Amazon has agreed to payments to settle two federal lawsuits alleging that the tech giant violated users’ privacy through its Alexa voice assistant and its Ring doorbell cameras. The FTC found that Amazon violated children’s privacy law COPPA by keeping voice recordings of children, in some cases failing to honor deletion requests. In that proposed settlement, Amazon will pay $25 million, and delete recordings and geolocation data. The Ring complaint alleges employees and contractors had unrestricted access to customers’ “sensitive video data,” for which the company has agreed to pay $5.8 million. “While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” said Amazon in a statement.

In happier Amazon news, the company is in talks with wireless carriers about possibly offering low-cost – or even free! – mobile phone service to Prime subscribers, according to Bloomberg. Negotiations have reportedly begun with Verizon, T-Mobile and Dish Network.

Meta unveiled the Meta Quest 3, a VR and mixed reality headset that will ship this fall. “Quest 3 is the supercharged, all-in-one headset you’ve been waiting for — no wires required,” said Meta in a blog post, adding that it offers “incredibly crisp details in immersive games.” Price tag: $500.

Twitter had two top execs hand in their resignations last week. A.J. Brown, head of brand safety and ad quality, and Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety, are throwing in the towel. While no explanation was given, the departures came after CEO Elon Musk criticized the Twitter staff for determining that a video titled “What Is a Woman?”, by Matt Walsh – a frequent attacker of transgender people – violated its hate-speech rules. “This was a mistake by many people at Twitter. It is definitely allowed,” tweeted Musk.

Netflix shareholders did not approve the 2023 pay packages of senior-level execs in a non-binding vote during the company’s shareholder meeting last week. The WGA had pushed shareholders to veto pay plans it labeled inappropriate. “In the midst of a disruptive labor dispute, Netflix is asking shareholders to give retroactive advisory approval of the company’s 2022 reported executive compensation totaling over $166 million,” wrote WGA West President Meredith Stiehm in a letter to Netflix shareholders. “By contrast, the proposed improvements the WGA currently has on the table would cost Netflix an estimated $68 million per year.”

YouTube will no longer remove content that advances false claims about election fraud in the 2020 and other US Presidential elections. In a blog post, YouTube said, “In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm.” YouTube said it had pulled “tens of thousands” of videos since its decision in 2020 to remove videos claiming widespread fraud changed the outcome of the election, and will continue to ban videos misleading voters about when, where, and how to vote.

As Pride month launched on June 1, Match Group introduced a new dating app. Archer, a dating experience for gay, bi and queer men, will roll out later this month in New York, followed by the rest of the US later this year.

BeReal has plans to test a chat feature, starting in Ireland. Via RealChat, BeReal will be able to message one-on-one with friends on the platform, and react with RealMoji.

AI

Snapchat+ subscribers chatting with My AI can now send Snaps of what they’re up to and receive a unique generative Snap back. “Snap My AI a picture of your pizza, OOTD, or even your furry best friend, and My AI may respond with a Snap back in reaction to what you’re doing. So, if you Snap My AI your latest grocery haul, it might recommend a recipe!”, reported Snap in its newsroom. “While it was designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information, mistakes may occur, so please do not rely on it for advice, and let us know if you have any feedback,” added the company.

Start-up Dumme, which uses AI to create short-form videos from YouTube content, is boasting a waitlist of over 20,000 pre-launch, as video creators are testing its product. Dumme aims to simplify and streamline the sometimes tedious process of video editing using a combination of proprietary and existing AI models.

Chinese search giant Baidu is setting up a venture capital fund of 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to back start-ups focused on content generated by AI applications. And amid the surge large language models, Baidu is launching a competition for developers to build applications off its Ernie LLM.

NVIDIA and WPP are developing a content engine that harnesses NVIDIA’s 3D content development platform Omniverss and AI to enable creative teams to produce high-quality commercial content faster, more efficiently and at scale. “The world’s industries, including the $700 billion digital advertising industry, are racing to realize the benefits of AI,” said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. “With Omniverse Cloud and generative AI tools, WPP is giving brands the ability to build and deploy product experiences and compelling content at a level of realism and scale never possible before.”

WSC Sports and TelevisaUnivision struck a long-term partnership in which TelevisaUnivision will utilize WSC Sports’ AI video solution to generate sport highlights for 15 soccer related properties. WSC Sports’ technology will be used to analyze soccer games in real-time, clip highlights of all the matches, and create both short- and long-form content in real time that is customizable. The content generated with WSC Sports’ technology will be distributed among TelevisaUnivision’s digital outlets including OTT service ViX, along with TelevisaUnivision’s social media platforms, apps, and more.

