Instagram Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

In This Issue:

⚖️ The Big One: FTC sues Amazon for alleged antitrust violations

🤖 Facebook can be sued over “biased” ad algorithm: Appeals court

🛒 Microsoft launches new advertising network for retail

📲 Gen Zers rely on social media, but want occasional breaks: Study

📻 Storybutton wants to redesign radio for Gen Alpha podcast listeners

🚫 Bing offers methods to block Bing Chat from using your content

💳 Credit card transaction reminders can lead to increased use

📋 SurveyMonkey launches upgrade to its forms platform

📸 Instagram overtourism forces Vermont to close roads

The Amazon and Facebook Lawsuits

We knew it was coming, and it has arrived.

The American trade regulator, along with more than a dozen state attorneys general, have launched a large antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.

Like the Google case currently being tried, this one alleges that Amazon unlawfully used its market dominance to cut competitors out of the loop.

The Chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said in a statement this morning:

For its part, Amazon said:

What exactly is this case about?

The lawsuit alleges three things:

1. That Amazon punishes merchants who offer lower-priced products on other commerce platforms

2. That it restricts which merchants are eligible for Prime shipping benefits

3. That Amazon is unfairly changing the results of searches on its platform to favour its own products

This is one in a series of lawsuits and investigations.

In June, the FTC sued Amazon for allegedly tricking customers into signing up for its Prime service, and making it difficult to cancel.

It’s also reviewing its acquisitions of robot vacuum maker iRobot and the entertainment firm MGM.

How does this affect digital marketers?

So, as for what changes for digital marketers — really nothing, for now at least.

These cases take years to wind through the courts, and while we might see a small pullback in a company’s usual aggressive market moves, this isn’t expected to have any kind of day-to-day effect on the job marketers and media buyers do. Until, of course, there’s a verdict, then all bets are off.

Meanwhile Facebook’s legal exposure grows

Meanwhile, a California court has ruled that Meta can be sued over allegations that its advertising algorithm is discriminatory.

The suit started with a 48-year old woman who was trying to use Facebook to find an insurance provider. She sued the company three years ago, saying Facebook’s ad platform didn’t deliver her any insurance ads because of her age and gender.

The case has gone through a whole series of administrative procedures — one court said a federal law shielded Meta from responsibility; an appeals court overturned that, saying the action violated civil rights law.

Microsoft’s New Retail Ad Network

Microsoft today announced it has launched a new ad network for retailers.

And it will even play nice with other private retail media marketplaces, if retailers are using those.

Their news release was about 90% self-congratulatory and effusive quotes from executives, so it was a little hard to find the actual details here. We did request an interview with a product manager, but didn’t hear back.

As far as I could tell, this new pool will provide placements in Search, Native, Display, and Connected TV.

Microsoft said Skai’s omnichannel marketing platform will be the first third-party platform integrated into the Microsoft Advertising Network for retail.

How Young People Use Social Media

New data from Insider Intelligence has provided an updated look at where U.S. consumers aged 18-24 spend their time online time. Their report released today was a collection of recent studies.

TikTok, as you might expect, is in the top spot as measured by time spent — and by a lot: 58 minutes a day there, compared to 38 minutes for Instagram, and 30 minutes for Snapchat. That said, they do show Instagram still growing its time spent watching numbers.

More than three-quarters get their breaking news from social media — that’s more than any other generation.

And they’re not opposed to ads — far from it. A February study found 72% of Gen Z consumers were receptive to ads on social media. Only 47% were okay with ads on streaming TV.

When they’re done with social, though, people aged 18-24 are more likely than others to take a break — but, they’re also quicker to come back. In most cases, those pauses are less than a week.

Link to the study sources

In Brief

• A new audio player designed for pre-teens is on the market. The maker is Storybutton — it can play podcasts specially designed for young people, was made by a podcaster, and —parents might like this: it only has buttons… no screen. Read more

• Webmasters can now opt out of having their content used in Bing Chat. Until there is an industry-wide solution, Microsoft says it will use meta tags in web code to handle this. Read more

• A new study published today in the Journal of Interactive Marketing found that sending texts to credit card users reminding them how much money they’ve spent each day actually increased how much people spent. The researchers believe this is because the reminders create a sense of urgency and make people more likely to make impulse purchases. Read more

• SurveyMonkey has launched a new forms designer which includes pre-built templates, conditional logic, and integrations with other popular tools. Read more

And finally…

Instagram ruins everything.

Well, maybe not everything, but certainly one small street in Vermont.

The street is host to the Sleepy Hollow Farm which looks beautiful in the fall — colourful leaves, bright red barns, contrasting gravel roads. It looks like something AI would dream up if you type in “autumn landscape.”

But thanks to hordes of snap-happy Instagrammers, the town has closed the road leading to the farm, citing overcrowding and “poorly behaved tourists.”

Locals say people regularly block local traffic with their cars, obstruct emergency vehicles, and even relieve themselves on the lawn of the private property.

One Instagram post even showed a route to take which would bypass security cameras and get them into the property.

And worse — one clerk at the local general store told media: “Unfortunately some people, not all, have taken it to the next step, where [residents] have come home and [tourists] have been on their porches having lunch.”

See? This is why we can’t have nice things.

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