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      pubsub.blastersklan.com / slashdot · 05:08 edit · 1 minute

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Do you remember Facebook Watch? Me neither. Mark Zuckerberg's short-lived streaming service never really got off the ground, but court filings unsealed in Meta's antitrust lawsuit claim "Watch" was kneecapped starting in 2018 to protect Zuckerberg's advertising relationship with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. "For nearly a decade, Netflix and Facebook enjoyed a special relationship," said plaintiffs in filings (PDF) made public on Saturday. "It is no great mystery how this close partnership developed, and who was its steward: from 2011-2019, Netflix's then-CEO Hastings sat on Facebook's board and personally directed the companies' relationship" The filings detail Hastings' uncomfortably close relationship with Meta's upper management, including Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. During these years, Netflix was allegedly granted special access to Facebook users' private message inboxes, among other privileged analytics tools, in exchange for hundred-million-dollar advertising deals. This gave Facebook greater dominance in its all-important ad division, plaintiffs allege, so the company was fine to retreat from Netflix's streaming territory by shuttering Watch. In 2017, Facebook Watch began signing deals to populate its streaming service with original TV Shows from movie stars such as Bill Murray. A year later, the service attempted to license the popular '90s TV show Dawson's Creek. Facebook Watch had meaningful reach on the home screen of the social media platform, and an impressive budget as well. Facebook and Netflix appeared ready to butt heads in the streaming world, and the Netflix cofounder found himself in the middle as a Facebook board member. [...] Netflix was a large advertiser to Facebook, and plaintiffs allege Zuckerberg shuttered its promising Watch platform for the sake of the greater advertising business. Zuckerberg personally emailed the head of Facebook Watch in May of 2018, Fidji Simo, to tell her their budget was being slashed by $750 million, just two years after Watch's launch, according to court filings. The sudden pivot meant Facebook was now dismantling the streaming business it had spent the last two years growing. During this time period, Netflix increased its ad spend on Facebook to roughly $150 million a year and allegedly entered into agreements for increased data analytics. By early 2019, the ad spend increased to roughly $200 million a year. Hastings left Facebook's board later in 2019.

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.

    Facebook Allegedly Killed Its Own Streaming Service To Help Sell Netflix Ads
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      tech.slashdot.org /story/24/03/28/2125231/facebook-allegedly-killed-its-own-streaming-service-to-help-sell-netflix-ads

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      Power grab: the hidden costs of Ireland’s datacentre boom – podcast

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 05:00


    Datacentres are part of Ireland’s vision of itself as a tech hub. There are now more than 80, using vast amounts of electricity. Have we entrusted our memories to a system that might destroy them? By Jessica Traynor

    Continue reading...
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      Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Yesterday - 20:40 · 1 minute

    A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, with Elizabeth Olsen

    Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss , which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series. (credit: Facebook )

    Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta's streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn't produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

    The streaming business' demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [ PDF ] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

    Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

    As spotted via Gizmodo , a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [ PDF ] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

    Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · 2 days ago - 20:25

    Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say

    Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto )

    Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called "Ghostbusters," designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in 2016.

    The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit from consumers and advertisers, accusing Meta of anticompetitive behavior that blocks rivals from competing in the social media ads market.

    "Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted, we have no analytics about them," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who has since rebranded his company as Meta) wrote in a 2016 email to Javier Olivan.

    Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Apple, Google, and Meta are failing DMA compliance, EU suspects

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · 4 days ago - 16:04

    EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton talks to media about non-compliance investigations against Google, Apple, and Meta under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

    Enlarge / EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton talks to media about non-compliance investigations against Google, Apple, and Meta under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). (credit: Thierry Monasse / Contributor | Getty Images News )

    Not even three weeks after the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the European Commission (EC) announced Monday that it is already probing three out of six gatekeepers—Apple, Google, and Meta—for suspected non-compliance.

    Apple will need to prove that changes to its app store and existing user options to swap out default settings easily are sufficient to comply with the DMA.

    Similarly, Google's app store rules will be probed, as well as any potentially shady practices unfairly preferencing its own services—like Google Shopping and Hotels—in search results.

    Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      L’Europe pourrait forcer Apple, Google et Meta à effectuer de nouveaux changements

      news.movim.eu / Numerama · 4 days ago - 15:09

    Quelques semaines après l'entrée en vigueur du Digital Markets Act (DMA), la Commission européenne va enquêter sur l'application du texte chez Alphabet, Apple et Meta. En cas de non-conformité avérée, ces entreprises pourraient être forcées à changer leurs pratiques.

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      Mein persönlicher Datenschutz

      Gerhard · 5 days ago - 18:23 · 1 minute

    Mir liegt Datenschutz zwar sehr am Herzen, aber ich lebe ihn nicht widerspruchsfrei:

    ~ Ich habe ein Google-Konto, das ich auch nutze - als zweites Email-Konto und als Anbieter für mein Blog. ~ Allein mit meinem Blog gebe ich sehr viel Persönliches von mir preis. Das würde sich auch nicht ändern, wenn ich mein Blog selbst hosten würde, weil die Beiträge in beiden Fällen öffentlich wären. Nichtsdestotrotz achte ich dort sehr sorgfältig auf den persönlichen Datenschutz der Menschen, über die ich schreibe. Ausgenommen sind die Personen, die ohnehin in der Öffentlichkeit stehen. ~ Facebook & Co. meide ich mit Ausnahme von WhatsApp. Dort habe ich derzeit jedoch nur zwei unregelmäßige Kontakte. ~ Zur Nutzung von Google auf dem Desktop und auf dem Smartphone (Android) gibt es zwar Alternativen. Aber für deren Einrichtung fehlen mir Geduld und Wissen.

    Und wie sollte ich meine persönlichen Daten gegenüber Behörden - z.B. Jobcenter und Sozialamt - schützen? Das ist absolut unmöglich. Gegenüber diesen Behörden kann ich mich weder auf Datenschutz noch auf Privatsphäre berufen, weil ich dann keine Leistungen bekäme und auf die Straße "umziehen" müsste. Ich finde diesen fehlenden Datenschutz am Gefährlichsten, weil mir die Behörden meine Existenzgrundlage entziehen können. Und ohne Geld bzw. mit viel zu wenig Geld nutzt mir der Datenschutz im Internet rein gar nichts.

    Zudem bin ich in meinem Blog, in meinen sozialen Netzwerken und in Kommentaren mit meinem Klarnamen unterwegs. Für manche mag das Dummheit sein, für mich ist es Authentizität - ich stehe zu dem, was ich sage und schreibe.

    #gerhardsgedankenbuch #datenschutz #blog #google #facebook/meta #geduld #wissen #sozialamt #privatsphäre #existenzgrundlage #klarname #authentizität