Today in Digital Marketing - Correctile Dysfunction

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, August 14th. Today, correctile dysfunction, a new audacious plan being floated to remedy Google's monopoly. Meta kills off a popular transparency tool. Disappearing ink might be coming to threads soon. And the crazy law that would require influencers to clear their content with government regulators before posting it. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. We start today with an interesting new theory circulating around legal and tech circles

Starting point is 00:00:35 that the remedy the US government might ask for to cure Google's monopoly wouldn't be the breakup of the company, but the liberation of its search engine. Business Insider reporting this morning that investors are circulating confidential research notes suggesting that Google might be forced to make its search index publicly available for anyone and any other search site to use. Today, competing search engine sites own their own indexes. Google uses its on its own site, of course. Bing uses its on Microsoft's site, but they also license it to search sites like DuckDuckGo. But doesn't Google own its index? Well, that depends on which side's lawyer you talk to. But their index clearly is just a list of content that is posted on other sites, created and owned by other people and companies. Google doesn't own any of that content. It just makes

Starting point is 00:01:31 the content easier to find. Or to use Google's own mission statement, it organizes the world's information and makes it universally accessible and useful. So if the American government forces Google to provide the raw listings to other sites through an API, that could create a whole new collection of search sites. Quoting Business Insider, quote, Google could charge for giving index access to large commercial players while providing the index for free to researchers and other smaller organizations, along with maybe a low price for startups, unquote. While that would certainly help with the monopoly concerns, it might not be an approach marketers would like. After all,

Starting point is 00:02:10 there's great value in consolidation. Since most people use Google to search, most eyeballs are in one place, and that's just easier for marketers to buy. There is precedent here. Again, quoting Business Insider, quote, One analogy of how this could work is from the wireless industry. Mobile virtual network operators offer cellular service for your smartphone, but they don't own their own network of cell towers and other expensive equipment. Instead, they pay to use the networks of Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. This arrangement has created a huge variety of competing cell phone plans and providers, each offering different prices and features. One example is Credo Mobile, which uses Verizon's

Starting point is 00:02:52 network but supports progressive social policies. The three U.S. telecom giants have invested billions of dollars into building huge networks. They spend billions on upkeep of all this gear, too. They clearly own these assets. Yet society has worked out a way for these assets to be shared more widely to encourage competition and consumer choice, unquote. So where do we stand now? Well, the American Justice Department

Starting point is 00:03:18 is still trying to figure out what remedies they will present to a judge next month. So far among the options being discussed, breaking Google into pieces, like a company just for its Chrome browser and another for its Android smartphone operating system, requiring Google to make its data available to competitors, or forcing Google to abandon exclusivity deals,

Starting point is 00:03:38 like the one with Apple that made its search engine the default on Apple devices. Heads up, if you've got a Google business profile, more reports are circulating that spammers are adding inaccurate content to the profiles, or in some cases reporting that the businesses are closed. This wave is happening among hotels in particular, quoting SE Roundtable, quote, I'm hearing reports of some spammers or hackers hijacking some Google hotel listings by marking some hotels as permanently closed and also changing the phone numbers to WhatsApp numbers. This can be a huge concern for many hotel operators, unquote. So how can they do this? Well, there's two ways people can change a Google profile listing without the owner's permission.

Starting point is 00:04:22 The first is to just hack in with stolen credentials and do what they want. The second are spam submissions. When multiple people suggest changes, like indicating a business is closed or has a new phone number, Google notifies the business owner. The owner can then confirm or deny the suggested changes through their Google business profile dashboard. Problem is, not all business owners check their email that frequently. Or the notifications go to spam. Or the company's so large that there's no one person responsible for shepherding those requests.

Starting point is 00:04:56 Sometimes these suggestions are done by well-intentioned regular people. Other times, it's a business's competitor. Yesterday, someone on social media posted screenshots showing several businesses inaccurately marked as closed in what they called a massive hack wave. So stay vigilant about your business profile. And even if you think you're on top of your email, it's worth making a weekly to-do to log into your dashboard and just make sure everything is ship shape. A few years ago, the New York Times journalist Kevin Roof started posting a daily list on Twitter. It was an automated system that would look up the 10 most popular Facebook posts each day

Starting point is 00:05:37 and tweet that list out. Many times this list was dominated by pages and people on the political right, which gave rise to complaints, justified or not, that Facebook's algorithm amplified that angle of content. That list shut down last year after Twitter became X and its API rates went through the roof. But the data itself came from a tool that Meta acquired eight years ago called CrowdTangle. It was a comprehensive tool that let you track accounts and pages,

Starting point is 00:06:06 track what they posted, monitor engagement trends, and so on. It was a great tool for transparency. So it had to die. Today, Meta announced the shutdown of CrowdTangle effective immediately. The announcement was made, ironically, on Meta's Transparency Commitment mini-site. Why? Simple. It's bad press. Quoting Social Media Today, As with its retreat from political content, Meta's essentially looking to reduce public scrutiny of its platforms, which rattles investors and impacts its share price. CrowdTangle has been used to facilitate negative research reports about its app.

