumers want—better security and privacy options. And as a result, Klobuchar’s antitrust proposal would likely harm users’ privacy online and create more harm to consumers than the current tenuous claims about tech giants' market behavior.

This bill won’t just harm consumer privacy, it’ll harm small businesses to boot. Under the Klobuchar bill, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple would not be able to limit the use of data by those with questionable or unethical data practices and would be greatly limited in their ability to remove fraudulent apps or other awful actors from their app stores.

These companies would generally have two options: either accept all sellers into their phones and app stores, regardless of poor data privacy and security standards, distasteful products, and customer service quality, or end these programs altogether to avoid accusations of self-preferencing and significant consequences associated with it under Klobuchar’s bill. 

Both options would mean consumers likely lose the benefits of knowing that only approved apps can access their data, while developers of these apps and other small businesses that use these services would not benefit from the consumer trust these marketplaces currently provide. 

The interoperability requirements of the bill also fail to truly provide the users themselves with the increased options. Instead, they make user data and to whom it can be ported further subject to the decisions of companies and third-parties. New opportunities for data portability between platforms can provide users more control and lower the cost of switching between services. Take the Data Transfer Project, which allows users to choose to transfer certain data like photos between project member services. This gives users more options for where they can choose to keep such information. But the Klobuchar proposal structurally doesn’t help users and would require companies to provide portability and interoperability to other companies,not to the users themselves.

Proponents of Klobuchar’s bill will likely point out that the bill establishes an affirmative defense to avoid these requirements if it would undermine privacy. However, this still would not solve all the concerns. Companies that pursue that route would face a high burden in court and the high costs associated with litigating such a case. As a result, many companies will favor compliance and handing over consumer data rather than risk the penalties if an affirmative defense fails, even if they believe consumer privacy may ultimately be undermined. In fact, the inclusion of an affirmative defense wouldn’t even be sufficient to overcome the additional privacy problems that Klobuchar’s bill would create.

Rather than resolving data privacy concerns, antitrust proposals like Senator Klobuchar’s could make keeping our information safe online an impossible task for tech companies. Policymakers should not have consumers and small businesses pay an unfair price and lose privacy protections just so they can go after big tech companies.

Jennifer Huddleston is Policy Counsel at NetChoice where she focuses on emerging technology issues like privacy, competition policy, and intermediary liability.

Filed Under: american innovation and choice online act, amy klobuchar, antitrust, competition, data portability, privacy

Seventh Circuit Says Riley Doesn't Apply To Searches Of Parolees' Phones

from the nestled-in-one-of-many-warrant-exceptions dept

In 2014, the Supreme Court extended Fourth Amendment coverage to the contents of cell phones. Prior to that ruling, cops had successfully argued that searching the contents of someone's cell phone was no different than searching the contents of their pockets when arresting them. Claims -- bad ones -- were made about "officer safety" and, for the most part, courts tended to agree. If the pants pocket argument didn't work, cell phones -- with their wealth of personal information and private communications -- were analogized as the digital equivalent of car trunks or address books.

This protection only extends so far, as one parolee has discovered. The key is in the wording of the Supreme Court's Riley decision, which apparently doesn't cover someone being arrested for parole violations. But the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision [PDF] seems to undercut some of the findings of the Riley decision, which recognized the personal nature of these computers capable of being carried in someone's pocket. In doing so, it appears to say this enhanced expectation of privacy simply doesn't apply to anyone on parole or probation.

The opening paragraph appears to show something that oversteps the bounds of the search incident to arrest, at least in relation to the parole violation.

Henry Wood was arrested for violating his parole. Midway through the arrest, parole agents found methamphetamine hidden underneath the back cover of his cellphone. An investigator later extracted the data from his cellphone, revealing child pornography.

While the discovery of drugs may have been inevitable, given its location, it's unclear why this investigator decided a forensic search of the phone's digital contents was necessary. While Wood had served time on meth charges, the discovery of meth doesn't alone appear to justify a full search of his phone. The violation he was picked up for was failing to report to his parole officer. His phone was seized as "evidence" during his arrest and the phone search was performed -- without a warrant -- a week later.

Parolees do have a lowered expectation of privacy in just about everything, but it doesn't seem this agreement signed by Wood covers the contents of his phone.

