advertisement

advertisement

T-Mobile's proposed $26 billion acquisition of Sprint should be rejected despite the companies' promise to build out a 5G network, six senate Democrats are telling regulators.

“The behavioral conditions and voluntary commitments offered are filled with loopholes, lack meaningful enforcement mechanisms, and do not come close to ameliorating the negative effects that a reduction in wireless competition would cause for consumers across the country,” Sens. Tom Udall (New Mexico), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Ed Markey (Massachusetts) and Cory Booker (New Jersey) say in a letter sent Thursday to the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department.

The lawmakers are urging FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to reconsider his support for the merger. If the deal gains approval, the country will only have three major wireless carriers -- Verizon, AT&T and the newly merged T-Mobile/Sprint. 

Udall and the other senators say the consolidation will prove harmful. “We are concerned that this four-to-three merger does not serve the public interest and would result in substantial anticompetitive effects, harming consumers, workers, and innovation,” they write.

Staff at the DOJ's antitrust division reportedly have recommended blocking the deal, but antitrust head Makan Delrahim hasn't yet made a decision.

The FCC's Pai endorsed the merger, arguing it will spur 5G deployment and bring high-speed broadband to rural parts of the country -- many of which lack access to fast web connections.

T-Mobile and Sprint recently promised that if the acquisition closes, they will build a high-speed network that will cover 97% of the country within three years, including 85% of rural Americans.

The FCC's two other Republican commissioners appear to support the transaction, but Democrat Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel voiced reservations. On Monday, she called for the FCC to publish the companies' proposed promises and conditions of the deal, and solicit comments.

Udall and the others say they agree with Rosenworcel that the public should have an opportunity to weigh in. The lawmakers are urging the FCC to post the companies' merger plans and give the public 30 days to file comments.

advertisement

advertisement

Citing shifting privacy norms, a federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that entertainment companies as well as mobile ad-tech companies violate children's privacy by harvesting their data for ad targeting.

The ruling, issued Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge James Donato in the Northern District of California, stems from three lawsuits filed in 2017 by parents whose children played gaming apps developed by Kiloo, Disney and Viacom. The apps -- including “Princess Palace Pets” and “Where’s My Water?” -- allegedly came embedded with tracking software from mobile ad-tech companies.

The parents alleged that the ad-tech companies collected identifiers (like the Android Advertising ID) as well as data used for device fingerprinting (including the user’s language, time zone, and mobile network).

The companies urged Donato to dismiss the lawsuit at an early stage. They argued that tracking people via device identifiers for ad targeting isn't the kind of activity that warrants a federal lawsuit.

Donato rejected that argument.

“Current privacy expectations are developing, to say the least, with respect to a key issue raised in these cases -- whether the data subject owns and controls his or her personal information, and whether a commercial entity that secretly harvests it commits a highly offensive or egregious act,” he wrote in a 22-page decision. The ruling dismisses several claims, but allows the parents to move forward with others. 

“The Court cannot say that the answers are so patently obvious that plaintiffs’ allegations are implausible or inadequate as a matter of law,” Donato wrote.

The most significant of the parents' claims involves "intrusion upon seclusion” -- which occurs when companies violate people's expectations of privacy in a "highly offensive" way.

Disney and others countered that the allegations, even if true, wouldn't amount to "intrusion upon seclusion," because the data collected wasn't "personal." Instead, the information consisted of “anonymous alphanumeric strings of data regarding users’ devices and the software running on them,” according to the companies.

They argued that mining that sort of data for advertising purposes doesn't disclose "deeply private facts.” 

But Donato found that the allegations warrant further proceedings. He specifically noted that the companies allegedly harvested “user-specific” information. 

“Plaintiffs have alleged that defendants surreptitiously gathered user-specific information; they continue to gather information and track individual users in real time; they share (and buy and sell) this information with other third-party companies; and all of this results in the minor users being shown targeted advertisements and in the users continuing to be tracked after being shown the advertisements to see if they take actions in response to the ads,” he wrote. “This is enough to let the complaints go forward.”

A new report from magazine trade organization MPA-The Association of Magazine Media shows magazine media brands’ sites attracted just as much or more online audience engagement than non-magazine brand sites in Q1 2019.

The Magazine Media 360° Online Engagement Report from MPA shows the level of audience engagement with web (desktop or laptop) and mobile web (mobile device) sites of magazine media brands and digital-native media brands that do not publish magazines.

For example, Golf Digest versus Bleacher Report, or Allure versus Byrdie.

