Google Chrome is enforcing stricter privacy policies, but at what cost?
Today, Google announced two major changes to how it expects Chrome extension developers to protect users’ privacy. Starting mid-year, Google requires that extension developers only request the personal user information that they need to implement their features – and nothing more. It means you’ll only hand over relevant information to the service. In addition, Google is expanding the number of extension developers that will have to publish their privacy policies. Collectively these changes are part of what Google is calling “Project Strobe”, but does this improved privacy come at a cost?
In a recent, but lesser-known update, Google has made a move to hamper Chrome’s ad-blocking capabilities – i.e. ad-blocking extensions – however they will be available for those who pay $25 per month to use Google’s G Suite.
This was confirmed by a post in a Google Groups forum by a staffer stating “Chrome is deprecating the blocking capabilities…” and in the same paragraph said “blocking will still be available to enterprise deployments (G Suite) …” This change to Google Chrome’s model isn’t a minor detail. As it stands, Chrome is an ad-free browsing experience, I don’t see a lot of people comfortable with forking out $25 per month just to remain ad-free.
It will be interesting to see how the develops as this is still fresh news.
Tough month for Uber…!
A few blogs ago I mentioned that Uber was gunning to unveil one of the highest IPO’s ever. Well, earlier this month, the company listed its IPO at $45 per share and raised only $8.1 billion despite its hopes of hitting $100 billion.
It highlights a harsh reality for the company as it struggles to obtain new customers amid increasing competition.
With the IPO falling well-short of what Uber hoped for, the stock price followed suit suffering fall after fall until it closed on Monday at just over $41 per share.
I don’t think Uber expected the headline today – ‘Uber loses more than $1bn in first quarterly report since IPO’.
Ouch!
Uber did warn that it expected a significant loss in the first quarter as it continued to spend money to generate new revenue (customers) and head off increasing competition, but $1 billion is significant.
A positive for the company though is that its subsidiary revenue streams such as Uber Eats enjoyed a 230 per cent growth in the first quarter whereas ride-sharing only grew 22 per cvent. With ride-sharing accounting for less than 50 per cent of Uber’s revenue last year, perhaps it’s time Uber diversified.
Working Wikipedia
The North Face hacked the marketing game and Wikipedia didn’t like it! The clothing company released an ad which exploited a vulnerability in Wikipedia and search engine activity which resulted in North Face products being catapulted to the top of certain Google searches. The ad talks about how people google search a location before they visit and more often than not the first result is a Wikipedia link. North Face decided that they could replace every image on a variety of Wikipedia pages with an image that is still the relevant place but included a model in North Face clothing.
The result: completely free advertising. I personally think it’s genius, but I understand the ethical issue here.
Wikipedia went public with the knowledge and forced North Face to apologise. Nonetheless it’s a great watch, view it here: https://youtu.be/CtU1uEESmJM
Time to post
It’s been a while since I included a helpful section in the blog so I thought I’d bring that back this week. Often times in meetings I’m asked when it’s best to post on social media and truthfully it depends on the platform. There is no ‘”one-size-fits-all” guide because it really does depend on your audience and their behaviours and habits.
However, if you’re really stuck and looking for a starting point, below are some great infographics which very simply explain the best times for all your social media channels.