Amazon, which has amassed a vast amount of sensitive information on customers and whose efforts have gone largely unchecked, has now been shown, via confidential documents reviewed by Reuters, to be running a big lobbying effort used to forestall or gut privacy legislation. The effort, led by a former aid to President Biden, has killed or undermined privacy legislation two dozen states.
Yelp reviews are a foundation for many SMB marketing programs, so it’s on-topic today. But their actual news is a man-bites-dog reversal: Yelp has just launched two ad units that let national brands promote themselves by highlighting local companies that carry their goods. Sponsored Collections show ads organized around a theme while Seasonal Spotlight ads present a rotating sample of brand holiday campaigns.
TikTok users in the US who used the site before October 1 may be eligible for part of the recently settled $92 million class action. The Illinois suit alleged TikToik shared personal data it had collected from users with third parties without user consent. The company, which denies the claim, agreed to the settlement which applied to approximately 89 million users. Claims by eligible users must be submitted before March 1, 2022.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.