The report measured attributes of engagement in consumer media, including:

*loyalty (the frequency with which magazine brand content is consumed within a specific period)
*immersion (the amount of time during which magazine brand content is consumed within a specific period - also known as time spent)
*intensity (the amount of magazine brand content page exposures within a specific period - also known as interaction) *connection (the level of attraction to, or liking of, a magazine brand - also known as brand affinity)

Loyalty is measured by visits per visitor, immersion by minutes per visitor, intensity by page views per visitor and connection by social media actions per publisher post.

Using third-party metrics from comScore and statistics from MPA’s Social Media Engagement Report, these attributes were analyzed and combined to produce an “online engagement factor” for each brand by online platform.

MPA found in all 10 of the major content categories where sufficient data is available, magazine brands have higher or equal engagement across online media platforms than non-magazine brands.

In short, online users showed more loyalty, immersion, intensity and connection overall to magazine sites than non-magazine brand sites.

Those content categories included epicurean; health and fitness; home and garden; pop culture and entertainment; science, tech and exploration; spectator sports; sports enthusiast; travel; women’s fashion and beauty and women’s service and lifestyle.

The MPA online engagement report will be updated quarterly.

In the future, MPA says it will add audience engagement data for video content to the report, once “a higher number of tracked brands have syndicated research data available” for that format.

Pizza, hamburgers, curry or tandoori chicken are some of the food items that consumers might have an option to order from restaurants that are participating in a new service from Google.

A new online order button will allow consumers to purchase food directly from Google Search and Google Maps, but the feature will also offer a similar experience through Google Assistant.

Owning the customer transaction is one reason Google now offers the service. The data is another. Supporting companies and their partners no doubt adds to the lure. Last week it was made clear that every merchant receipt sent to a Gmail consumer's account from a merchant is another piece of data that Google gains. 

While Google has yet to release a list of the restaurants participating in the offering, as of today all ChowNow restaurant partners can join the service. 

The new service enables consumers to order food and have it delivered by partners such as DoorDash, Postmates, and ChowNow. While orders are made through Google’s interface, payments are made through Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay -- whichever transaction the service the restaurant supports.

Using Google Assistant on a mobile phone requires the user to download and open the app by simply saying, “Hey Google, order food from” and naming the restaurant. Assistant also will allow consumers to reorder meals and have them delivered by saying “Hey Google, reorder food” from the specific restaurant. The Assistant pulls up the information and places the past order.

Google will display the menus in the apps, along with a minimum service and delivery fee.

The ability to order food from search, maps and the assistant builds on Google’s desire to become the intermediary and service provider. This began with searching and booking airline flights, then quickly expanded to integrating with transportation services such as Uber and Lyft, and now food ordering and delivery.  

One of the largest independent North American performance and data-driven digital marketing agencies recently rebranded from a well-known name, Elite SEM, to something a little quirky: Tinuiti.

Tinuiti CEO Zach Morrison says the move is the result of 40% organic growth and several key acquisitions last year, including social marketing agency OrionCKB, CRM, email marketing and creative agency Email Aptitude, and Amazon-focused ecommerce agency CPC Strategy.

“We’re looking at 30% growth this year,” Morrison said.

Search engine marketing is less than 50% of Tinuiti’s business now, Morrison said, noting that channels like marketplaces, social, CRM, programmatic, email, and social are picking up the slack.  

Tinuiti, which manages about $1 billion in ad spend for companies such as Birchbox, DoorDash, Etsy, The Honest Company, and Terminix, specializes in paid search and social and marketplaces like Amazon as well as mobile apps, CRM, and email marketing.

Rebranding the name came with help from Madison Avenue firm Tipping Gardner.

When I asked him how to pronounce the name, Morrison said to think about the words “continuity” and “ingenuity.” Phonetically, it’s Ti-new-ity.

“It was an amazing, eye-opening experience in marketing and one that we will be able to learn from and bring back to our clients,” Morrison said. “In the four months we interviewed everyone internally, looking at our competitors, and looked at how we evolved, and then we got into the naming phase.”

It’s pretty simple to change the name of a company to a word you can find in a dictionary, he said, but “true creativity happens when you get out of your comfort zone because it allows me to tell you a story.”

I also asked if Tinuiti will branch out into other media channels. Morrison said he looks at what the services and clients need to grow their businesses, whether they are building new capabilities or partnering with others. Acquisitions are in the company’s future, but perhaps not in media such as traditional TV buys. The company already supports connected TV and video, and the marketing universe will be centered on digital.

Dorne Dalton, Tinuiti’s CMO, said the biggest challenge is for this “healthy business” to create awareness around the new name. “We rebranded around a position of strength,” Dalton said, and "now we need to transition the positive equity into the new name."  

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement