Germany Required Meta To Allow Users to Opt-Out Of Tracking



Germany’s Bundeskartellamt posted information about Meta (Facebook) introducing a new accounts center. From the news:

Meta has announced plans to introduce a new accounts center. The accounts center will allow Meta’s customers for the first time to make a largely free and informed decision about whether they want to use Meta’s services separately or in combined form. Using the services in combined form would allow them to use additional functionalities such as crossposting, where a post is simultaneously published across several social media outlets, but Meta would then use the combined data for advertising purposes…

…In particular, it remains to be clarified how users can be informed as correctly and neutrally as possible about the use and data processing consequences involved in Meta’s Business Tools and plugins (e.g. Facebook Login, “Like” button) in a central location and how they can consent to or reject the use of their data in a simple way, and under which exceptional circumstances data processing across accounts can be legal even without the user’s consent (e.g. for security purposes). Unless the required consent has been free and informed, it has to be requested again…

…The Bundeskartellamt was in continues talks with Meta regarding the implementation of its decision despite pending litigation of the original decision. Meta then introduced an accounts center and reviewed its data infrastructure. The accounts center allowed users for the first time to decide for themselves whether to combine their Meta service accounts (e.g. on Facebook and Instagram), the linking of accounts allowing Meta to also use the data combined across accounts to create advertising profiles and apply personalized advertising. The Bundeskartellamt considered this first accounts center to be seriously deficient. Neither did it inform customers in a neutral way nor were all relevant pieces of information shown in a transparent and easily accessible form.

In February 2023, Meta presented a plan to implement the Bundeskartellamt’s decision following intensive talks, which included a significantly modified accounts center that was discussed in detail with Bundeskartellamt. Meta made a number of changes to the accounts center in the process, which made the overall user journey significantly more transparent and comprehensible. …The wording was also changed that could have nudged users to combine their accounts. The wording was also changed to in greater detail what is actually meant (e.g. “personal data” instead of “information”)… and the process required to separate accounts was considerably simplified…

TechCrunch reported that Meta is not taking this step to boost user choice over its tracking and profiling – even to this qualified degree – of its own volition; the development follows a lengthy battle wit hGermany’s antitrust authority over the adtech giant’s so called ‘superprofiling’ of users which the FCO views as an “exploitative abuse” of its market power as the dominant player in social media, and therefore as an antitrust abuse it can enforce against it.

Based on all of this, it seems to me that Meta is going to have a harder time gathering the data of its users. Germany appears to have forced Meta to let it’s users know that they can choose to consent to, or reject, Meta’s collection of the user’s data.


GameStop Shares Fall As It Terminates CEO



GameStop shares plunged Wednesday after it terminated Chief Executive Matt Furlong and elevated Ryan Cohen to executive chairman, the latest shake-up at the videogame retailer, which has been struggling to find new ways to juice sales, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Cohen first joined the board as director in 2021 and rose to chairman that June as part of a restructuring of GameStop’s board. The company then overhauled its executive team, hiring Furlong from Amazon for the CEO job. 

GameStop shares fell 19% in after-hours trading.

Furlong was one of dozens of e-commerce veterans who joined GameStop in 2021 and 2022 to help turn the company’s business around by expanding online sales and launching a marketplace for non fungible tokens, or NFTs. Many of those executives left last year, including the chief growth officer, vice presidents of fulfillment and supply chain systems and the senior vice president of customer service. 

Also last year, GameStop began pulling back on its e-commerce efforts and returned its focus to getting stores to be more efficient.

CNBC reported that shares of GameStop dropped more than 20% in extended trading after the video game retailer announced the termination of Matthew Furlong. It released the news on the same day it reported its revenue dropped and its loss narrowed in its fiscal quarter compared to the year-ago period.

The company didn’t provide a reason for the firing, but noted the change in its quarterly securities filing. 

“We believe the combination of these efforts to stabilize and optimize our core business and achieve sustained profitability while also focusing on capital allocation under Mr. Cohen’s leadership will further unlock long-term value creation for our stockholders,” the filing states.

Cohen took a stake in GameStop in 2020, and in January 2021 he and two other former Chewy executives were named to the retailer’s board as part of an agreement with the company’s management. His investment firm, RC Ventures, currently has an 11.9% stake in GameStop, according to filings. 