I understand that I am legally in the custody of the Department of Correction and that my person and residence or property under my control may be subject to reasonable search by my supervising officer or authorized official of the Department of Correction if the officer or official has reasonable cause to believe that the parolee is violating or is in imminent danger of violating a condition to remaining on parole.

The crime was failing to report. The search of the outside of the phone led to the discovery of meth. The phone search was in service of... ??? It seems the search of the device occurred mainly because investigators believed Wood's parole agreement allowed them to perform one without seeking a warrant.

The Appeals Court says there's nothing wrong with this. Riley only covers certain situations.

Wood asks us to apply Riley v. California to parolees. The primary problem with this request is that Riley dealt with searches incident to a lawful arrest. The Supreme Court carefully tailored its analysis to that context and expressly recognized that “other case‐specific exceptions may still justify a warrantless search of a particular phone.”

Wood pointed out he was arrested and the phone search could plausibly be called "incident to arrest." The Seventh Circuit doesn't care for this argument. Instead, it says it could be plausibly argued Wood was never out of law enforcement's custody at any point, so the arrest wasn't a new event but rather just an unfortunate continuation of his incarceration.

Wood maintains his arrest rendered Samson inapplicable and instead triggered Riley. On its face, this seems plausible—Wood was arrested, making him an arrestee, and Riley is about arrestees. But a parolee is on the “‘continuum’ of state‐imposed punishments,” one step removed from incarceration. See Samson, 547 U.S. at 850. A custodial arrest would not increase a parolee’s privacy expectations by placing him outside Samson’s reach. Upon arrest, Wood’s status was not transformed from parolee to arrestee, but from parolee to parolee‐arrestee, so Samson continued to apply.

In the court's eyes, the needs of the state (keeping an eye on parolees, reducing recidivism) justify the lowered expectation of privacy for parolees, making them (and their property) subject to warrantless searches. The court says the Supreme Court expressly referred to this carveout when establishing its warrant requirement for cell phone searches.

Reducing recidivism is an independent goal of the parole system, exclusive from those discussed in Riley, and it would be frustrated by imposing a warrant requirement because it would incentivize concealment of criminal activity.

And that's the end of the discussion for now. Riley doesn't apply to devices owned by parolees. They may have been granted a small percentage of their rights in exchange for their continued good behavior, but apparently a warrant requirement for phone searches isn't one of them. There's nothing more personal for some people than their phones, but if you're still working off your debt to society, the state can access your personal data and private conversations on a whim.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 7th circuit, device searches, parolees, phones, privacy, riley, searches

Internet Archive Would Like To Know What The Association Of American Publishers Is Hiding

from the it's-not-the-only-one dept

Last year when a bunch of the biggest publishing houses sued the Internet Archive, in the midst of a pandemic, over their digital library program, I was a bit surprised that the announcement about the lawsuit came not from any of the publishers themselves directly, but rather from the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which is officially not a party in the lawsuit. That alone felt a bit... sketchy.

And, now it may be an issue in the lawsuit itself. Last week, the Internet Archive asked the judge for a hearing because the AAP is attempting to withhold various responsive documents on the discovery requests that were made to the publishers themselves regarding their communications with the AAP, and a separate subpoena served on the AAP. And it appears the AAP really doesn't want that stuff to get into the hands of the Internet Archive's legal team.

This dispute concerns documents (i) responsive to the Internet Archive’s requests for production served on Plaintiffs and (ii) responsive to the Internet Archive’s subpoena served on the AAP. These withheld documents are critical to the Internet Archive’s fair use defense—specifically the fourth factor, market harm. The varying views of publishers regarding whether they objected to the Internet Archive’s activities, whether they regarded themselves as having been harmed by those activities, and whether that harm was of a large or of a small magnitude are key pieces of evidence as to whether Internet Archive’s nonprofit library lending causes any substantial market harm.

There's also a hint in the letter suggesting that the Internet Archive is suggesting that the only real "harm" caused by its Open Library was that it made it more difficult for the big publishers to collude (as they did with Apple regarding ebook prices) to jack up the prices on ebooks sold (but not really sold) to libraries.

