Good Monday Morning

And Happy August! The Senate Parliamentarian is expected to decide by Wednesday if Senate Democrats can pass a new tax, climate, and health care bill as part of the budget reconciliation process. If so, they’re expected to remain in session until the end of this week. 

Today’s Spotlight is 1,166 words — about 4 minutes to read.

News To Know Now

Quoted:“This moved us a year ahead of where we were, if not two.“

— Biologist John McGeehan to the New York Times on Google DeepMind’s AI breakthrough that predicts the 3D structure of nearly every protein in bacteria, humans, animals, and plants.

Driving the news: The economy is hurting Big Tech in ways we didn’t see in 2008-09 or 2020.

a)Sketchy Clearview AI will have to face a class-action suit over its unauthorized use of images of Illinois residents’ faces, a federal judge ruled last week. We told you back in May that Facebook had to pay each of its members living there $397 for violating the same law.

b)Kobalt Music Publishing is removing its 700,000 song catalog from Facebook and Instagram in the U.S. after they failed to reach a licensing agreement renewal. Kobalt is the second publisher to report Meta troubles after Epidemic Sound filed suit against the social media company claiming “rampant” unauthorized use of its music. Kobalt claims that over 40% of the UK and US top chart hits in a typical week are part of its catalog.

c) Amazon sued the administrators of 10,000 Facebook groups that it identified coordinating fake reviews on the e-commerce site. A company announcement said that it had reported the groups to Facebook since 2020 and that more than half of the groups have been deleted. It’s important for you to realize the scope of fake reviews even on prominent websites.

Trends & Spends

Spotlight Explainer — Big Tech Finance Has Its Ugliest Quarter

We’ve seen Wall Street doubt Big Tech finance machinations before, but as we warned last week, the stakes are getting higher when companies with trillion dollar valuations miss their targets. And those misses were unprecedented:

• Facebook parent Meta posted its first ever revenue decline
• Snap and Roku both talked about “significant slowdowns”
• Amazon posted its second straight quarterly loss
• Microsoft and Google barely made their numbers, but both missed their whisper numbers

Sounding like Blue Chips of Yore
Call it whatever you like, but the economic pain is being felt in Silicon Valley and Washington. Statements about big tech finance are now sounding awfully similar to blue chip companies in past decades. 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new program called “Simplicity Sprint” and is publicly urging employees to be more productive and efficient. Amazon has already cut 100,000 employees after doubling head count when the pandemic began and is contending with a $3.9 billion write-down on its 18% stake in electric vehicle maker Rivian.

Services Affected Too
Meta’s Instagram launched and then somewhat walked back an effort to remake the site to be more like TikTok. That happened quickly after billionaire Kylie Jenner publicly chided the company. Jenner, who first came to fame as the daughter of Caitlyn and Kris Jenner, has more than 300 million followers on Instagram, a larger following than anyone else on that site.

Instagram head Adam Mosseeri said that the company would “temporarily” scale back its plans to show more video determined by algorithms and remain a predominantly image driven site. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that 15% of Facebook feeds and “an even higher percentage” of Instagram feeds are made up of Meta-recommended content rather than user-subscribed content and that he expects the percentage to double by next year.

More Cost Cutting
Axios reports that Facebook is allowing a number of deals with news publishers to lapse this year. The company reportedly paid $3-$20 million each to prominent media companies like CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. Facebook has been under legal and industry pressure to pay news publishers for content, but reported last year that fewer than 1 in 25 Facebook posts contained links to a news story.

Google announced that it would continue using tracking cookies for at least two more years, an initiative that seemed designed to mollify Wall Street concerns about softening ad revenues. 

And although they hit their numbers, Amazon said that it would raise prices for Prime membership by 20% to 43% in Europe. Amazon also said that it would discontinue its storage service Amazon Drive. New files cannot be uploaded to the service after January 31, 2023, and files will be deleted at the end of 2023. The company insists that Amazon Photos will not be affected, but we think that you should double-check yours.

Did That Really Happen? — Biden Video Was Real

Prominent conservative media pundits began inaccurately claiming last week that a video of President Biden speaking about the Jan. 6 insurrection was “a deepfake” with the president’s face superimposed on an actor’s body. 

There was no evidence, and the BBC debunked this latest conspiracy theory.

Following Up — Denmark Bans Google Workspace and Chromebooks

We told you a couple of weeks ago about Italy banning Google Analytics 4 over privacy concerns. Now Denmark has banned Google’s Chromebook devices and the use of Google’s Workspace accounts from being used in schools. Denmark’s government cited the same lack of compliance with European privacy laws that Italy did earlier this year.

Protip — Identify Plants With Android Built-In Feature

Using Google’s default app on Android phones allows users to search by simply taking a picture. One nifty way to use this feature is to take a picture of a plant and have the search engine tell you the plant’s name and how to care for it. Here is a Tom’s Guide explainer.

Screening Room — Arby’s & Ryan Reynolds

We’re headed to Twitter instead of YouTube today for Arby’s cute and creative new spot featuring Ryan Reynolds.

Science Fiction World — The Strongest Hydraulics

Scientists have apparently found a way to use spider leg joints as a superstrong gripping system that can pick up objects 130% of their own body weight and are easy to reproduce because, uh, nature. The Mary Sue can fill you in on the details.

 Coffee Break — Free Photo Restoration

We’ve been telling you a lot about how machine learning software is creating text and images. Now you can try out one of the models that will restore old photos with blemishes. It’s a crude system because it’s noncommercial and free, but give it a whirl here and see if it helps restore some of those old pix that weren’t worth hiring someone for. 

Sign of the Times

Good Monday Morning

It’s July 18. The federal government is advising people that their COVID-19 immunity may be significantly lowered if they haven’t had a booster shot this calendar year as a new surge is starting to drive up hospitalization and death rates. Adults over 50 and those with certain medical conditions are eligible for a fourth booster. About 3-in-4 eligible people have not yet received that booster. Learn more at the official vaccination website.

News To Know Now

Quoted:“We do not use [third party seller] individual data when we’re making decisions to launch private brands.”

— Amazon executive Nate Sutton to the House Judiciary Committee in 2019. His claims were confirmed to the same committee a year later by Jeff Bezos. The Wall St. Journal reported last Friday afternoon that Amazon has made a non-monetary offer to European regulators to settle an antitrust action over the same issue.

Driving the news: One week before they report on second quarter earnings, Big Tech companies are looking to clear up lingering issues.

a) Meta companies Facebook and Instagram are removing posts offering abortion pills to women. In the first reporting on the topic, a Motherboard reporter successfully repeated the experience related by a person whose post was canceled. They shared the messages they received from Meta explaining that they had violated “community standards.” The account was also unable to post or comment on the sites for 24 hours.

b) Google has asked the Federal Elections Commission to approve their plan to make political email exempt from spam detection, reports Axios. It’s especially noteworthy given that robocalls received a similar exemption for political calls that commercial calls weren’t offered.

c) The UK Daily Mail had more engagement than any other publisher on Facebook, according to News Whip’s Q2 data. NBC News came in second and Nigerian publisher Legit was third. The most engaged piece of content was by Fox News about a high school coach winning a case at the Supreme Court allowing him to offer postgame prayer.

Trends & SpendsTrends & Spends

Spotlight Explainer — About VPNs

Prompted by my friends, Jamie and Heather, who were prompted by a Washington Post article this week, I did some thinking about VPNs. I have some definitions and recommendations for you, as well as describing what a VPN can and can’t do.

What a VPN Does
Think about a VPN as a private connection between your phone or computer and a private server somewhere else. Imagine that a private tunnel connects your device with the server so that anyone in between you two can’t see what you’re doing online.

That includes the company providing you an internet connection. While the VPN is on, everything between you and that other server is encrypted.

You Are Not Anonymous
For starters, everything you do is known to the VPN company. Everything. 

But just as importantly, every place you visit using that VPN connection still has an opportunity to add tracking cookies or other ways of monitoring you.

I’m using a VPN right now that bypasses my internet provider, Verizon. As far as they are concerned, I’m accessing a site in Atlanta. But the company that provides that service to me knows that I am really in the metro Washington area and using their Atlanta connection to access an email software company called MailChimp.

And MailChimp knows who I am because I accessed the system using my account credentials.

Why Use A VPN Then?
The most important thing a VPN does is protect the transmission between your device and the VPN server. I’m not trying to screen out Verizon per se. I want to ensure that a nosy but skilled neighbor isn’t able to see my work nor is someone parked on the street outside. 

A VPN is excellent for times when you are away from home and accessing your bank or credit card, or even email. Places like hotels have long been targets for bad people trying to use software to spy on someone’s Wi-Fi signal. That goes for anyplace offering free public Wi-Fi — airports, coffee shops, or malls.

A VPN also confuses basic software analytics programs that companies use to track us. Remember, as far as my internet carrier knows, I’ve been connected to Atlanta this whole time. And any site that hasn’t put cookies on my browser or requires a login probably thinks that I’m in Atlanta too. That’s helpful in my line of work where I do a lot of competitor research for clients.

Security experts will tell you to never use public Wi-Fi to access sensitive information or websites. That includes any financial sites (banks, credit cards, etc.), health information, and sites with private information. Having a VPN to use while traveling and on your mobile device is smart.

Your Browser Might Have Free VPN
And this is where you have to start doing solid research to figure out your risk profile. Opera, a popular browser offshoot from the same code as Chrome and other popular browsers, started in Norway, but is now primarily owned by a Chinese organization. 

And the Avast browser made by the antivirus software company of the same name was the subject of withering criticism regarding its privacy practices just a few short years ago.

Our recommendation is to stick with a private VPN service offering.

But I Use Incognito Mode
Incognito mode’s best feature is not saving your information to the browser that you’re using. In other words, you’re incognito from people using that browser on that device in the future. Everyone else is still tracking you.

A Word About Password Managers
You need one, now more than ever. As part of our work, we have access to client software and accounts. Some have decent password protocols, but most don’t, and that trend hasn’t changed in nearly 15 years. Security experts will correctly tell you that passwords are an issue because they’re a hassle that people avoid. You need a strong one with a mix of numbers, characters, and letters, and the ability to change it on the fly, save it to all your devices, and use two-factor authentication with your phone or another device.

Here’s Everything We Recommend
This is what we use. You should look into these to see if they fit your needs.

Virtual Private Networks for being on public connections or research
We use Mullvad, a Swedish company that only offers VPN services and charges 5 euros per month to install software on up to 5 devices. You pay without disclosing your name or address to them. They’ve been operating without incident since 2009. You’ll need to toggle it off to use a local printer or log into Google or Facebook, but you can go right back to it once you’ve logged in.

1 Password as a password manager
This robust Canadian software company has a product that has been in the market since 2006 without incident. You’ll pay $36/year for a personal account or $60 for a family membership. Business accounts start at $8/month and include free family accounts. If you don’t want to pay for password management, look into highly recommended BitWarden.

Browser 
We use and love Brave’s privacy browser. Mozilla Firefox is also very, very good. Its Firefox Focus browser for iOS and Android devices is outstanding.

Did That Really Happen? — PA Still Has Mail-In Voting

Disinformation about elections can be devastatingly effective, which is why we were pleased to see Reuters disprove a viral tweet that falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would not be accepted in Pennsylvania.

 Following Up — Amazon Released Doorbell Video To Police 11 Times

Responding to a request from Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), Amazon acknowledged that it had shared private customer videos with police agencies 11 times this year. The company said that it did so while complying with its disclosures that allow for the videos to be released in the event of a warrant or emergency situation.

Miss our 3rd annual look at police technology that affects you?  Check it out here.

Protip — Find Out Your Missing Wi-Fi Password

I need to remind you that your password manager is a great place to store your Wi-Fi password, but let’s assume that you are trying to do just that right now. You’re covered with this handy how-to explainer that won’t require you install software.

Screening Room — Meta Portal

Science Fiction World — Amazon Drones Fly in Texas

If you remember Jeff Bezos getting laughed at in 2013 for predicting that Amazon would deliver packages by drone, I’m sure that he would like you to read this article about the company following Walmart into testing drone delivery in Texas. 

Coffee Break — Banned Books

Researchers have compiled this public spreadsheet that offers a sobering look at censorship by parents groups and school boards. Sort by author, title, or plenty of geographic markers among the thousands of records. Authors on the list include Toni Morrison, Judy Blume, John Steinbeck, S.E. Hinton, James Patterson, and Margaret Atwood as well as books by actors George Takei, Trevor Noah, and Neil Patrick Harris.

Sign of the Times

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