The Federal Trade Commission's proposed $22.5 million settlement with Google for privacy violations doesn't impose stringent enough conditions on the company, the group Consumer Watchdog argues in new court papers. The tentative deal does not "prevent Google from continuing to profit from the misconduct that it previously engaged in," Consumer Watchdog says. "Indeed, it permits Google to continue to profit from its wrongdoing indefinitely," the group argues. The organization says the settlement should be rejected because it's not in the public interest. If approved by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco, the deal would resolve charges against Google stemming from allegations that the company developed a workaround to Safari's no-tracking settings. Google -- which also faces a potential class-action lawsuit over the alleged hack -- did not admit wrongdoing in the case. Google allegedly bypassed Safari's settings to enable Safari users to like ads with the +1 button. But once the workaround was in place, Google's DoubleClick was able to track people in order to target ads to them. Google promised that it will allow all tracking cookies that it set on Safari users expire by next year as part of the settlement. But Consumer Watchdog says Google should do more than let the cookies expire. The group wants Google to delete all data -- including IP addresses -- collected from Safari users. Consumer Watchdog also says that Google shouldn't be able to draw on aggregated data gathered from Safari users for analytics. The group argues that the information collected from those people "can still be used to target others (sometimes called 'lookalikes') who exhibit similar behaviors." "The proposed order could prevent this result simply by requiring Google to expunge the wrongfully collected data from its database," the group argues. Earlier, Consumer Watchdog filed papers opposing the settlement for three reasons. First, the group said the "miniscule" $22.5 million penalty was too low. Second, Consumer Watchdog argued that the settlement should include an injunction prohibiting Google from deceiving users about privacy. And third, the group said Google should be required to admit liability in the case. The government said in its response, filed last month, that a fine of $22.5 million was appropriate based on its estimate that Google's profits from the Safari hack amounted to just $4 million. "Assuming ... that Google is a profit-maximizing company, it makes no sense for it to engage in a behavior that costs more than the revenue it would earn," the FTC argued in its court papers. Consumer Watchdog challenges that $4 million figure. "The government has not given this court any insight into how it made its calculations," the organization argues, adding that it needs more evidence from Google in order to determine the extent of profits from the workaround.
At least one highly respected media industry economist -- Pivotal Research Group's Brian Wieser -- has already attributed a downgrade to the U.S. advertising industry to the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Wieser's new forecast, coming on the heels of especially tepid third quarter earnings reports from the major agency holding companies, means the ad industry will not expand at all during 2012. "The Superstorm is going to have an effect," Wieser wrote in an equities research report sent to investors this morning. "If we assume that spending equivalent to one day of the fourth quarter was 'lost' (because of interruptions to local TV and radio programming for several days in a significant portion of the country paired with the impact on decision-making among national marketers and media buyers based in the storm’s footprint), the storm will cost the industry almost $500 million of activity." Given its timing during a crucial week in the Presidential campaign season, Sandy could trigger another ad economy fallout: Cutbacks by political campaigns pulling TV and newspaper advertising in the Northeast. “Many political campaigns save a large percentage of their advertising budget for the final week leading up to the election,” says Rich Swingley, a Ball State University telecommunications instructor, adding: "For those heavily contested races on the Eastern seaboard, we may see a shift away from television and print. There is no electricity for television and the print media cannot be delivered as normal for the next few days. “Radio may be the big winner, since it is the only medium that can be easily accessed using batteries,” he predicts. “There's no point in spending advertising dollars on a medium that potential voters can't access.” Pivotal's Wieser, meanwhile, expects that after factoring out the effects of political and Olympic-related spending, third-quarter ad spending will decline 0.5%, and the fourth quarter will drop 1.4% from the same quarters in 2011. "For all of 2012 this would mean a 0% growth for the full year," Wieser explained, noting that the new forecast compares with his previous projection of a 1.2% rate of growth in the third quarter, 0.9% in the fourth quarter, and 1.4% for full-year 2012. "For 2013, we now forecast 1.2% growth vs. 1.7% previously," Wieser said, citing "one bright sign for advertising" -- political advertising "is actually proving to be bigger than we previously expected." He said Pivotal's updated outlook for political ad spending on local TV will now reach $3 billion in 2012.
Data provides businesses benefits, but not without the ability to examine the findings and sort through the meaning depending on the media channel. Google launched Universal Analytics Tuesday to help marketers sync and analyze data from across multiple marketing channels. The cross-channel tool aims to help marketers discover relationships among devices--desktop to tablets to phones to entertainment consoles--driving conversions. Cross-channel analytics supports cross-media attribution, such as search, display, video, retargeting and more. Becoming successful means knowing the media consumers use to initiate the conversion and the steps taken to complete the task. Having the ability to connect the dots by gathering data and integrating information from a variety of channels requires the ability to build a search strategy across media. Measurement continues to evolve from technology counting site traffic into one that measures the effectiveness of advertising, sales, product use, support, and retention, according to Manav Mishra, group product manager at Google Analytics. Google created a new API dubbed the Measurement Protocol allowing developers to initiate a HTTP request and send raw interactive user data to Google Analytics, as well as combine data from several types of sources, such as Google Mobile App Analytics, which recently launched in open beta. The software development kit supports new reports, such as an app version that allows companies to separate use by version, and create tighter and more segmented view of the activity.