And publishers’ communications regarding the source of that harm—for example, if the Internet Archive’s activities simply make it more difficult for publishers to agree among themselves on ebook prices, as they did in United States v. Apple, Inc., 791 F.3d 290 (2d Cir. 2015)—will shed light on whether that harm is cognizable under the fourth factor. Further, the Internet Archive is entitled to explore whether Plaintiffs and other publishers conspired here as they did in the Apple case; if so, such anticompetitive conduct here may support an additional defense which could preclude infringement liability. See Saks Inc. v. Attachmate Corp., No. 14-civ-4902-CM, 2015 WL 1841136, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 17, 2015) (“[H]istorically, the defense of copyright misuse has been successfully asserted most often in cases where anticompetitive effects were alleged.”). Finally, withheld documents are likely to be relevant to the Internet Archive’s laches defense. The requested documents will shed light onto why the AAP (and Plaintiffs), despite being aware for years of the Internet Archive’s digital lending library, waited until the summer of 2020 to sue.

The AAP is trying to argue that its communications with the publishers is protected by attorney-client privilege, which is made difficult by the fact that the AAP is not acting as the publishers' lawyers here, but rather as lobbyists.

Plaintiffs have not demonstrated beyond conclusory statements in their privilege logs that communications with the AAP were exchanged to solicit, receive, or give legal advice rather than to discuss business concerns and interests....

.... One of Plaintiffs’ justifications for withholding their communications with the AAP is that some AAP staff members are attorneys. But AAP employees who happen to be attorneys wear many hats. For example, the President and CEO of the AAP is also a lawyer, as is AAP’s Senior Vice President of Global Policy. While it is conceivable that these executives do legal work for the organization, the burden is on AAP to justify why particular documents are privileged, given these executives’ predominant business roles.

Also, generally speaking, if documents are attorney-client privileged, it means you don't share it with anyone who is not on the legal team. But, that's not what happened here:

Plaintiffs’ privilege logs also suggest that AAP employees who were not attorneys were copied on withheld documents, including communications staff—which suggests that the predominant purpose of the document may not have been to secure legal advice. United States v. IBM Corp., 66 F.R.D. 206, 213 (S.D.N.Y. 1974) (“no protection attaches to a document prepared for simultaneous review by legal and nonlegal personnel.”). Finally, several entries on Plaintiffs’ privilege logs reference communications either (i) solely between non-party third parties or (ii) between Plaintiffs and third parties (like authors and literary agents). Plaintiffs have not met their burden to show that privilege extends to any of these third parties.

There's some more in the letter, but it does seem pretty clear that the AAP desperately doesn't want the Internet Archive to know what it was talking about with the publishers regarding the plans around dealing with the Open Library.

Filed Under: collusion, copyright, ebooks, libraries, lobbying, open library, price fixing
Companies: aap, association of american pubblishers, internet archive

Daily Deal: WriterDuet Screenwriting Pro Plan

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Document Freed By FOIA Shows How Much Data The FBI Can Obtain From Cellphone Service Providers

from the quite-a-bit-and-dating-back-for-quite-awhile dept

An internal FBI document shared with Joseph Cox of Motherboard by Ryan Shapiro of Property of the People gives a little more insight into law enforcement's data grabs. The Third Party Doctrine -- ushered into law by the Supreme Court decision that said anything voluntarily shared with third parties could be obtained without a warrant -- still governs a lot of these collections.

For everything else, there are warrant exceptions, plain view, inevitable discovery, a variety of "exigent circumstances," and reverse warrants that convert probable cause to "round up everyone and we'll decide who the 'usual suspects' are." Constitutional concerns still reside in this gray area, which means law enforcement will grab everything it can until precedent says it can't.

The document [PDF] gives some insight into the FBI's CAST (Cellular Analysis Survey Team). It shows how much the FBI has access to, how much it has the potential to grab, and how much unsettled law aids in bulk collection of data the FBI can parse through to find suspects or, if enough fishing rods are present, decide whether it has anything to do with its investigative time.

It's all in there, starting with "Basic Cellular Theory" and moving on to everything cell-related the FBI can get its data mitts on.

