Tapjoy duped consumers and failed to provide promised in-game rewards, the FTC alleged in a 5-0 settlement Thursday. The mobile ad company is “prohibited from misleading users” about rewards and “must monitor” third-party ad partners to “ensure they do what is necessary to enable Tapjoy to deliver promised rewards to consumers.” There was no monetary penalty, but the company faces fines up to $43,280 for subsequent violations of the consent order. “The settlement proposed today should help reverse the lax policing practices that led hundreds of thousands of gamers to file complaints,” said Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter: The agency must address “deeper structural problems” and should continue to scrutinize ad middlemen and app stores. An attorney for the company didn’t comment.
Harman, Continental and Bosch are market leaders in the connected vehicle infotainment systems segment that generated $32 billion in 2019 revenue, reported ABI Research Wednesday. ABI ranks Harman as “the clear leader,” with Continental a distant second and Bosch “a close third.” They collectively have about 30% of worldwide revenue, it said. Harman leads the ranking “because it has redefined its market positioning as a premium infotainment provider to develop global cockpit solutions with a scalable approach ranging from mass-market to premium OEMs,” said ABI.
With a full holiday shopping season wrap slated for Tuesday, Adobe Analytics reported the November-December period had a total online spend of $188.2 billion, up 32% over 2019, to a record. Cyber Week sales were slower compared with the overall season, with Thanksgiving-Cyber Monday growing 21% year on year, Adobe emailed Wednesday. For the first time, more than half of online spending came from smartphones Christmas Day. Average daily online revenue topped $3.1 billion during the season vs. $2.3 billion in 2019, and for the first time, every day of the two-month season exceeded $1 billion in sales. Fifty days had revenue over $2 billion, nine days passed $4 billion, and Thanksgiving Day sales exceeded $5 billion. Curbside pickup orders were up 36% overall but dropped to 26% in the seven days leading up to Christmas. Smartphones were 40% of the season’s e-commerce growth.
Facebook said it’s too soon to merge states’ and the FTC’s antitrust lawsuits. “Facebook does not oppose reassignment to a common judge,” but “actual consolidation of these separate government cases ... is premature and unnecessary at this initial stage of the proceedings,” Facebook said (in Pacer) Monday at U.S. District Court in Washington. The FTC and 48 bipartisan attorneys general sought remedies last month, including possible divestitures of Instagram and WhatsApp (see 2012100003).
A “broader set of video decoding standards” to promote the “wider availability” of 8K streaming content highlights the “updated performance specification” an 8K TV must meet to qualify for the 8K Association’s certification logo, said the group Monday. Samsung, which has downplayed its role as the 8KA’s brainchild, posted the announcement on its own website. The updated spec also requires that 8K TVs “enable access to advanced multi-dimensional surround sound formats,” said 8KA. In keeping with past 8KA practice, only group members are privy to the specifics about the updated certification criteria, emailed Executive Director Chris Chinnock: “We left it intentionally vague as it is still a members-only document but wanted to advise that we continue to add features and try to raise the bar each year a little bit.”
Antitrust authorities cleared the way for investment firm Mithril to buy data analytics software company Palantir Technologies. An FTC early termination notice dated Dec. 23 and released Wednesday ended the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period.
The Wireless ISP Association said Tuesday it acquired the Multifamily Broadband Council (MBC), which focuses on multifamily dwelling units. WISPA and MBC partnered on WISPA’s annual show in Las Vegas this year. Some “30% of Americans live in MDUs, and millions more work in office buildings,” said a WISPA news release. “Although MDUs represent dense concentrations of potential customers for broadband providers, they also present unique practical and policy challenges to deployment. Competition for this market is often frustrated by telecommunications incumbents, whose practices can make competition more challenging in the MDU space.” MBC will dissolve at the end of this year and be folded into WISPA.
A federal court entered a permanent injunction blocking a tech support fraud scheme led by an individual and four companies, DOJ announced Tuesday. Michael Cotter of Glendale, California; Singapore-registered Global Digital Concierge; Nevada-registered Sensei Ventures and NE Labs; and New York-registered KeviSoft are barred from “selling technical-support services or software via telemarketing or websites,” DOJ said. A complaint filed in October alleged Cotter led the scheme from 2011 to 2020, contacting “U.S. consumers via internet pop-up messages that falsely appeared to be security alerts from Microsoft or another well-known company” and fooling them into paying for unnecessary services.
Households with internet service at home rose to 86% in 2020, with broadband accounting for 97% of those, Leichtman Research Group reported Monday. The percentage of households getting internet service at home and on a mobile phone jumped from 64% in 2015 to 78% in 2020. The percentage of households with internet service at home "is now higher than in any previous year,” said Leichtman President Bruce Leichtman. The average adult also reported spending 5.3 hours per day online, more than double the amount in 2010.
Stay-at-home mandates spurred the average HomePass Wi-Fi subscriber home to surpass 1.87 TB in 2020 data use, “the equivalent of downloading Home Alone 467 times,” emailed smart home company Plume Wednesday. May “was the busiest month on average for HomePass members,” at 261 GB per home, it said, as that month “saw the beginning of people adjusting to the stay-at-home order.” Plume “blocked 676 security threats for the average HomePass household this year,” it said. “The number of threats blocked in each home varies based on factors such as number and types of devices, amount of online activity, and global cyberthreat trends.” The average speed in a HomePass home was 287.77 Mbps for the year, it said.