Kotaku reported the Chewy founder who sold his home delivery pet food business for billions is a hero among meme stock investors on subreddits like WallStreetBets and SuperStonk. The most die-hard fans treat him more like a prophet than a rich guy who sold his one good idea, hanging onto his every social media post and business hoping to discover clues to the master plan that will make their GameStop stock even more ridiculously overpriced. 

At the same time, Kotaku reported, GameStop workers in the stores themselves continue to suffer. Cost cutting measures and ramped-up sales goals have increased the pressure on store managers and hourly employees, leading to high turnover and entire teams at some locations randomly deciding to quit on the spot.

Personally, I have worked in less-than-adequate retail stores, and I sympathize with the GameStop workers who have clearly had a horrible time at work. The company has swapped out Furlong for Cohen, but that won’t make much of a difference if GameStop continues to put increased pressure on its in-store workers. 


Google Cloud Partners With Mayo Clinic To Use AI In Health Care



Google’s cloud business is expanding its use of new artificial intelligence technologies in health care, giving medical professionals at Mayo Clinic the ability to quickly find patient information using the types of tools powering the latest chatbots, CNBC reported.

On Wednesday, Google Cloud said Mayo Clinic is testing a new service called Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder, which was introduced Tuesday. The tool effectively lets clients create their own chatbots using Google’s technology to scour mounds of disparate internal data.

In health care, CNBC reported, that means workers can interpret data such as a patients’ medical history, imaging records, genomics or labs more quickly and with a simple query, even if the information is stored across different formats and locations. Mayo Clinic, one of the top hospital systems in the U.S. with dozens of locations, is an early adopter of the technology of Google, which is trying to bolster the use of generative AI in the medical system.

Mayo Clinic will test out different use cases for the search tool in the coming months, and Vish Anantraman, chief technology officer at Mayo Clinic, said that it has already been “very fulfilling” for helping clinicians with administrative tasks that often contribute to burnout.

According to CNBC, generative AI has been the hottest topic in tech since late 2022, when Microsoft backed OpenAI released the chatbot ChatGPT to the public. Google raced to catch up, rolling out its Bard AI chat service earlier this year and pushing to embed the underlying technology into as many products as possible. Health care is a particularly challenging industry, because there’s less room for incorrect answers or hallucinations, which occur when AI models fabricate information entirely.

Recently, Google posted on The Prompt: “Let’s talk about recent AI missteps”. From the article:

…By now, most of us have heard about “hallucinations,” which are when a generative AI model outputs nonsense or invented information in response to a prompt. You’ve probably also heard about companies accidentally exposing proprietary information to AI assistance without first verifying that interactions won’t be used to further train models. This oversight could potentially expose private information to anyone in the world using the assistance, as we discussed in earlier editions of “The Prompt”…

Google also wrote a blog post titled: “Bringing Generative AI to search experiences”. From the article:

…For example, building search by breaking long documents into chunks and feeding each segment into an AI assistant typically isn’t scalable and doesn’t effectively provide insights across multiple sources. Likewise, many solutions are limited in the data types they can handle, prone to errors, and susceptible to data leakage…. Even when organizations make these efforts, the resulting solutions tend to lack feature completeness and reliability, with significant investments of time and resources required to achieve high quality results…

Google also points out that their Gen App Builder lets developers create search engines that help ground outputs in specific data sources for accuracy and relevance, can handle multimodal data such as images, and include controls over how answer summaries are generated. Google also indicates that multi-turn conversations are supported so that users can ask follow up questions as they peruse outputs, and customers have control over their data – including the ability to support HIPAA compliance for healthcare cases.

Personally, I would prefer to talk to an actual human being about whatever questions I might have about my health care needs. Giving this over to an generative AI, that could easily make mistakes or have “hallucinations”, sounds like a gimmick that could potentially cause harm to patients.


Twitch Walks Back Controversial Ad Rules



Twitch is reversing it newly announced rules concerning the way streamers could display ads on the platform after swift backlash from streamers and content creators, The Verge reported.

On Tuesday, Twitch released new rules concerning the way streamers could display ads on the platform. The rules prohibited “burned in” video, display, and audio ads – the first two of which were popular and common formats used throughout Twitch. Twitch apparently did not discuss the new rules with ambassadors or streamers beforehand, and many were furious about the new policies.