CAST supports the FBI as well as state, local, and tribal law enforcement investigations through the analysis of call data and tower information, the presentation adds. That can include obtaining the data from telecommunications companies in the first place; analyzing tower dumps that can show which phones were in an approximate location at a given time; providing expert witness testimony; and performing drive tests to verify the actual coverage of a cell tower.

More specifically:

CAST will utilize industry standard survey gear drive test equipment to determine the true geographical coverage breadth of a cell site sector...

Hell yeah. Mapping the frontier except its a van full of feds out wardriving, Lewis-and-Clarking their way into OTA superiority.

Other information derived or directly included in this presentation shows CAST (and?) crew are leveraging minimal oversight and precedent to hoover up data, including historical cell site location data, which now has some constitutional protection. One CAST member Vice found on LinkedIn noted their "special emphasis" on long-term tracking via historical cell site data, apparently occasionally in service of solving serious crimes.

To that end, the FBI apparently operates its own software to help collect data from cell towers and cross reference it with whatever the agency can collect from other sources.

“CASTViz has the ability to quickly plot call detail records and tower data for lead generation and investigative purposes…"

There's more to it. A lot of what's discussed here has been discussed in the public sphere (courts, records requests, leaked documents, etc.), but even if the subject matter is familiar, it's entertaining and educational to see the FBI's (instructional) take on what is now a large part of current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. It discusses everything from grabbing location data from burner phones to General Motors' OnStar in-vehicle systems.

The document also makes it clear not all service providers are created equal. Some are far more useful than others.

The presentation provides more recent figures on how long telecoms retain data for. AT&T holds onto data such as call records, cell site, and tower dumps for 7 years. T-Mobile holds similar information for 2 years, and Verizon holds it for 1 year.

The slide also shows that AT&T retains “cloud storage internet/web browsing” data for 1 year.

AT&T has always been proactive with its data-sharing. It has set up its own data centers where NSA analysts can grab communications and other data from AT&T internet backbones. This is on top of whatever it can offer on the telco side, including its millions of cell phone users. There are eight of these secret data centers in the United States. All of this helps explain why AT&T holds on to so much data for so long: it has plenty of federal customers to give it to.

There's also some discussion of real-time tracking, which is governed by far fewer precedential decisions. The DOJ enacted a warrant requirement (with plenty of exceptions) for Stingray device use, but hasn't done the same for real-time tracking via cell service providers. As it stands now, the Third Party Doctrine is controlling, which means warrants aren't needed and if it's a close call, a variety of exceptions would likely make use of these tools a "good faith" effort, legally speaking.

It's a good peek into the FBI's data collection habits, one that also shows how much cell providers collect and retain, which may provide guidance for privacy-minded individuals in the market for a new service provider.

Filed Under: cast, data, fbi, foia, privacy

Big Telecom Is Mad Because New FCC Appointment Gigi Sohn Actually Defends Broadband Consumers

from the dysfunction-junction dept

So after the longest (and completely unexplained) delay in FCC and NTIA history, last week the Biden administration finally got around to fully staffing the nation's top telecom regulator. While the selection of fairly centrist Jessica Rosenworcel is expected to make it through the confirmation process, the same can't be said of Gigi Sohn, a popular consumer advocate:

"Republican senators largely said they can live with Rosenworcel — but GOP leaders say they’re drawing the line at Sohn and her perceived regulatory bent. "

What's the GOP's primary problem with Sohn? Apparently it's her diabolical tendency toward coalition building (gasp) and support for local community broadband (double gasp):

"Sohn has long had a reputation as a shrewd operator within telecom circles, adept at pulling together coalitions in support of causes such as fighting industry consolidation and empowering local governments to build their own internet networks."

If you're new here, the GOP's opposition to Sohn is being directly coordinated by the nation's biggest telecom monopolies. And for twenty years, the telecom industry has been terrified of having U.S. regulators actually do their jobs, promote competition, crack down on monopoly power, and protect consumers. This is almost always dressed up as other concerns, like the 25-year-old bogeyman idea that appointing a competent consumer advocate will immediately result in broadband price regulation:

"The main GOP concern about Sohn is the same one that bedeviled the final hours of this summer’s infrastructure bill negotiations: the prospect that Democrats may want to regulate the prices that broadband providers like Comcast charge customers. That possibility is one reason Republicans have spent years opposing net neutrality, which they worry would lead to the FCC assuming more regulatory power over broadband networks."

