by admin | May 25, 2021 | Marketing Basics, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : Learning from the Facebook fiasco, Google has rolled out new policies for verifying election advertisers in the US that require additional verification for anyone who wants to purchase an election ad on Google in the country.
“As a first step, we’ll now require that advertisers confirm they are a US citizen or lawful permanent resident, as required by law,” Kent Walker, Senior Vice President at Google, said in a statement late Friday.
This means advertisers will have to provide a government-issued ID and other key information.
“To help people better understand who is paying for an election ad, we also require that ads incorporate a clear disclosure of who is paying for it,” Walker added.
The move comes in the wake of strong evidence that Russia used social media and online ads in an attempt to influence the 2016 US Presidential election.
Google will soon release a new “Transparency Report” specifically focused on election ads.
This report will describe who is buying election-related ads on its platforms and how much money is being spent.
“We’re also building a searchable library for election ads, where anyone can find election ads purchased on Google and who paid for them,” Walker noted.
Google is already investing in keeping its own platforms secure and working with campaigns, elections officials, journalists, and others to help ensure the security of the online platforms that they depend on.
“We’ve developed a range of ‘Protect Your Election’ tools with Alphabet’s ‘Jigsaw’ that are specifically tailored for people who are at particularly high risk of online attacks,” said the Google executive.
“We’ve partnered with the National Cyber Security Alliance and Digital Democracy Project at the Belfer Centre at Harvard Kennedy School to fund security training programmes for elected officials, campaigns, and staff members,” Walker said.
In order to prevent election interference on its platform, Facebook has also introduced new changes to increase transparency and accountability for electoral ads and pages.
To get authorised by Facebook, advertisers will now need to confirm their identity and location.
“Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads–electoral or issue-based–until they are authorised,” Rob Goldman, Vice President, Ads at Facebook, said recently in a blog post.
Facebook is also investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and adding more people to help find advertisers that should have gone through the authorisation process but did not.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Google is reportedly “pausing investments” in its “Allo” mobile messaging app that was launched with much fanfare in 2016.
the app will continue to function For existing “Allo” users, but according to Anil Sabharwal, the new head of the communications group at Google, the company will move the team over to focus on Android Messages, The Verge reported late on Thursday.
Launched in September 2016, Allo is an instant messaging mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile Operating Systems (OS), with a web client available on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers.
“The product as a whole has not achieved the level of traction we’d hoped for,” The Verge quoted Sabharwal as saying.
“We set out to build this thing, that it (would be) a product that we would get hundreds of millions of people to get excited about and use. And where we are, we’re not feeling like we’re on that trajectory,” the Google executive said.
The move is necessary, said the report, because Google is going all in on Rich Communication Services (RCS).
“The service will be branded ‘Chat’ once carriers launch it, and Google wants to apply as many resources as possible to make sure that this time, finally, Android has a successful messaging app,” the report added.
RCS is a communication protocol between mobile-telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is more rich, provide phonebook polling and transmit in-call multimedia.
Google is reportedly planning to introduce a web interface for its SMS application “Android Messages” that would let users pair their smartphones with a computer for all of their texting needs.
“There’s a new version of Android Messages rolling out for the phones. So far, we haven’t seen any significant changes to the UI, but huge things are happening under the surface,” tech website Android Police reported.
Google, however, is bullish on its video mobile app “Duo”. The company recently introduced a new video messaging feature for “Duo” that would let users capture and share video messages when their friends cannot answer their call.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
By Sourabh Kulesh,
New Delhi : “OK Google, wake me up at 8 a.m. and book an appointment with the hair stylist at 10 a.m.,” went the instruction to Google Home — the voice-activated speaker powered by Google Assistant.
“Sure, your alarm is set for 8 a.m. and the appointment has been fixed for 10 a.m.,” came the instant reply from Google Assistant — the new lady in my home who, according to senior company executives, has received over 4.5 lakh marriage proposals from India.
Following the launch of “Amazon Echo” smart speaker in India last year, Google has now brought its “Home” speaker range to the country.
Google Home and Home Mini speakers — priced at Rs 9,999 and Rs 4,499, respectively — can help people with their commute, play their favourite songs and videos, plan their daily schedule and lots more.
Let’s see how Google Home fares in the Indian context.
The speaker is capable of understanding the thick Indian accent thanks to two microphones on either side of the LED lights that light up when the device recognises the opening “OK Google” voice command.
The two microphones utilise the neural beam forming technique to enable accurate voice recognition.
