Call it karmic balance: companies struggling to identify anonymous customers must also strain to verify that people who do identify themselves are really who they claim.  The reason, of course, is there are more fraud possibilities as online business expands.  One example of the growing identity authentication industry: Mastercard just bought anti-fraud identity specialist Ekata for a cool $850 million.

This Experian report finds that security is also a high concern for consumers, with 55% saying it’s the most important aspect of their online experience.    Businesses agree, rating fraud detection as their second-highest digital CX priority, well ahead of decisioning software, staff, and fixing legacy technology.  Intriguingly, consumers said they prefer biometrics, PIN codes, and behavioral analytics over passwords.  Interesting breakouts by region and age.

Nearly one-third of major news publishers have blocked generative AI tools from reading their content.   But that’s a drastic measure which could also exclude their results from conventional search engines.  Microsoft has just given publishers the option to block access by Bing Chat without also removing their content from search results.  We’ll see if competitors do the same.