In quick succession, we learn the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is considering a multi-billion (with a B) fine for privacy violations; the federal Government Accountability Office is recommending tighter privacy regulation, and a British Parliament report has called them “digital gangsters”. That’s gotta hurt. Maybe they won’t take over the world after all.
Lots of interesting news today, Dear Reader.
Shifting to a simpler type of fraud, we have a report that high theft rates were a major factor in Walmart’s decision to end its test of cashierless checkout. Customers frequently placed items in their shopping carts without scanning them. Unlike Walmart, Amazon’s cashierless Go stores don’t rely on customer scans to determine what they pay for.
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.