Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Black Friday
The new year is only a few weeks old and there have already been multiple waves of crushing tech layoffs.
On Friday, Alphabet added to the carnage with the news that it’s cutting 12,000 jobs – its largest-ever reduction. The Google cuts follow close behind Microsoft, Amazon and Salesforce, which laid off 10,000, 18,000 and 7,000 people, respectively.
And Big Tech isn’t alone. Newsrooms, agencies and commerce companies are also cutting staff.
Vox Media plans to reduce its headcount by 7%, citing revenue headwinds in a tough economic climate, The New York Times reports, and layoffs could be coming to WaPo, too. Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, was reportedly present at the paper’s Friday news meeting, possibly to finalize a major round of layoffs. (Fred Ryan, WaPo’s publisher, previously warned that cuts would be coming this quarter.)
GroupM North America also cut jobs recently, and many other agencies and ad tech vendors are following suit, using Big Tech’s bigger round of layoffs as air cover.
Magnite laid off 6% of its workforce last week.
Unity laid off more people earlier this month, and Wayfair and Stitch Fix are also planning to cut thousands of employees.
Related: Google is increasingly turning to resellers as it conducts its largest round of layoffs in its history. [Digiday]
The Heat Is On
It’s been an open secret of sorts that TikTok has an internal tool to artificially juice the viral rating of certain posts. But now there’s proof.
In an internal document that was made public in the EU, it was revealed TikTok gives a fake viral boost to the first 10 or so videos posted by new users. This is a cunning ploy. Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, et al., struggle to get new users excited – it’s hard to be jazzed when your posts are seen and engaged with by practically no one. By giving new users a little taste of what virality can do, TikTok is also dispensing a domain hit that keeps people posting without knowing why they’re doing it.
Forbes reports that this internal tech is called “heating” and has been used – and misused – for many purposes.
Some execs have straightforwardly used the heating tool to boost their own account or their family and friends, which is a big no-no. Heating is also used as leverage by TikTok to court brands and influencers. TikTok has even “heated” posts by new creators wooed over to its platform from YouTube. And advertisers using TikTok services, rather than going around TikTok to deal with creators, can get “heated” posts as a kind of secret incentive.
Dark Side Of The Cookie
Dark patterns are starting to get a lot more attention.
Two of the most common examples of dark patterns are sites that make it easier to accept a cookie than to reject cookie tracking or that require opt-ins to access key features.
And now Europe is taking a stand.
The Cookie Banner Taskforce (yes, really), which is made up of a group of data protection authorities in the EU, released a report last week to help standardize if and when cookie banners constitute dark patterns and to add some teeth to enforcement.
The DPAs say cookie banners without a clear opt-out option are unacceptable dark patterns, as is too much opt-out friction, TechCrunch reports. It can’t take too many clicks to say “no.”
The report is part of a recent trend of privacy regulators clamping down on assorted dark patterns. The CNIL, France’s data protection watchdog, for example, has a leading role on the Cookie Banner Taskforce and also just dinged TikTok for how it communicates cookie-tracking consent on its website.
But dark patterns aren’t just an EU problem. American state privacy laws coming into effect this year, including in Virginia and Connecticut, cite dark patterns by name.
Reeling in these shady practices should be “low hanging fruit” for regulators, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told AdExchanger earlier this month at CES.
But Wait, There’s More!
Amazon is paying influencers to test its new TikTok competitor, Inspire. [Insider]
Microsoft’s last-touch attribution for automated bidding is now generally available. [MediaPost]
Walmart announces a new ecommerce site and membership program for small businesses. [Bloomberg]
Horizon has an AI tool it says can help optimize retail media spend. [Marketing Brew]
You’re Hired!
Alison Lomax is YouTube’s new managing director for the UK and Ireland. [Adweek]