Starting point is 00:06:43 Facebook denied that it was benefiting from engagement driven by such posts, which often included blatant misinformation among the various headlines. The Facebook team also tried to counter the suggestion by releasing its own widely viewed content report, while internally it ramped up scrutiny on the CrowdTangle team and the information accessible through the app. Based on this, meta management raised concerns about the tool, which then led to most of the CrowdTangle team being let go back in 2021, unquote.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Meta says it didn't shut down CrowdTangle to avoid scrutiny, but rather talked about broad technology changes and regulatory headwinds and talked about its, quote, rigorous privacy and security standards, unquote, and on and on. Most experts in the space, though, say it's clearly about avoiding bad headlines. Meta says you can still use its content library, except you probably can't,

Starting point is 00:07:38 since Meta hands access only to a small list of approved researchers only, a list that likely no longer includes journalists or regular people. Anybody can still use its ads library, and it's a great tool, but it's not at all what CrowdTangle used to track. Threads is said to be developing a new feature

Starting point is 00:08:00 that would allow posts and their replies to disappear after 24 hours. This option could appeal to users concerned about the permanence of their social media content, and it might be a fun format for marketers. These formats exist on other platforms, of course. Stories usually vanish after a day. And pre-Elon Twitter even experimented with something similar they called Fleet, which was later abandoned. Now, ex-users need to use a third-party tool to accomplish this. There are lots of ways marketers have used this kind of format. Limited-time promotions, short-lived giveaways, teaser campaigns for product launches, real-time events, and so on.

Starting point is 00:08:36 In today's newsletter, we've got details on eight ways that marketers are using this format. You can sign up to our newsletter by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com. A software engineer found the hidden code in Thread's platform and also discovered that these ephemeral posts would not be shared to the Fediverse, the decentralized social networks that Thread recently integrated with. A Metis spokesperson said the disappearing posts feature is currently only an internal prototype and not being tested externally. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Amazon will increase fulfillment fees for sellers using its Fulfillment by Amazon service during the peak 2024 season. The company cites higher costs due to inflation and supply chain challenges.

Starting point is 00:09:22 The fees apply from October 15th to January 14th, affecting both standard size and oversize items. Thread has some new analytics tools on its way. Users will be able to view more insights on their posts like reach and engagement metrics, and it'll also be available from the platform's desktop version. The Indian government has pulled back on a controversial law

Starting point is 00:09:43 that proposed sweeping changes to how social media influencers operate in the country. The law would have required influencers to pre-certify their content through a government regulator before being posted. And UMG has signed a music licensing deal with Meta, allowing users on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to use UMG's music catalog in their posts and stories. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and

Starting point is 00:10:34 get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. And finally, and I'm not sure why this isn't being talked about more, a hacker has leaked 2.7 billion records containing personal information of people in the United States, the UK, and Canada. The hackers say the data was stolen from an American data repository

Starting point is 00:11:25 and includes the names, dates of birth, phone numbers, and physical addresses of nearly every citizen of those countries. For Americans, it's said to also include their social security numbers. So where did the data come from? A repository. An organization called National Public Data is believed to scrape public sources to compile individual user profiles for use in background checks, criminal records, and private investigations. The company has not responded to inquiries about the breach. Various threat actors have released partial copies of the data. The most complete version leaked for free on a hacking forum. The leaked data consists of two text files totaling 277 gigabytes, containing plain text records without encryption. If there's any saving grace, it sounds like some of the data is outdated

Starting point is 00:12:15 and the social security numbers don't always line up with the right people. Still, it's an unprecedented breach, one which occurred back in April and was largely unreported at the time. It's already led to multiple class action lawsuits against the repository. As is always the case with these breaches, you should monitor credit reports for fraudulent activity and be vigilant against phishing attempts. We have a classified ad to close us out. Save time and money by ditching multiple social media tools. Fedica schedules posts to 11 platforms like PixelFed and BlueSky,

Starting point is 00:12:51 while unifying analytics and analysis for Mastodon X and more. Fedica gives you insights you can't get anywhere else. Get free cross-platform scheduling at Fedica.com. F-E-D-I-C-A dot com. I'm Todd Maffin. That's it for today. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Correctile Dysfunction

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