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ADVERTISING

DISH Media has launched DISH Connected, a solution that allows DISH TV’s live linear inventory to be programmatically executed, delivering real-time, targeted ads to internet-connected DISH set-top boxes. “Two years in the making, DISH Connected’s launch marks us as the first distributor to bring live linear TV to the biddable marketplace. Our experience building SLING TV’s programmatic business helped shape our belief in what the marketplace should expect from programmatic TV,” said Kevin Arrix, SVP, DISH Media. “DISH Connected allows advertisers and ad agencies to access DISH TV in the exact same way they buy CTV and triples the number of programmatic avails that DISH Media provides monthly — from 1 billion to 3 billion.”

Flow City and Broadsign announced an ad tech integration that makes premium global digital-out-of-home screens available for purchase programmatically on Flow City’s DOOH-specialty demand-side-platform. The collaboration allows media buying agencies, small businesses, and startups using Flow City to plan, purchase, and execute global DOOH campaigns across new inventory located in shopping centers, supermarkets, and other high-traffic areas in the UK, France, and the US.

As a follow up to the Upfronts season, MediaRadar has released new data on the state of TV and video advertising for 2022. Key findings include:
· Digital advertising, accounting for 47% of total spends, surpassed TV, which comprised 41% of the total $144 billion expenditure in digital, print, and TV advertising in 2022.Over $68 billion was allotted to digital, incorporating online video.
· Top categories investing in TV ads mirrored those in digital, with the top 5 largely consisting of finance, media & entertainment, retail, and tech sectors. However, except for media and entertainment, TV investment in these sectors witnessed a YoY decrease.
· Online video advertising rose by 86% YoY.
· OTT investments continued to grow with about 5.7k brands enhancing their stakes in streaming platforms in 2022.
· Short TV ads, 15 seconds or less, garnered $5.2 billion (35% of $14.8b) in Q1 2023, marking a 6% YoY increase. Longer ads, 16 to 30 seconds, dropped 10% YoY to $7 billion. In Q1 2023, ads over 46 seconds accounted for 17% of total TV ad spend.

Yangaroo and WideOrbit are integrating Yangaroo’s asset management and delivery platform and WideOrbit’s Electronic Material Instructions module within flagship ad sales and commercial operations platform, WO Traffic. “The API integration between Yangaroo and WideOrbit delivers instant benefits to all advertisers and broadcasters using our platforms,” said Grant Schuetrumpf, CEO of Yangaroo. “The smooth and immediate exchange of data between the platforms represents a substantial enhancement for all stakeholders involved in managing real-time responses and confirmations when advertisers submit traffic instructions to broadcasters across the USA.”

STREAMING

New streaming regulations introduced by the UK government prompted a threat by Netflix to purge content from its UK library to avoid potential fines of up to $310,000. The Media Bill calls for regulator Ofcam to treat streaming companies the way it does traditional broadcasters, including fining them for content that does not follow guidelines for impartiality and matters of “political or industrial controversy.” Said Netflix, “Without considerably greater clarity around the scope and application of these provisions, it would inevitably be easier to remove content pre-emptively from our UK catalogue than risk an onerous compliance burden and potential liability.” Disney raised similar objections on behalf of Disney+.

Twitter is also having issues abroad, having pulled out from agreeing to voluntary guidelines that will become mandatory for tech companies when the Digital Services Act goes into effect in the EU in August. Noting the dangers of disinformation, France’s Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said during an interview on France Info, “Twitter, if it repeatedly doesn’t follow our rules, will be banned from the EU.”

Vimeo is ending support for Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, and Roku, effective June 27. “Occasionally, we retire legacy products and features that are no longer consistent with our standards,” said the company on its website. “We believe that our users looking to view Vimeo videos will receive a better ongoing experience by casting via our mobile app, enabling customers to enjoy Vimeo content on their TV.”

Enterprise software platform Whip Media announced that Best Ever Channels, which creates FAST channels and develops original programming, has signed on to utilize Whip Media FASTrack, designed to solve problems associated with FAST and AVOD channel reporting. “Our mission is to help reduce the complexity and stress that comes with operating FAST channels across several platforms – allowing partners like Best Ever Channels to do what they do best, develop and distribute compelling FAST content,” said Ben Widger, Whip Media Account Executive.

MEASUREMENT

VideoAmp has added TransUnion’s TruAudience analytics information in its measurement platform. The integration is aimed at enabling marketers to measure the impact of their campaigns across TV and digital channels, connect their media placements to purchase behavior, and use media effectiveness insights to optimize media and creative placements, budget allocation, and audience targets.

Cynopsis Team