Technology that ushers in sweeping societal changes ought to come with a warning, but that’s fanciful thinking in unregulated America. On these brave shores, we believe in self-reliance and self-regulation, prolonged fantasies both. I often wonder, did Steve Jobs know what he was unleashing with the iPhone because the impact has not been all good. […]
Privacy
Is Your Smart Phone Being Scraped for Personal Data While You Worship?
A smart phone’s “Airplane Mode” or “Ringer Off” setting does not protect people from privacy invasion. What’s worse, the privacy invaders are lurking in malls, at public events, even outside your place of worship. According to National Catholic Reporter, political marketers in support of Donald Trump are increasingly using cellphone data from churchgoers to target […]
Will Facebook Comply with California’s New Consumer Privacy Act?
Regulation. Few industries need it applied to them more stringently than high technology, social media platforms in particular. Few industries are as free to set their own agendas today without regard to public safety. California, following Europe’s lead, is tightening standards in an effort to protect its citizens’ privacy. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) […]
Facebook’s Rogue Founder, Chris Hughes, Funds Anti-Monopoly Efforts
Do you know Mark? Mark knows you. Do you know who does know, Mark? Chris Hughes knows Mark. Hughes was there along with fellow Harvard undergrads Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, and Dustin Moskovitz when Facebook was founded in 2004. Incidentally, Adpulp was founded a few months later that same year. Because Hughes knows Mark, he […]
Redirection Is The New Black
Redirection is the new black. According to Patrick Berlinquette, founder of the search engine marketing consulting firm Berlin SEM, Google conducted an experiment in meant to confront online radicalization. While the intent was benign, the methods of this digital madness are available to all. With redirection, marketers swerve your monetizable desperation. But we can also […]
Common Problems Call for Comprehensive Solutions
Digital media is one of those inventions, like television, with the potential to change the world for the better. Instead, many digital spaces have become a cesspool, and a cesspool is an unhealthy place for marketers wanting to connect with future customers. Meet GARM Some of the world’s largest advertisers including Adidas, Diageo, Mars, Procter […]
The New Frontier In Privacy: Your Face
Agree or disagree? Communications technology, like all new technology, is neither good nor evil. I believe what we choose to do with technology is what matters. For instance, Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) can be used for the good of all, or it can be used by a draconian surveillance state to control a population. Last […]
Data Predators and Surveillance Capitalists Get “T Boned” at SouthBy
Legendary musician and music producer T Bone Burnett came to SXSW 2019 to slay digital demons. I highly recommend that you make some time to watch his keynote and/or read the text of his speech. It may shake you awake. There is so much to digest in Burnett’s speech that no recap is going to […]
Thanks To “Surveillance Capitalism,” The Googleplex Knows What You’ll Buy Next
Careful where and what you click. Every keystroke you make is evidence. If you’re not comfortable with being spied on every time you open a window, I highly suggest you spend some time with this brilliant article by John Naughton in The Guardian. I would say that it is an eye-opening exploration of our lost privacy, […]
Digital Advertising’s Frankenstein Is Wreaking Havoc and Damaging Democracy
“We need a digital economy where our data and our attention is not for sale to the highest bidding authoritarian or demagogue.” -Zeynep Tufekci What has the digital ad man wrought when the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your […]
Ask And You Shall Receive A Thoughtful Answer
Russian hackers are now meddling in the French election. French newspaper, Libération, is fighting back with a search engine staffed by real-life journalists. Libération with the help of J. Walter Thompson/Paris came up with the anti-hoax service CheckNews.fr, a search engine trading cold algorithms for journalists for three days before the French elections. In related […]
I Can’t Talk Right Now, I’m Not Driving
By now, you’ve heard just how important it is to connect all your devices to each other and to your car and home in an interlocking web of digital advertising vulnerability. This is where Connected Car by Harman can help. What would be a boring TV campaign is made less so by the acting of […]
