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[Image: Andy Gilmore]
Google’s data funnel, Apple and privacy
Google’s and Facebook’s free products give you useful/entertaining information, communication or community, and your time and behaviour gives G and FB ad-targetable profiles that they can sell access to. Research this week showed that the vast majority of free apps on Android are sending data home to Google, Facebook et al. “88% of all free apps have tracker hosts that can share data with a Google entity, 43% Facebook, 34% Twitter, 26% Verizon (read Yahoo), 23% Microsoft and 18% Amazon”.
That’s a lot of data! However, this research is unlikely to be massively surprising because users generally understand that the payment for a free service is in data. And it was probably disclosed in all of those terms and conditions that users just accept without reading. It shouldn’t be surprising then that Facebook’s new Portal home video calling screen device can also send data about who you call and data about which apps you use on Portal can be used to target you with ads.
Apple has always had a stronger position on privacy than the other big tech cos for the simple reason that they sell devices, and their services support the sale of more devices rather than collecting data to sell ads. (This also explains why Siri isn’t as good an AI assistant as Google’s: Alphabet has a lot more data to work with.) Apple now sees privacy as an increasingly valuable differentiator, and is ramping up the story with comments that are supportive of privacy generally and GDPR specifically.
Electric miles
Uber will add a 15p/mile surcharge to help its drivers buy electric cars. The company says it hopes to convert half of its 40,000 drivers in the UK/London. Uber does 15m trips daily at an average of 3 miles travelled, so if it ran this programme globally and 20% of its drivers converted to electric, that’s getting on for 10m daily miles on electric motors.
Electric cars needs electrical charging infrastructure. If you have a combustion-engined car you are probably used to being able to drive very far and then refuel very quickly. Fuel infrastructure reflects this: the petrol station is a flow of about 600 cars daily. Electric cars recharge much more slowly, so the petrol station forecourt needs to start looking more like a car park, with a charging point for every space. This means the service station shop is going to be larger, have seating, and feel more like a shopping mall. Or possibly that drive-thru cinemas will return? (Electric is getting there: in the UK, there are 6,600 charging locations vs 8,400 petrol stations.)
And at home energy cos are responding to electric vehicles with dedicated and smart tariffs: eg this EV tariff from EcoTricity or Bulb’s smart tariffs.
Ethics
Who will teach Silicon Valley to be ethical?, asks an widely-read opinion piece. The obvious first answer is that someone at the top of the organisation should “own” ethics, but some commentators think that Chief Ethical Officers are a bad idea - or at least a bad idea if it’s a cosmetic position. Given that ethics are about what you *do* rather than what you *say*, an organisation’s ethics need to be enacted all the way through it - and definitely nearby its products and customers. It’s easier to weave ethics all the way through an organisation if an ethical position and purpose is central to that organisation.
Amazon news tombola
Amazon’s AI tool for hiring people was discriminating against women, so they had to switch it off. You’d guess that this means that the AI’s implementation flawed. Or simply that it revealed Amazon’s *historic* hiring biases, given that its history must have provided the training data. Or maybe both. (Meanwhile, startup Duolingo achieved a 50:50 gender ratio for new software engineer hires.)
Amazon Prime membership growth is plateauing in the US - the first 100m customers are easier to win than the second.
British shoppers deceived by misleading Amazon product reviews - some bad actors are gaming the product reviews.
Amazon will employ 600 in Manchester - hello neighbours!
Free security tools for people working in politics
Good move: “Whether you’re running for office, ensuring elections run fairly, or protecting people’s rights, we’d like to offer you a completely free 1Password account to thank you for the essential work you do for society.” Related: recall the app that exposed personal details of MPs at the Conservative party conference this year.
Uberworked
Uber is trialling an on-demand short-term staffing business in Chicago, Uber Works, as part of efforts to diversify its business ahead of next year’s planned initial public offering. You’ll be able to hire “events and corporate functions, such as waiters or security guards”.
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Co-op Digital news
What we mean when we talk about service design at the Co-op.
Events
- Is a co-op right for you? - several sessions in several towns 11 Sep - 27 Nov.
- Delivery community of practice meetup - Mon 29 Oct 1pm at Federation House.
- Open Data Manchester: Linked Data in Digestible Form - Tue 30 Oct 6pm at Federation House.
- Engineering community of practice meetup - Wed 21 Oct 1pm at Federation House 5th floor.
- Web team show & tell - Thu 1 Nov 3pm at Federation House 5th floor.
- Line management drop-in clinic - Thu 1 Nov 1pm at Federation House.
- Heads of practice community of practice meetup - Thu 1 Nov 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.
- Data hackathon - Thu 8 Nov at Federation House.
More events at Federation House. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.
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Thanks for reading. If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.
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