Rumors of the demise of Google Checkout, criticism Of Facebook’s facial recognition auto-tagging feature, and a dramatic increase in mobile phone advertising in the past two years are some of the most talked-about ecommerce and social media-related news stories today.
Could Google Checkout Be Ending Soon?
While there have been no official statements from Google confirming this, recent changes related to Google Checkout have prompted many people to wonder if the search engine giant’s alternative payment system will soon be a thing of the past.
Yesterday, the Google Checkout blog was officially closed, and a week ago, on June 1st, Google Checkout badges were removed from Google Adwords ad listings. This move has been seen by some as a signal that Google plans to slowly phase out Google Checkout.
When Google Checkout was released in 2006, it was expected to become much more successful than it has. A recent lawsuit filed against Google by alternative payment system competitor PayPal may have further weakened the popularity of Google Checkout, in part due to accusations by Paypal that Checkout is “mostly a tool used for acquiring customer information for the benefit of Google’s other products and services.”
Now You See Me: Critics Claim Facebook Facial Recognition Photo-Tagging Violates Privacy
For a little over a year now, Facebook has provided users in select countries with facial recognition-based “tag suggestions,” designed to help improve the photo tagging experience. Now that this feature is available in most countries, including the United States, both it and Facebook have come under fire.
According to BusinessWeek, Facebook Inc will soon be probed by European Union data-protection regulators in order to determine if the facial-recognition feature violates any EU privacy laws.
“Tags of people on pictures should only happen based on people’s prior consent and it can’t be activated by default,” says Gerald Lommel a member of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in Luxembourg. “Automatic tagging can bear a lot of risks for users.”
“We launched Tag Suggestions to help people add tags of their friends in photos; something that’s currently done more than 100 million times a day,” Facebook said recently in an email. “Tag Suggestions are only made to people when they add new photos to the site, and only friends are suggested.”
Mobile Advertising Skyrockets: Up 128% In The Last Two Years
According to a recent study by research firm ComScore, mobile advertising has increased 128% in the past two years, due to the rise of smartphone usage, mobile media consumption, and mobile commerce.
“Although mobile advertising is still in its relative infancy, it is quickly gaining importance as new advertisers come into the fold,” said ComScore’s Vice President, Hans Fredericks in a report summarizing the study.
In this same study, ComScore also revealed that 82% of smartphone owners use their phones to access the Internet on a regular basis.