Communities of people with a passion for specific topics can directly impact purchase behavior of others, according to a study. These are not social sites, but rather the next-generation of forums filled with groups of people who have a passion for a specific topic. The findings, from digital media company Huddler, which powers the forums, identified groups of people as "enthusiast communities," rather than members of social sites like Google+ or Facebook. The content they generate and share with others has, on average, 10 times the reach of Facebook posts. For each person who creates content and shares it across an enthusiast community, about 266 people interact with the content. In comparison, the average news feed story from a Facebook user reaches 12% of friends. Given the average Facebook user has 229 friends, about 27 people see the post, estimates from Pew Internet & American Life Project research. Huddler analyzed the purchase power and influence of "enthusiast communities" through product reviews and images, collaborative wiki articles, and sharable knowledge about specific subjects. The survey of 25,000 enthusiast community members reveals more than 53% of those participating -- in any of the 31 communities Huddler powers -- makes purchase decisions based on research shared across these communities. The forums include AVSForum.com, Mothering.com, StyleForum.net and MakeupTalk.com. Participants typically are affluent and willing to pay more for quality. Some 34% admit to an annual household income of more than $100,000, and nearly half admit to an annual household income of more than $75,000. About 60% said they would pay more for a better-quality product. Consumers typically find these sites when they are actively searching for information and researching products. More than 53% of respondents said they had made purchases in the past 12 months as a direct result of doing research on an enthusiast community. It turns out, enthusiasts not only appeal to other community members, but also to casual Internet searchers whome they influence mainly because of their willingness to share their expertise. For example, the AVSForum.com community dedicates content to home theater and cinema buffs. It supports more than 4 million unique visitors monthly, including one million members who have generated 800,000 conversations, and 17 million pieces of content.
Internet radio service Pandora on Tuesday announced updated versions of its iOS and Android applications, offering expanded listening options, new artist pages, and timeline–focused user profiles. The company has also partnered with several prominent brands including McDonald’s and Nike to help promote the launch of the revamped apps. These steps come as Pandora faces the threat of Apple launching a rival ad-supported streaming music service. Bloomberg last week reported the tech giant may introduce the service as early as next year, sending Pandora’s stock tumbling on the news. Apple declined to comment on the report, which said the company is in licensing talks with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group. In the meantime, Pandora is upgrading its apps as its user base shifts rapidly from the desktop to mobile devices. More than 75% of its total listening hours now take place on mobile phones and other connected devices. And 115 million of its 175 million registered users have accessed the service on a smartphone. Among the new features of Pandora 4.0 for iOS and Android apps: Listening functionality: More prominent controls are designed to allow users to add more song variety, shuffle and rename stations, and view station details more easily. Streamlined navigation also lets mobile users for the first time browse the more than 400 genre stations available. Artist Pages: Changes include improved artist biographies, album discographies, and music “genome” traits of the current track spinning. Personal music profile: Provides a detailed timeline of Pandora listening for each user, showing music preferences such as stations created, bookmarked tracks, and history of “thumbs” up or down on selections. Listeners can opt to keep profiles private. Music Feed: Offers a centralized place for listeners to find and follow friends and explore what listeners with similar musical tastes are discovering and enjoying on Pandora. Social sharing features are also available on mobile for the first time, giving listeners the ability share links to favorite stations and songs on Pandora, Facebook and Twitter. Pandora also noted that the changes provide for a uniform experience across both iOS and Android. So what do users think? Based on ratings in the App Store so far, the new Pandora app isn’t quite up to the level of the old one. It's received an average of three stars -- based on only about 500 ratings to date -- compared to three and a half for the old app (based on more than 65,000 ratings). Some of the reviews posted suggested the app only displayed in portrait mode on the iPhone, rather than in landscape mode as well. But it’s not unusual for an app to have some bugs that need to get worked out following release. To help market the updated Pandora app, the company has assembled an impressive lineup of brands -- McDonald’s, Nike, Sony Pictures and State Farm -- that are sponsoring user tips and information inside the app. Each brand will also launch mobile campaigns appearing in highlighted new social features of Pandora 4.0 in the coming weeks. Separately, Microsoft said Tuesday that it would introduce a version of the Pandora app for its Windows Phone platform during the first quarter of 2013, throwing in a year of ad-free music to help entice users. Pandora 4.0 is now available in the App Store, and will be in the Google Play store in a few weeks following final testing on Android.
A softer but less functional virtual assistant now can take your natural language queries on the iPhone. Google updated its main search app for iOS yesterday, Oct. 30, with a new and much more versatile voice search system that mimics Apple’s built-in Siri search service both in functionality and in tone. A female voice answers queries such as ‘what is the weather here?’ and ‘what movies are playing in my area?” in much the same way as Siri. The app renders your voice into text and sends the question to Google search engine for response. In most cases the female voice of Google’s voice assistant provides part of the response. Her tone is noticeably more human than the tinny and synthesized Siri, although the engine is not integrated with the iOS's other basic functions, such as contact look-ups and app launches. According to the Google blog announcing the rollout, the company is using its recently introduced “Knowledge Graph” -- technology that more precisely interprets queries to deliver answers rather than just references. For instance, asking the new Google app “how tall is the Eiffel Tower?” delivers a voice response: “The Eiffel Tower is 1,063 feet tall” along with an image, map, call link, Web link and directions. Android users have had Google’s voice assistant for a while already. Recent updates to the Android operating system brought Google’s increasingly advanced natural search to greater prominence so that it is accessible from any place on the device. In our quick tests, Google’s unnamed voice assistant rendered voice to text in real-time, at least as quickly as Siri, which often lags for online processing. Google’s Miss X (we might as well name her for ourselves), is not as witty as Siri, however. Asking Siri if she will “marry me” usually gets a smart reply, such as “that’s sweet.” Miss X’s more literal response simply tells us that “marriage is a huge decision -- these results from the Web might help” and delivers some of YouTube’s best marriage proposals. In some cases, Miss X defaulted sooner than Siri to standard Web search results. Asking ‘who won the Oscar for Best actor in 1941?’, for instance, rendered Oscar lookups in Google but a specific verbal answer (Jimmy Stewart) and even the film poster for “The Philadelphia Story.”