2023 Digital News - Week 4

1. Google sued over alleged illegal monopolization of the digital advertising market.

   The U.S. Antitrust Authority has accused Google of violating competition in the online advertising market. Google is not new to fines related to unfair competition, but this time things are getting nasty. The Authority listed four main reasons why Google would be in violation:

   • Acquisition of competitors, to pursue more control of online advertising tools and solutions critical for publishers;

   • Forcing the adoption of its own advertising management tools, not only by directing advertisers' demand to its own ad exchange platform but also by conditioning actual real-time access to this platform;

   • The distortion of competition in auctions, either by limiting real-time bidding on publisher inventory to its own ad exchange or by preventing other ad exchanges from competing;

   • The manipulation of auction mechanisms, a process that, according to the Antitrust, has occurred on a variety of Google's tools to isolate it from competitors, deprive competitors of scalability, and block the development of other technologies.

   The main request made by the US authorities is to split and sell the advertising unit, that today represents one of the biggest revenue channels for Google.

2. Amazon launched its monthly subscription to get your meds.

   Amazon has launched a new service (RXPass) in the US, which is a 5-dollar Prime add-on for all-you-need generic drugs covering around 80 common conditions. This service is an excellent way for Prime members to save money on their prescriptions, especially those with chronic conditions since the fee is flat regardless of how much customers will order. The move is a major step for Amazon in the healthcare industry and it is expected to drive more customers to its Prime membership program. John Love, VP of Amazon Pharmacy, stated: “Prime members already get fast, free delivery on prescription medications, and RxPass is one more way to save with Amazon Pharmacy. Any customer who pays more than $10 a month for their eligible medications will see their prescription costs drop by 50% or more, plus they save time by skipping a trip to the pharmacy.

3. BuzzFeed will start creating content with ChatGPT’s support.

   BuzzFeed is collaborating with OpenAI to implement ChatGPT into its operations for creating content (mainly quizzes) and supporting creators in the brainstorming process. According to BuzzFeed’s co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti: “we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good. […] In publishing, AI can benefit both content creators and audiences, inspiring new ideas and inviting audience members to co-create personalized content”. This communication launched BuzzFeed’s stocks up by 3x in a few days.

4. TikTok announced the launch of its Academy in Europe.

   TikTok Academy has been launched in Europe. Asking what is this? Easy! It is an interactive training platform designed by TikTok to strengthen the skills of all brands and agencies on how to best use TikTok for Business according to their needs. The idea, as the company explains, is to offer "worldwide a uniform, centralized training experience while responding to local training priorities. The training program is suitable for everyone from the most junior to the most senior marketing figures, both in the company and in the agency, in all disciplines and areas of specialization. The new training offering aims to turn digital marketers into TikTok experts: upon completion of a course in the Academy, users will receive a digital certificate”.

5. Spotify cutting 6% of its workforce.

   Even if in the third quarter of 2022, Spotify reported revenues of 3.04 billion with a 20% growth in monthly active users (456 million), the company recently announced that it will reduce its 9,800 employees by 6 percent, estimating 35-45 million euros as the cost associated with the staff exit. Daniel Ek announced the layoffs in a letter to employees: "In an effort to generate more efficiency, cost control, and accelerate decision making, I have decided to restructure our organization. I have been too ambitious to invest beyond our revenue growth."

   **BONUS NEWS**

6. PayPal confirmed thousands of accounts were hacked in December 2022.

   PayPal confirmed that around 35,000 accounts have been hacked back in December 2022. Don’t worry, if you have not received any communication from PayPal, you are safe. However, hackers did not breach the PayPal system since they leveraged what is called “credentials stuffing”. In a nutshell, hackers used a list of compromised usernames and passwords, obtained from a previous data breach, and gained access to accounts on other websites, in this case, PayPal. What could be interesting to analyze is how long did it take for PayPal to realize the threat and defend against it. Indeed, failed authentications that probably happened during the attack should have triggered some security response from PayPal.