Getting Off Track
So much for privacy controls.
According to a recent report, Microsoft, Meta and Google ignored users’ opt-out preferences, violating state regulations.
Despite the addition of the Global Privacy Control (GPC) system, which informs websites when a user has opted out of data collection for certain purposes, the audit observed Google honoring that signal 14% of the time. Microsoft continued with tracking despite there being a GCP prohibition half the time, while Meta adhered to 31% of GCP consent signals.
All three companies dispute the audit. A Google spokesperson tells 404 Media that the report was “based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how [its] products work.”
When Microsoft receives a GPC signal, it opts the user out of sharing personal data with third parties, a spokesperson says. But “certain Microsoft cookies are necessary for operational purposes.”
Timothy Libert, former lead of cookie policy and compliance at Google and founder of a tech company called webXray that focuses on privacy violations, isn’t sold. He proposes a single line of code that would prevent any cookies from being set once a user has opted out.
“In my view, this stuff isn’t complicated,” he says. “You say, ‘Don’t set the cookie.’ They set the cookie.”
Geese A-Trending
Have you noticed people in your social media feeds talking about Brooklyn indie rock band Geese over the past few months?
Apparently you have digital marketing firm Chaotic Good Projects to thank for that, Wired reports.
Chaotic Good touts its knack for “trend simulation,” in which it games TikTok’s and YouTube’s algorithms to boost clients’ visibility among music fans. It operates thousands of social media pages and posts live band clips and videos with the band’s music playing in the background. Algorithms then recommend the band’s music, thinking it’s an on-the-cusp band.
Sure, this sounds like typical social media marketing. But people are reacting as if they’re being manipulated – note how Wired’s headline describes a “psyop” and the story invokes suspicion of music “industry plants.”
Meanwhile, recent bot-driven social media pile-ons involving Chappell Roan, the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial and Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni have made some users wary of such algorithmic conditioning.
But is the artificially fertilized grassroots marketing even effective? Advertisers know attribution is difficult to prove, yet Chaotic Good is taking a ton of credit for Geese’s success. But what if the band is just good, and its popularity largely organic?
Or, as Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day put it, “It’s, frankly, a much more interesting story if bands are paying for this and it doesn’t actually work.”
Big Con-Tent Party
Last year, Meta completely overhauled its moderation guidelines to remove third-party fact-checking and relax its hate speech rules – policy changes that allowed more rhetoric aligning with common MAGA talking points.
According to The Intercept, Meta recently made more tweaks to its internal Community Standards policy that, at first glance, would appear to double down on pro-conservative messaging. A section called “Violence and Incitement” now includes new restrictions on the word “antifa,” particularly when paired with what Meta calls “content-level threat signals.”
The Intercept links these efforts to recent White House crackdowns against left-wing political organizing. But if you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you know that it’s not the left-wing users who bring up “antifa” the most – it’s the right-wing ones.
If the goal of this policy was to curb speech from people who self-identify as antifa, the keyword blocking may not work out as intended. Instead, it might end up targeting people from the opposite side of the political spectrum who are talking about antifa.
At least news publishers can relate. They’ve been railing against the hatchet that is keyword-blocking for years – and the term “antifa” is probably already on many brands’ blocklists.
But Wait! There’s More!
AI marketing startup Bluefish raises $43 million in Series B funding. [Adweek]
Instacart acquires global fulfillment solutions platform Instaleap. [TechCrunch]
The impending Disney layoffs will affect at least 1,000 employees, particularly in the company’s marketing organization. [The Hollywood Reporter]
After getting an influx of TikTok refugees last year amid now-abandoned plans to ban the platform in the US, Chinese social media network RedNote is trying to expand its US presence. [Rest of World]
YouTube livestreams will now limit ads during moments of peak engagement. [blog]
Beginning in June, Google will start cracking down on websites that hijack your browser’s back button to increase pageviews. [Ars Technica]
An EU court’s recent ruling in the Russmedia case found that GDPR data protections supersede some of the Digital Services Act’s free speech protections for platforms – and there are major implications for online content moderation. [Tech Policy Press]
Google AdSense will experiment with new ad tech vendor partners. [Search Engine Roundtable]
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