The curves of the device resemble a wine glass. The lower part holds the speakers and the upper part is the main body with the touch-sensitive top.
When the volume is increased or decreased, the device responds with the shimmering ivory-coloured light ring.
Google has trained the Assistant in English and has promised Hindi support later this year.
“Play ‘Firestone’ by KYGO,” went another voice command and lo! the device checked the Google Play music subscription — the company is giving six-month free Google Play music subscription when you buy the device — and instantly played the song.
The device also works with music streaming platforms like Saavn and Gaana. The music output was good for a medium-sized room.
“OK, Google, play Arijit Singh songs.” She returned with the hit number “Enna sona kyun rab ne banaya”.
If you want to chat or listen to her in an another room, pair another Home device or a Bluetooth speaker with Chromecast support. Another option is to attach a Chromecast Audio device to a speaker.
Google Assistant told us the correct score of Delhi Daredevils while it chased the Mumbai Indians’ total in one of the IPL matches.
However, to a question on happenings in Syria, she played a 30-second news bulletin from BBC News.
Google has simulated hundreds of thousands of noisy environments and applied Machine Learning (ML) to recognise patterns that allow it to filter and separate speech from noise.
Google Assistant understands several languages and can translates sentences into Spanish, French and more.
Not only multimedia, Google Home can also control smart devices such as connected Internet of Things (IoT) device “Philips Hue” in your drawing room.
We set up Google Home to control a light bulb which was connected via “Philips Hue”. We asked the device to dim, turn off and turn on the light and got the desired results.
What didn’t work?
While playing music, Google Home at times did not receive the command in one go. We had to raise our voice twice or sometimes thrice to get the command through the noisy environment.
One important takeaway: Never keep your Google Assistant-enabled smartphone near Home device as the voice command does wake up Assistant in the smartphone too and could ruin the whole experience.
Conclusion: At this price point, Google Home is a good choice as it saves time while performing some key daily tasks for you. It is not the replacement of your better half yet, but does help you with daily chores. Take it home.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
London : The European Union (EU) has “grave suspicions” about Google’s abuse of the monopoly it enjoys over Internet search in Europe and is open to breaking the tech giant into smaller companies, the bloc’s competition commissioner has warned.
According to ‘The Daily Telegraph’, Margrethe Vestager has said that the threat to split the Internet giant up into smaller companies must be kept open.
In June last year, the Danish commissioner slapped the technology giant with a record fine of 2.42 billion euros or $2.7 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules by abusing the monopoly it enjoys over Internet search.
Google has a 91.5 per cent share of the search-engine market in Europe, the report said.
“I think it is important to keep that question open and on the agenda. We are not there yet but it is important to keep an awakened eye,” Vestager was quoted as saying when asked if the only solution to its dominance was to break up the company.
She warned that the search engine could become so big as to be indispensable for businesses and the economy.
“There is no ban on success in Europe. You get to be dominant and you get a special responsibility that you do not destroy the already weakened competition,” she was quoted as saying.
“We have proven their dominance in search and we have found they have misused this dominance to promote themselves and diminish competitors,” she added.
This development comes at a time when another Silicon Valley giant Facebook is facing flak for data breach.
Facebook is facing the heat after Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and using the data to help politicians, including US President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.
EU and British lawmakers have demanded that social media giant Facebook should clarify data breach following revelations that personal data was massively misused for political purposes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : After Facebook and Google, Twitter was now likely to ban cryptocurrency, token sales and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) advertisements on its platform.
According to a Sky News report on Monday, the new Twitter policy will be implemented in two weeks.
“Twitter may also ban all ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, with some limited exceptions, when the policy is launched,” the report added.
Google last week announced that it will ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies and other “speculative financial products” across its ad platforms.
The ban on such advertisements will come into force from June.
“We updated several policies to address ads in unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (or CFDs),” Scott Spencer, Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, said in a blog post.
“In June 2018, Google will update the financial services policy to restrict the advertisement of contracts for difference, rolling spot forex and financial spread betting,” Google said.
In 2017, Google took down more than 3.2 billion ads that violated its advertising policies.
Google also blocked 79 million ads in its network for attempting to send people to malware-laden sites and removed 400,000 of these unsafe sites last year.
In January, social media giant Facebook banned all ads promoting cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and ICOs.
The new policy prohibits ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, Facebook said in a statement.
“We want people to continue to discover and learn about new products and services through Facebook ads without fear of scams or deception.
“That said, there are many companies who are advertising binary options, ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are not currently operating in good faith,” said Rob Leathern, Product Management Director at Facebook.
—IANS
