Month: August 2018

Google reportedly paid millions of dollars in secret data deal with Mastercard to track retail sales

Editor
Facebook

For the past year, select Google advertisers have had access to a potent new tool to track whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. That insight came thanks in part to a stockpile of Mastercard transactions that Google paid for. The revelation comes amid heightened concern about how much consumer data is consumed by tech companies like Google. Earlier this year, Facebook was criticized when data on as many as 87 million people was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, raising…

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Net giants urge court to reinstate repealed net neutrality rules

Representatives of internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon on Monday urged a federal appeals court to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. Net neutrality rules, ideally prohibited internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing most web traffic. The FCC officially repealed in June causing a huge outrcry. The Internet Association (IA) and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent trade groups, filed in support of a lawsuit against the FCC for its repeal of the 2015 regulations late last year.…

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Fear of ‘brand damage’ means less than 5% of businesses report online attacks

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emotion

Half of Irish companies have been victims of economic crime within the past two years — up from 34pc in 2016 and 26pc in 2010, according to a recent report from PwC on economic crime (stock image) Brand damage and embarrassment are among the reasons given for the under-reporting of cybercrime by Irish businesses to gardai. But, from a prevention and awareness level, it is important that this crime is reported, according to Michael Gubbins, Detective Superintendent and head of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau. It is estimated that…

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e-Commerce in Africa could hit US$75 billion by 2025

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COVID 19 Read consumer

How to capitalise on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and develop an African e-commerce strategy for possible adoption by the Africa Union (AU) dominated discussion at a recent AU conference in Kenya. Jean Bertrand Azapmo, Regional Trade Advisor at the AU Trade & Industry Department, said, “The roadmap provides for the mapping of stakeholders and the creation of Multi-stakeholder Working Group/Platforms so as to provide an opportunity for African SMEs and startups to share experiences and best practices, share ideas; which is crucial for e-commerce development.” e-commerce can…

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Users Spent a Record 85 Billion Hours In WhatsApp vs 31 Billion In Facebook In The Past 3 Months

Editor

According to app analytics company Apptopia, among all the social media platforms, people globally spent a whopping 85 billion hours on the Facebook-owned WhatsApp in the last three months. By contrast, we’ve only spent 30 billion hours in Facebook, the company says. “It’s clear WhatsApp is the global messaging app of choice,” says Apptopia spokesperson Adam Blacker. “Apps having to do with communication take up most of our time spent on our mobile apps.” The data does not encompass all of China’s third-party Android app stores, or WeChat and other…

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San Francisco judge orders bail payment in Bitcoin

A federal judge in San Fracisco has ordered a cyber-criminal to pay their bail charges in Bitcoin, inadvertently stimulating cryptocurrency mainstream adoption. The Daily Post – a local Palo Alto newspaper – reports Martin Marisch has been charged with hacking the well-known video games company Electronic Arts, responsible for popular titles like FIFA, The Sims, and Battlefield. Marisch, the Daily Post reports, managed to gain access to EA’s central computer systems, and obtain 25,000 customer records. Had the attack not been caught, Marisch could’ve used this information for substantial financial gain.…

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Bitcoin Sinks Below $6,000 as Almost Every Cryptocurrency face downfall

Bitcoin dropped below $6,000 and dozens of smaller digital tokens tumbled as this month’s selloff in cryptocurrencies showed few signs of letting up. The largest digital currency fell as much as 6.2 percent to $5,887 as of 3:07 p.m. in Hong Kong, the lowest level since June, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Ether sank as much as 13 percent, while all but three of the 100 biggest cryptocurrencies tracked by Coinmarketcap.com recorded declines over the past 24 hours. The total market capitalization of virtual currencies dropped to $192 billion from…

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DStv Tanzania freezes local free to air channels off its list

olivia Craig
DStv

Multichoice Tanzania (DStv)has removed free-to-air (FTA) channels from its subscription list, barely a week after the country’s communications regulator warned it would suspend the pay TV licence. The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) had said it would suspend Multichoice licence for its continued carrying of free channels on its service despite holding a licence that barred it from doing so. “In exercising its powers, the authority hereby notifies the general public that it intends to suspend all the licenses issued to Multichoice Tanzania Ltd for failure to comply with the…

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Facebook’s new camera AR platform is the new home for Nokia classic, Snake Game

HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, brings the classic snake game up to date with augmented reality. Snake Mask and Snake Real World filters bring the game to a new generation of fans. The addictive premise of the game remains the same, but with a fun AR twist fans can now be the apple-munching Snakes. Snake Mask utilises new Facebook AR technology to bring Snake to the widest audience possible. Snake at the zoo? Snake at the beach? Snake… on a plane? Now it’s all possible when Snake is…

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