Twitch apologized for the rollout, explaining that it would rewrite the rules for greater clarity. Now it seems that rewrite has turned into a full rescinding of the rules totally. From the company’s Twitter thread:

“Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately. Sponsorships are critical to streamers; growth and ability to earn income. We will not prevent your ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors – you will continue to own and control your sponsorship business. We want to work with our community to create the best experience on Twitch, and to do that we need to be clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. We appreciate your feedback and help in making this change.”

TechCrunch reported that many creators viewed Twitch’s sudden changes to the branded content guidelines as a way for the company, which is owned by Amazon, to further insert itself between streamers and their sponsors.

Twitch takes a 50 percent cut of creator earnings, through its standard revenue sharing agreement, but it isn’t able to get a piece of the lucrative deals that streamers negotiate with sponsors and advertisers. Because the economics of streaming aren’t actually that favorable to creators, most serious streamers rely on ads and sponsors to fill that monetization gap.

Streamers regularly display “burned in” ads – advertising displayed directly onto streams, whether through display banners, video commercials, or audio. The changes Twitch announced Tuesday would have prohibited all of those ads, with the exception of relatively tiny display ads that take up less than three percent of the screen.

Ars Technica reported that individual streamers aren’t the only ones set to be affected by this move, either. Events like The Streamer Awards, and major esports tournaments often prominently feature sponsor logos or banner ads as a way to earn money without interrupting the broadcast. Charity streams like Games Done Quick also use prominently branded ad overlays to help pay for the high costs of putting on the event,

According to Ars Technica, competing platforms have gotten in on the backlash, too, with upstart Kick.com offering to pay the $24 minimum “maintenance fee” that Twitch has long charged official affiliates and partners who terminate their agreements with Twitch.

Overall, I think that Twitch really made a huge mistake when they changed their ad rules. Twitch did attempt to roll that back after it became very clear that they had made a bad decision. I cannot help but wonder how many big streamers got fed up and left Twitch in favor of a platform that won’t screw them over.


Content Writer Shifts to Trade Work Amid OpenAI’s ChatGPT Disruption



I keep saying that ChatGPT is going to cause a lot of folks to lose their jobs. Eric Fein, a content writer, experienced a significant drop in business when 10 of his clients replaced him with OpenAI’s ChatGPT for content creation. In response, Fein is transitioning to trade work, including heating and air conditioning repair and plumbing, which are jobs least likely to be affected by advances in AI. His experience echoes growing concerns over the potential for advanced generative AI like ChatGPT to disrupt the labor market and increase unemployment. Early analysis from Goldman Sachs suggests that AI could impact around 300 million jobs worldwide, particularly in white-collar industries like administration and law.

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AI Adoption Concerns and Perceived Benefits Among US Workers #1672



A recent survey reveals that 79% of American workers harbor concerns about potential wage cuts due to AI integration in their workplaces, despite many also recognizing possible workload alleviation. The study by Checkr via Pollfish sampled 3,000 American workers from various generations and found that 74% fear losing their jobs to AI within two years. Nevertheless, a surprising 86% are willing to accept a pay reduction for a reduced workweek facilitated by AI. The attitudes towards AI reflect a mix of apprehension and anticipation, illuminating the complexities of AI adoption in the workplace. This is a summary from Business Insider. It should come as no surprise as people are starting to see the platform’s power.

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Unchecked Surveillance: FBI Misuses FISA Section 702 Over 278,000 Times, Unclassified Court Document Reveals #1671



The FBI conducted warrantless searches on citizens, misusing its surveillance powers granted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) more than 278,000 times between 2020 and early 2021, according to a recently unclassified court document. This controversial legislation, designed to prevent criminal and terrorist activities by foreigners, was improperly applied to US citizens, notably George Floyd protesters, January 6 Capitol rioters, and Congressional campaign donors. This misuse is described as “persistent and widespread” in the court opinion, indicating multiple instances of inadequate justification for these surveillance activities. Despite this rampant misuse, the information garnered through these searches can be and has been, used for prosecutions. With FISA Section 702 expiring at year’s end, this revelation could be a significant factor in the discussions regarding its reauthorization. We must demand that Congress repeal Section 702 later this year. Summary derived from The Register

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