Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Last summer, when her daughter was still drinking formula, Brittani Roberts often drove from store to store trying to find enough to feed her. When her daughter was teething last month, Roberts repeated the exercise — this time driving to five stores while her friend tried an additional four to find Tylenol or Motrin for…
Over the course of his life, Alejo Lopez de Armentia has played video games for a variety of reasons. There was the thrill of competition, the desire for companionship, and, at base, the need to pass the time. In his 20s, feeling isolated while working for a solar panel company in Florida, he spent his…
Airlines’ Premium-Economy Trick Carriers are banking on the psychological allure of marginal luxury. Airlines have once again wrung a new social class from flying. ( Alex Cochran ) Let’s say you receive an unexpected financial windfall. What’s the first thing you’re spending money on? If it’s a lavish vacation—how are you getting there? Americans top the…
At the end of April, Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency tools shook the advertising industry to its core. iPhone and iPad owners could now stop apps from tracking their behavior and using their data for personalized advertising. Since the new privacy controls launched, almost $10 billion has been wiped from the revenues of Snap,…
Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard’s podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet. Tech companies have repeatedly reassured the public that trackers used to follow smartphone users through apps are anonymous or at least pseudonymous, not directly identifying the person using the phone. But what they don’t mention is that an…
About a year and a half ago, Google began the chance to be one of the search engines that European users as their default on Android devices. And for the past year and a half, we’ve seen some familiar ad-targeting giants continue to take those expensive slots. This auction was the result of a spearheaded…
Facebook, which along with Google accounts for around 60% of advertiser spending online, has knowingly built some of its astonishing success on incorrect data, newly unsealed court documents allege. Incidentally, this may pose a problem for a business which generates of its revenue from selling ads. In a nutshell, this class action suit, which was…
On Monday, Google released a few more details on its proposed tracking alternative to third-party cookies, a “privacy-first” technology that, from any angle, seems like just another way for the company to maintain its stranglehold on digital ad sales. Google’s calls its new creation “Federated Learning of Cohorts” (FLoC, for short), and promises that it’s…
Among all of the antitrust probes facing Google right now, the case dropped on Wednesday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stands out for a few reasons. First, it focuses on the tech giant’s dominance in digital ads, rather than focusing on search the way that the Justice Department and more than 30 states have…
More than 80,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente employees plan to strike in October, marking the biggest labor action in the country in over two decades. According to the Los Angeles Times, the strike comprises a coalition of about 300 Kaiser Permanente unions, and will largely exclude doctors, registered nurses, and mental health workers, though it will…