Yahoo Freedom of Information Case Punted Back to Lower German Courts
December 9, 2016
The article on DW titled Germany’s Highest Court Rejects Yahoo Content Payment Case reports that Yahoo’s fight against paying publishers for publishing their content has been sent back to the lower courts. Yahoo claims that the new copyright laws limit access to information. The article explains,
The court, in the western city of Karlsruhe, said on Wednesday that Yahoo hadn’t exhausted its legal possibilities in lower courts and should turn to them first. The decision suggests Yahoo could now take its case to the civil law courts. The judges didn’t rule on the issue itself, which also affects rival search engine companies…. Germany revised its copyright laws in August 2013 allowing media companies to request payment from search engines that use more than snippets of their content.
The article points out that the new law fails to define “snippet.” Does it mean a few sentences or a few paragraphs? The article doesn’t go into much detail on how this major oversight was possible. The outcome of the case will certainly affect Google as well as Yahoo. Since its summer sale of the principal online asset to Verizon, a new direction has emerged. Verizon aims to forge a Yahoo brand that can compete in online advertising with the likes of Google and Facebook.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 9, 2016
Verizon Strategizes to Get Paid for Installing Big Brand Apps That You Will Probably Never Open
September 5, 2016
The article titled Verizon Offered to Install Marketers’ Apps Directly on Subscribers’ Phones on AdAge discusses the next phase in Verizon’s marketing strategy, a seeming inheritance of product placement: automatic installations for big brands onto your phone. Next time you notice an app that you didn’t download on your phone, look no further. Verizon has been in talks with both retail and finance brands about charging between $1 and $2 per device, which sounds small until you multiply it by 75 million Verizon smartphone subscribers. The article discusses some of the potential drawbacks.
Verizon has stoked some user frustration in the past with “bloatware,” as have many carriers and phone manufacturers. Bloatware comprises the often irrelevant apps that arrive pre-installed on phones, though they’re less often major brands’ apps and more often small, proprietary services from the carriers and manufacturers…There is no guarantee, however, that Verizon subscribers open the apps they find pre-installed on their phones. “If a user is not interested, they just delete it without activating.
Sara Choi, COO of AirFox, is quoted in the article making a great point about the importance to carriers to innovate new strategies for profit growth. Ultimately, the best use for this marketing technique is a huge number of immediate downloads. How to engage users once you have gotten into their phones is the next question. If this goes through, there will be no need to search to get an ad, which could mean bad news for online ad search.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark Web meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
Wisdom of Verizon AOL Deal Questioned
June 16, 2015
Sarah Lacy, founder and editor-in-chief at PandoDaily, is highly skeptical of the official rational behind Verizon’s recent acquisition of AOL. She posits, “Can’t We All Agree the Justifications for this AOL/Verizon Deal are Bat#### Insane?” The post begins:
“What is it about AOL mergers that make no sense?
“I’ve spent the morning intermittently reading various reports by the financial press about Verizon’s surprise/not surprise acquisition of AOL. Early on, they seem divided on whether it was about buying ad tech or content, with many pundits saying Verizon was going the Comcast route… and then it became clear that AOL’s biggest media asset, the Huffington Post, would likely be spun off. The press was similarly divided on whether or not Armstrong was long shopping this company or simply got wowed by how awesome Verizon is during a meeting at Sun Valley.
“But everyone — including the company– insists this deal was about two buzzwords: Mobile. Video. AOL put out some dizzying justifications and everyone nodded like they totally understood.
“Wait, what?”
Lacy doesn’t buy the idea that Verizon acquired AOL for its mobile and video chops (she has a point there). In fact, it quickly becomes clear that the writer’s main problem is with AOL chairman and ex-Googler Tim Armstrong, for she spends much virtual ink delineating his errors, past and present. (She’s especially critical of his handling of the Huffington Post.) Lacy also refutes official statements about this deal one by one, comparing the whole situation to a nonsensical Lewis Carroll scene. See the article if you, too, think this deal is fishy (or if, for some reason, you desire ammo against Mr. Armstrong.)
Cynthia Murrell, June 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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