But again, U.S. broadband price regulation never happens. Even under the most progressive FCC in a generation (Tom Wheeler, whom Sohn closely advised), meaningful price regulation was always kept off the table. The net neutrality rules were carefully crafted to avoid it. It's simply a non-starter in DC. But it is useful as a GOP "slippery slope" argument bogeyman, providing useful cover for just blanket fealty to regional telecom monopolies. "We shouldn't stand up to telecom monopolies in any way because it might result in broadband price caps!" The fear-mongering has proven effective for 25 straight years.

This knee-jerk opposition to anything that would upset Comcast, AT&T and Verizon is buried under the guise of other complaints too, like the GOP's claim that Democrats are going to rush Sohn's appointment:

"Republican senators largely said they can live with Rosenworcel — but GOP leaders say they’re drawing the line at Sohn and her perceived regulatory bent. And they’re not on board with Democrats’ push to rush the confirmations through."

Politico's fecklessness strikes again in that they just "forget" to mention that the GOP rushed through the appointment of largely unqualified Trump BFF Nathan Simington late last year in under 28 days, with the obvious goal of creating 2-2 partisan gridlock at the agency. At the telecom industry's direct behest, Politico's selective GOP brunch sources want to maintain this gridlock for as long as possible.

The GOP has been a mindless rubber stamp for regional telecom monopolies for literally decades. There is literally no terrible idea AT&T or Comcast has pushed they won't support. That's not an opinion. It's not debatable. Yes, there are also corrupt Democratic senators on this front, but if you actually look at policy history on this subject, there's no comparison. By and large Democratic policymakers have at least occasionally tried (sloppily and tepidly to be sure) to foster competition, protect consumers, and occasionally thwart broadband monopolization. Sometimes.

The GOP, in contrast, has been a full-throttle ride down a rabbit hole of mindlessly pandering to AT&T and Comcast at nearly every opportunity. For forty straight years. The party will simply deny that the U.S. broadband industry isn't competitive. They'll demolish every consumer protection effort. They'll approve every competition and job-killing merger. This history speaks for itself, yet when a beltway brunch outlet like Politico covers why the GOP is opposing the appointment of a popular, consumer-focused regulator to the FCC, that entire history is just not mentioned out of fear of offending sources and advertisers.

Politico's read on the room could be a bit skewed by its sources, as Sohn has historically been well respected as a straight shooter across both sides of the aisle. Democrats could push her through without the GOP, but they'll again have to rely on the votes of Manchin and Sinema, the latter of which has actively thwarted efforts to restore net neutrality after being pressured by Comcast lobbyists.

Filed Under: fcc, gigi sohn, gop, net neutrality

Nintendo's YouTube Video For Its Switch Online Upgrade Is Its Most Hated Video Ever

from the dislike dept

Well, this is moving fast. We had just been discussing Nintendo's announcement for a new tier of Nintendo Switch Online services. While there are several extras added in for the $50 per year tier, a 150% increase in cost from the base subscription, the real star of the show was supposed to be the Nintendo 64 games that are now included in it. As we discussed, however, the list of N64 games on offer is very limited and there are all kinds of problems with the games that are offered. Those problems include graphical issues, scaling issues, controller lag issues, controller mapping issues, and multiplayer lag. You know... everything. When you put all of that side by side with Nintendo's concentrated efforts to obliterate emulation sites from the internet, the end result is that Nintendo decided to deprive the public of pirated classic games in order to sell them a vastly inferior product.

But it's one thing for me, known Nintendo-detractor Timothy Geigner, to say all of that. What really matters is how the paying public will react to all of this. Well, if you're looking for a canary in the Nintendo coal mine, we can look to the video Nintendo put on YouTube announcing the new tier of NSO.

Well, it seems a lot of people don't like Nintendo's new Switch Online Expansion Pack based on the reveal trailer's likes and dislikes. The video, which revealed the pricing details for the plan, now has 104k dislikes on YouTube, overtaking the previously most hated video on Nintendo's channel: A trailer for Metroid Prime: Federation Force.

NSO's Expansion Pack costs $50 a year, more than double what the basic Nintendo Switch Online plan costs. That extra money gets you access to an Animal Crossing expansion (which can and should be bought separately) and 23 N64 and Sega Genesis games. It's not a great deal and making matters worse, the emulation quality of these games ain't great, with many complaining that the older games run poorly, lack proper control remapping, and feature numerous visual and gameplay bugs and glitches. It's just a big, over-priced mess.

Somehow, I doubt that when Nintendo dreamt this plan up, it wasn't going for "a big, over-priced mess", but that's absolutely what we have. That video has only been up for about two weeks now. At the time of this writing, the video has 17k likes and 141k dislikes. As far as decent market research on public feedback for a product, that's fairly clear-cut.

As are the comments on the YouTube page itself. Some examples include:

• "It seems like they are asking us to emulate their games SO MUCH."
• "I admire Nintendo's bravery. It takes guts to do something so idiotic and not back down when the hate comes."
• "Hats off to Nintendo for inadvertently reminding people that they can play their old favorite games on an emulator for free."

It goes on and on and on. Is Nintendo going to alter its plans based on this near uniform negative feedback? No, of course not. That's not how the company rolls. But it's also true that this sort of thing is the reason why emulation is never going to completely die. If a company cannot offer a product that is at least as good as the pirated product, how in the world can they successfully sell it?

Filed Under: nintendo switch, nso, retro games
Companies: nintendo

Advertising Is Content: Taskmaster Edition

from the your-time-starts-now dept

Many, many years ago on Techdirt, I wrote a lot about the idea of advertising being content (and content being advertising). The general idea was that, without captive audiences any more, you had to make your advertising into really good content that people would actually like, rather than find it annoying and intrusive.

I still think this is an important insight, but with the rise of a limited number of internet giants and (more importantly) Google and Facebook focusing on better and better ad targeting, most of the focus on ads these days hasn't been so much on "advertising is content," so much as "advertising is creepily and slightly inaccurately targeted, but you're going to live with it, because that's all you've got." Still, every once in a while, we're reminded of this idea about how advertising could actually be good content in its own right. Ironically, the example I'm about to share here... comes from Google. But we'll get to that in a moment.

In the midst of the pandemic, I discovered the amazing UK TV show Taskmaster, which is too good to describe. It's sort of a cross between a typical UK panel show, a game show with incredibly ridiculous tasks, and.... I dunno. Perhaps it's the anti-Squid Game. It does involve people playing games, but it's hilarious, not deadly. You kind of have to watch it to understand how good it is, and then you kind of can't stop watching it. Thankfully, the first eight seasons are fully and officially available on YouTube outside the UK. The show is now on Season 12, but it appears that they've stopped posting full copies of the new shows to YouTube -- perhaps because the show has become so popular they're looking for a licensing deal with some streaming service or something (their content is advertising!) For what it's worth, an attempt at a US spinoff version completely flopped because it was terrible, though other spinoffs, such as in New Zealand, have gone well. If you want to get a sense of the show, Season 1, Episode 1 is hard to beat, though it's missing some things that became standard in later seasons. If you want to watch the show once it really hit it's stride, seasons 4, 5 and 7 are probably the best.

Anyway, while they're not posting full episodes any more, the Taskmaster YouTube page continues to post new content -- usually clips or outtakes from the show. But last week they also posted two ads. They're clearly labeled as ads -- but they're brand new Taskmaster content, advertising Google's Lens feature. They involve a couple of Taskmaster contestants competing in tasks that require the use of Google Lens to compete -- and they're just as entertaining as the show, while actually showing off this Google product I didn't even know existed. Since I've seen basically every available episode of Taskmaster, I thought this is a fantastic example of content as advertising, so I'm posting them here -- though I'll admit I'm not quite as sure how well they work for people who don't watch the show:

I still think the advertising world would be better -- and less hated -- if there was a focus on making sure your advertising was actually good content that was entertaining or interesting. It may not be as exciting as trying to tweak the AI to squeeze an extra 0.000003 cents per user with more targeted ads, but it might make for a nicer world.

Filed Under: advertising is content, content is advertising, google lens, taskmaster
Companies: google

Google News Returning To Spain, As Awful 'Inalienable' Snippets Tax Is Replaced With Marginally Less Awful EU Copyright Directive

from the what's-the-point? dept

Back in 2014, Spain brought in a Google tax. It was even worse than Germany's, which was so unworkable that it was never applied fully. Spain's law was worse because it created a right for publishers to be paid by "news aggregators" that was "inalienable". That is, publishers could not waive that right -- they had to charge. That negated the point of Creative Commons licenses, which are designed to allow people to use material without paying. Subsequent research showed that Spain's snippet tax was a disaster for publishers, especially the smaller ones.

Unsurprisingly, in response Google went for the nuclear option, and shut down Google News in Spain at the end of 2014. Seven years later -- a lifetime on the Internet -- Google News is returning to Spain:

In 2014, we closed Google News in Spain due to local legislation. Today, we're announcing that Google News will soon be available once again in Spain. We made this decision as a result of a new Royal Decree implementing the European Copyright Directive, introduced today by the Spanish government.

Google News is coming back because the EU's Copyright Directive has now been implemented by national legislation in Spain, superseding the older snippet tax. Crucially, the inalienable right to charge for snippets has gone:

the new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets -- big and small -- to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content. Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.

As Techdirt has emphasized for years, the relevant section of the EU Copyright Directive, originally called Article 11, but now renumbered as Article 15, is dreadful, because it gives publishers the ability to demand payment from Google and others for sending them traffic. But at least under the EU law that is optional, not compulsory. Google says it has no problem with paying money to publishers in a variety of ways:

we will work towards bringing Google News Showcase to Spain, a licensing program and new product experience which pays publishers to curate content for story panels across Google News and Discover.

That's a reminder that whatever form the ridiculous snippet tax takes, for Google it's just a tiny bump in the road. At most, it requires the company to spend a little small change it found down the back of the sofa.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright directive, eu, google news, snippet tax, spain
Companies: google

Surprising, But Important: Facebook Sorta Shuts Down Its Face Recognition System

from the good-to-see dept

A month ago, I highlighted how Facebook seemed uniquely bad attaking a long term view and publicly committing to doing things that are good for the world, but bad for Facebook in the short run . So it was a bit surprising earlier this week to see Facebook (no I'm not calling it Meta, stop it) announce that it was shutting down its Face Recognition system and (importantly) deleting over a billion "face prints" that it had stored.

The company's announcement on this was (surprisingly!) open about the various trade-offs here, both societally and for Facebook, though (somewhat amusingly) throughout the announcement Facebook repeatedly highlights the supposed societal benefits of its facial recognition.

Making this change required careful consideration, because we have seen a number of places where face recognition can be highly valued by people using platforms. For example, our award-winning automatic alt text system, that uses advanced AI to generate descriptions of images for people who are blind and visually impaired, uses the Face Recognition system to tell them when they or one of their friends is in an image.

[....]

But the many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole. There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use. Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.

One interesting tidbit buried in this is that only about 1/3 of Facebook users opted in to use Facebook's facial recognition tool (despite the company pushing it heavily on users). At the very least, it showed that a large number of users weren't comfortable with the technology.

There's also the issue that, while they're turning off the tool and deleting the facial prints, the NY Times notes they're hanging on to the algorithm that was built on all those faces:

Although Facebook plans to delete more than one billion facial recognition templates, which are digital scans of facial features, by December, it will not eliminate the software that powers the system, which is an advanced algorithm called DeepFace. The company has also not ruled out incorporating facial recognition technology into future products, Mr. Grosse said.

That's resulted in some (expected) amount of cynicism from Facebook's critics that Facebook "got what it wanted" and is now moving on. However, I think that's a bit silly. Facebook could have easily kept the facial recognition program going. Of all the regulatory pressures the company is facing, this was way down the list and barely on the radar.

And, to make a bigger point, here's a case where the company is actually doing the right thing: turning off a questionable product and deleting a ton of data it collected. And we should at least encourage both Facebook and other companies to be willing to make that decision based on recognizing the societal risks, and without waiting around until they're forced to do so.

Filed Under: ai, data, deepface, facial recognition, privacy, society, trade-offs
Companies: facebook