Shopify is reducing the share of revenue it takes from app developers on its marketplace. The move follows similar reductions by Apple, Google, and Amazon, who are all under anti-trust pressure that takes high app marketplace fees are prime evidence of monopoly positions. Shopify’s particular change is to cut it’s current 20% fee to zero for developers who earn less than $1 million per year on its App Store and Theme Store.
Catalina and Verizon Media are matching their identity graphs, making it possible for marketers to advertise to Verizon audiences and then see Catalina’s data on what audience members actually buy at retail. Verizon Media has data on 148 million people while Catalina tracks 103 million U.S. households. It’s all cookie-free.
It’s kindof a big deal, but you’ve probably already heard that a federal judge has delayed, and perhaps killed, the big federal and state anti-trust suit against Facebook. So I’ll report instead that Sprout Social is doing its bit to advance the cause of social commerce by integrating with Shopify and Facebook Shops. Sprout Social users will have easy access to customers’ purchase history while interacting with them through social channels.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.