weekly news articles

WhatsApp, Facebook and Google face tough new privacy rules under EC proposal (35)

This article discusses the proposal under the EC (European ePrivacy) on the new rules on the tracking of users. The right to privacy and control of data for European citizens will be enforced under these new legislations. Messaging, email and voice services such as those provided by Facebook, Google and Microsoft will be forced to guarantee the confidentiality of conversations and metadata. Listening to, tapping, intercepting, scanning or the storing of communications will not be allowed without the consent of the user, unless it is critical for billing or other purposes. In terms of cookies, which currently require consent for all purposes will be simplified as some aspects of websites will no longer need them. However, these changes may be a disadvantage towards online advertisers who have warned that overly strict rules would undermine the ability of many websites to fund themselves and offer free services.

• Online advertising generates £10bn ($12bn) of revenue for publishers and content creators in the UK alone, according to the IAB.

I believe that these tighter rules on the privacy of users is a positive, as users have become victims of datamining without their consent. However, this will have an impact on websites which do depend on datamining as ad revenue this the only revenue they may recieve

The Sun losses exceed £60m as ad slump and hacking charges take toll (36)

 

This article discusses the losses that the Sun has made due to the steep decline in print advertising revenue alongside with the redundancy costs and phone-hacking charges which have had a strong impact on the tabloid newspaper. The main cause of this decline according to the sun were due to the the challenging market conditions for newspaper print advertising with double-digit declines currently common across the industry.“The print advertising revenue decline offset the growth in both print circulation [revenue], supported by an increase in the Monday to Friday cover price during the year, and excellent digital advertising growth, following the removal of the paywall for the Sun website.”

• The Sun said it had made £16m in profit last year, almost half the £29m in 2015.
• Total revenues fell from £456m to £446m as a steep decline in print advertising failed to be offset by income from other areas, including the now free-access Sun website. The Sun scrapped its paywall in November 2015 after two years

I believe this article is important as it highlights the importance of advertising revenue to protect print newspapers, it also suggests that the paywall scheme did not have the greatest outcome for the Sun. This suggests that the paywall is not for some newspapers, as their readers may not be able to afford it.