Comcast-Fox Bid Expected; Marriott Vs Silicon Valley

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Dominoes

AT&T’s Tuesday triumph over the Department of Justice will set off a wave of M&A. Leading the way is Comcast, which on Wednesday is expected to announce an all-cash bid to wrest Fox’s assets away from Disney’s $52.4 billion all-stock deal. According to CNBC, Comcast’s lawyers want to pick through District Court Judge Richard Leon’s AT&T decision first. Comcast’s pitch, as per Variety, is that it’s a regional service, so buying Fox really isn’t a monopolistic threat. One wonders, though, how NBCU fits into that “regional service” argument. Also, 70% of revenue from the Fox assets are international – which is one of the biggest reasons Comcast wants Fox: “Fox’s strong presence in international TV — notably through India’s Star TV and the U.K./Euro provider Sky — are a huge part of the appeal of the deal for Comcast.” More.

Here To Stay

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson said the hotel chain is “in an absolute war for who owns the customer” with Google, Amazon and Facebook, Skift reports. The company is actually less worried about Airbnb, he said, which is a more direct competitor in most ways but doesn’t have the larger platforms’ full consumer and identity profiles. Hotel chains are obsessed with loyal customers and loyalty programs, so the potential for closer-to-consumer tech companies to win over those connections is a more dangerous threat than Airbnb’s head-on charge. “It’s a long-term war, and ‘long term’ in digital space might be a few years,” Sorenson said. More.

Spoofed

Pixalate uncovered a mobile fraud scandal linking $75 million of brand spend per year to the Chromecast player app MegaCast, which has 1 million downloads. The app used a type of mobile app laundering called Bundle ID spoofing, in which a single app poses as numerous legitimate sellers. MegaCast receives encrypted information from third-party vendor MobiAsset. MobiAsset links to another third-party vendor, Mobilytics, which changes the name of the inventory from the MegaCast app so it looks like it’s coming from one of more than 50 legitimate apps. These ads then may render on a dark screen or in a place that’s not viewable by the user, like a closed app. Mobilytics positions itself as a mobile analytics platform but is linked to the same physical address as MegaCast in Malta. Read more about the investigation.

Don’t Mess With Dmexco

Last November, Dmexco conference organizer Koelnmesse severed ties with the tech show’s co-founders, Christian Muche and Frank Schneider, and their consulting group KDME, citing contract violations. At issue were conflicts with the co-founders’ Dpulse conference in Switzerland. Of course, lawsuits followed. Now, the Cologne Court of Appeals has found that there was no contractual violation. As such, Koelnmesse’s termination of Muche and Schneider is unlawful, according to their statement. KDME has filed a claim for damages against Koelnmesse. The court also indicated that KDME can create events competitive with Dmexco outside the EU, or events within the EU that aren’t directly competitive with Dmexco. Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Mehr dazu hier.

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