Law authorities have warned they believe criminals are using Android phones to trigger fraudulent tap-and-go payments. The alert comes in Europol's annual Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment report. Experts had previously warned of such a threat. However, the police are unsure exactly how the attacks are being carried out and how common they are.

Embattled mobile phone firm BlackBerry revealed it will stop designing smartphones in-house, as it posted more losses and plunging sales. The Canadian firm said it will outsource hardware development to partners and focus instead on software.

Estee Lauder has moved its media-buying account from M2M to sister agency Manning Gottlieb OMD in the UK, with immediate effect. This will be a blow to M2M because Estee Lauder was the Omnicom agency's founding client in 2003 and it has also lost two of its biggest spenders, Lidl and Paddy Power, as clients in a little over a year.

Kellogg's Special K is moving away from branding itself as a product used for dieting after it found that women now prefer to "take a more holistic approach" when it comes to food. Kellogg unveiled a new direction for its Special K brand yesterday, as it looks to move away from a "1990s" marketing approach of counting calories to a focus on nourishment and "inner strength."

Western Union, the money transfer service, has appointed MullenLowe Mediahub to be its global media agency in a consolidated GBP250m account. The company has decided to consolidate its global offline and online media planning and buying, having used a roster of agencies on a project basis, including Vizeum for global above-the-line media.

Amidst continued reports of a plateau of its user base, a need to find other revenue streams and investment in live content streaming, Twitter has spent the last couple of years changing its team at the top without turning things around. One thing that Twitter doesn't seem to have come closer to resolving, which is at the forefront of its issues, is keeping its trolls in check.

Facebook has been told that it cannot collect WhatsApp users' data in Germany after updating its terms last month to allow information sharing with its parent company. Regulators expressed fears that the policy changes could infringe on WhatsApp users' privacy by giving Facebook access to their phone numbers, as well as information about their phones and operating systems.

Unilever's commitment to stop stereotyping women in its ads is beginning to pay off after the FMCG giant revealed that those brands -- including Knorr, Dove, Cif and Surf -- that have begun to eradicate outdated portrayals of gender are growing by 30%.

Sainsbury's like-for-like sales dropped 1.1% during the 16 weeks to 24 September as it continues to face what boss Mike Coupe described as a "very competitive and dynamic environment." The retailer, which completed its GBP1.4bn buyout of Argos earlier this month, said it had not been distracted by the sale and continued to pump investment into key areas.

Almost half of Brits (40%) "actively ignore" social posts or ads from brands, according to a new study by Kantar TNS, which polled 70,000 global consumers, of which 3,200 were British. On a global basis, just over a quarter (26%) of consumers choose to ignore branded content, while 34% feel "constantly followed" by online advertising.