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Amazon’s Got Bots; Apple Dropping Media Company Subscription Fees

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Amazon’s Bot Involvement

Some fraudsters are using Amazon’s cloud to create and drive bot traffic across the web. As Jack Marshall reports for The Wall Street Journal, Fraudlogix uncovered the malware by measuring 2 billion ad impressions delivered to 64 million IP addresses in March and April , then comparing those impressions to its fraud database. According to the findings, Amazon’s servers made up 7.7% of fraudulent IP addresses. Read on.

Apple Tax Shakeup

Apple plans to nix the 30% fee it has charged media companies since 2003 on subscriptions bought through the App Store, sources tell the Financial Times. The shift comes as other tech giants like Google, Facebook and Snapchat begin hosting more content from publishers on their platforms. “While the new deal could mean Apple forfeits hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues from in-app payments every year, it could also assuage regulators anxious about its power over content companies,” reports FT reporters Tim Bradshaw and Shannon Bond. Read more. Related Apple news: Fewer than a quarter of the top 96 US retailers support Apple Pay. ”One of the biggest concerns is data control,” said Mario De Armas, senior director for Wal-Mart. More in Reuters.

Much Atweet About Nothing

Chris Sacca, an early and vocal Twitter investor, wrote an 8,500-word blog post on the company that has unleashed a flood of ink regarding the social media platform’s future. Re/code fills in some color on the commerce side, as Sacca doesn’t note in his post that Twitter’s head of commerce, former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard, is a good friend. Hubbard has been in the position almost two years, and we’re seeing Twitter’s commerce features start to emerge from beta (or into a public beta stage, at least). Re/code notes as well that Sacca also “recommends, naturally, that Twitter acquire a startup, Rex, in which – surprise! – he’s an investor.”

Mobile Alliance

Video streaming platform Viewster partnered with mobile video ad platform AerServe to make Viewster’s video library available to advertisers. “Our audience of young pop culture fans increasingly accesses our service via mobile devices,” said Viewster chief Kai Henniges.   As Viewster’s business continues to grow, it was important for us to not only optimize our mobile offering, but to find a monetization partner that could really scale with us.” According to the firms, the partnership boosted revenue 80%. More via The Drum.

The Revolving Door

But Wait, There’s  More!

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