No images? Click here
#255/ July 4, 2021
AMAZON'S PAY-TO-PLAY RACKET
In the best traditions of Tony Soprano and other strong-arm artists, Amazon uses threats and coercion to gain ownership positions in companies it does business with.
In a front page story this week, The Wall Street Journal exposed how "Amazon Demands One More Thing From Some Vendors: A Piece of Their Company."
According to the Journal, if companies want to do business with Amazon they might find that there's a little catch: "the right for Amazon to buy big stakes in their companies at potentially steep discounts to market value."
An offer they can't refuse: The Journal reported..."executives at several of the companies said they felt they couldn’t refuse Amazon’s push for the right to buy the stock..."
Other highlights:
- Amazon has gained ownership in 75 private companies this way
- They've also coerced publicly traded companies to issue them "warrants" which allow them to buy future stock at current prices
- The value of these deals "amount(s) to billions of dollars across companies that provide everything from call-center services to natural gas, and in some cases position Amazon among the top shareholders in those businesses."
- One party to one of these strong-arm deals said “There was definitely a sense that if it wasn’t agreed to there wouldn’t be a deal...”
Lovely people these tech creeps.
Court Tosses Facebook Anti-Trust Case
The pathetic FTC and several states' attorneys general got their dicks slapped this week by a federal judge who tossed their anti-trust suit against Facebook.
According to The New York Times..."The judge eviscerated one of the federal government’s core arguments, that Facebook holds a monopoly over social networking, saying prosecutors had failed to provide enough facts to back up that claim. And he said the states had waited too long to bring their case, which centers on deals made in 2012 and 2014."
Note to government knuckleheads: After you blithely approve merger deals it's hard to go back and claim they were monopolistic. Just sayin'.
When the announcement of the judge's ruling came out, FB shares jumped over 4% and the company's market value passed 1 trillion dollars.
Facebook Outrage of the Week
In other lovely social media news, there was one site that was responsible for most online sex trafficking activity last year. Guess which one?
According to a report in Business Insider,
- "Facebook is 'overwhelmingly' used by sex traffickers who recruit victims online"
- 59% of all sex trafficking recruitment occurred on Facebook last year
- Facebook found over 20 million images of child sex abuse on its site
- According to the Human Trafficking Institute most online recruitment for sex trafficking occurs on Facebook.
- "Snapchat, WeChat, and Facebook’s Instagram were also hotspots for recruitment."
Social Media Driven By Animosity
And while we're talking about the glories of social media... that wonderful thing that was going to "bring the world together," there's this. It turns out that social media engagement is not driven by friendship and brotherhood, it's driven by animosity.
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media."
Here's what they found:
- Divisive content is far more likely to go viral
- Posts about political opponents are far more likely to get shared
- Out-group tweets and posts are twice as likely to be shared than in-group posts.
BTW, in a study conducted by the Proceedings of the Ad Contrarian Newsletter, it was found that blogweasels are also driven by animosity. But in a good way.
They're Watching You
If you're working from home these days, the likelihood is that your company is spying on you. There's a new and pervasive type of software called "bossware" that is being used by companies to watch what their employees are doing online.
A story by Malwarebytes Labs reports that of 2,000 employers polled by ExpressVPN and Pollfish, 57% said they have been using "employee monitoring" software in the past six months. And it's growing. Of those who are not using it now, about 60% said they were somewhat or very likely to use it in the future.
Time to buy a "burner" laptop.
What Are They Teaching?
I received a very nice message from an MBA student this week thanking me for offering a different perspective on advertising and marketing. Here's a part of it ----->
Sadly, it reinforced something I have suspected for years -- that one of the reasons our industry has become so confused and ineffectual is that people are being taught nonsense in universities and MBA programs. It reminded me of something I wrote back in 2012.
How About Just Making Good Ads?
Following up on the idiotic tweet from Ogilvy featured in last week's newsletter, how about this baloney? Is it possible these people actually believe this horseshit?
