The EU’s new Digital Services Act allows social media users to opt out of AI personalised content feeds based on relevance.

What Is The DSA? 

The Digital Services Act is a new EU Law designed to protect users. It applies to any digital company operating and serving the EU with “very large online platforms” (those with over 45 million EU users) and very large search engines subject to the toughest rules.

The DSA focuses on five key areas of user protection which are:

1. Illegal products. I.e. platforms will need to stop the sale of illegal products.

2. Illegal content. This means that platforms (e.g. social media platforms) need to take measures stop hate speech, child abuse and harassment, electoral interference and more, whilst safeguarding free speech and data protection.

3. Protection of children. This includes large online platforms and search engines having to take a wide range of measures to protect children, such as protection from being targeted with advertising based on their personal data or cookies, protecting their privacy, redesigning content “recommender systems” to reduce risks to children, and much more.

4. Racial and gender diversity. This means that companies (e.g. the large social media platforms) can’t target users with adverts based on personal date such as race, gender, and religion.

5. Banning so-called “dark patterns.” This means protecting consumers from manipulative practices designed to exploit their vulnerabilities or trick/manipulate them into buying things they don’t need or want and making it difficult for them to cancel. For example, this includes fake timers on deals, hiding information about signing up to a subscription and making subscription cancellation steps too complicated for users.

User Empowerment 

More on the matter of user empowerment, the DSA means that users (e.g. users of social media platforms) now need to be given clear information on why they are recommended certain information and have the right (and a clear way) to opt-out from recommendation systems based on profiling (tracking). This has led to the large social media platforms making changes. For example:

– Meta’s Facebook launching a chronological news Feeds tab (last July) to whereby users can see posts from their friends, groups, pages and more in chronological order, and no longer showing any “Suggested For You” posts. Also, since February, Meta’s apps, including Facebook, have stopped showing ads to users aged 13-17 based on their activity to the apps.

– Google’s YouTube stopping next video recommendations based on profiling for logged in users with the ‘watch history’ feature turned off.

– Instagram introducing a “Not Personalised” option instead of just an ‘Explore’ tab based on algorithmic content selections (personalised – “For you”).

– TikTok rolling out the option for users in Europe opt out from its personalised algorithm-based feed, i.e. as TikTok says, if users opt out of “For You” and “LIVE” feeds, it will instead show “popular videos from both the places where they live and around the world, rather than recommending content to them based on their personal interests”. Also, from July, TikTok stopped showing users in Europe aged 13-17 from being shown personalised ads based on their online activity.

– Snapchat has announced four new measures that it’s taking in the EU to comply with the DSA, including giving users “the ability to better understand why content is being shown to them and have the ability to opt out of a personalised Discover and Spotlight content experience.”

Amazon and Google

With the DSA also affecting very large search engines and companies like Amazon, a couple of examples of how they are complying include:

– Amazon creating a new channel for submitting notices against suspected illegal products and content.

– Google promising to increase data access to increase transparency, helping users to understand more about how Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play, and Shopping work.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Tech companies have known about the basic requirements of the DSA for three years and have had four months to comply with the act’s rules. Given the size of the “very large” social media companies and search engines, however, it has required some considerable work (some claiming thousands of staff had been involved), costs, and rethinking and re-organising. The DSA’s rules are far-reaching, while compliance means increased operational costs, e.g. due to necessary investment in technical infrastructure, legal fees, human resources for content moderation, and data governance systems. Also, the stricter regulations on data collection, content, and restrictions on targeting could limit ad-revenues and user-engagement. There’s also the added challenge of a greater workload for social media companies – e.g., with the need for more effective and continuous monitoring, user outreach, and updates.

That said, users may welcome the chance to essentially opt-out of being targeted and many may say that giving greater protection to users, especially children, is long overdue and that legislation appears to have been necessary to make change happen. For the very large tech companies, although they may not be happy with parts of the DSA, they have recognised that compliance is now crucial for sustained market access and legal operation within the EU and the fines for non-compliance are very steep and something (along with the bad publicity) they’d like to avoid (6% of turnover and potential costly suspension of the service).

The new rules have only just come into force, so it remains to be seen how the large tech companies fare going forward in a fast-evolving tech landscape that now has the added complications of AI.

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL) has announced the launch of world’s first 4C superfast charging LFP battery.

The ‘Shenxing’ EV Battery 

CATL says the ‘Shenxing’ battery can deliver 400 km of driving range from a 10-minute charge as well as a range of over 700 km on a single full charge, which is around 60 per cent further than the average electric vehicle (EV) on full charge in 2023.

The company says the Shenxing battery will “considerably alleviate fast charging anxiety for EV users” and “opens up an era of EV superfast charging”. 

How It Beats “Fast Charging Anxiety” 

The company, which manufactured more lithium-ion batteries than any of its competitors last year, says that fast charging anxiety is the top factor that stops consumers from shifting to EVs.  CATL says that its Shenxing battery “redefines” Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries and alleviates “fast charging anxiety” because:

– It leverages super electronic network cathode technology and fully nano-crystallised LFP cathode materials to create a super-electronic network, which facilitates the fast extraction of lithium ions and the rapid response to charging signals.

– CATL’s latest second-generation fast ion ring technology has been used to modify the properties of the battery’s graphite surface, thereby increasing intercalation channels (improving energy density) and shortens the intercalation distance for lithium ions. This creates a kind of “expressway” for current conduction.

– Its multi-gradient layered electrode design has been developed to strike a perfect balance between fast charging and long range.

– CATL’s new superconducting electrolyte formula effectively reduces the viscosity of the electrolyte, resulting in improved conductivity within the battery.

– The improved, ultra-thin SEI film (a passivation layer on the anode surface, inhibiting electrolyte decomposition) reduces resistance of lithium-ion movement, thereby improving the transmission rate of lithium ions and decreasing the resistance of lithium-ion movement.

Better Overall Battery Performance

CATL says that new Shenxing battery’s features, as listed above, improves its overall performance in addition to its super-fast charging, because the Shenxing battery also has a longer driving range, fast charging over a wide range of temperatures, and a high level of safety thanks to structure innovation and leveraging intelligent algorithms.  For example:

– The use of CATL’s “trailblazing all-in-one grouping technology,” is a key reason why the Shenxing battery can reach a range of over 700 km, pushing the limits of the performance of LFP chemistry.

– CATL’s cell temperature control technology means the Shenxing battery can charge as normal even at low temperatures. For example, Shenxing can charge to 80 per cent SOC in 10 minutes at room temperature, and from 0-80 per cent in just 30 minutes in temperature as low as -10°C.

– CATL say the Shenxing battery’s upgraded electrolyte and the separator with a highly safe coating, combined with its intelligent algorithms, provide it with a “real-time fault testing system” that can solve the problems brought about by fast refuelling, thereby giving the battery a high level of safety.

EV Batteries

Although CATL identifies “fast charging anxiety” as the biggest obstacle preventing more people from buying electric vehicles, battery technology has long been a real (physical) challenge to how far electric cars are able to travel on a charge. However, many buyers would also argue that there are many other ‘anxieties’ about EVs that are holding back EV sales such as the price of EVs (especially during a cost-of-living-crisis), and the availability of charging points (charging infrastructure).

There was some good news for the UK last month when Tata, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), confirmed it will be building a £4 billion EV battery factory (termed a ‘gigafactory’) at Bridgwater in Somerset. As well as providing jobs and giving the UK more of foothold in the EV industry, it will also help the UK by delivering half of the battery production needed by 2030 (in the UK, 2030 will see a ban on the sale of new cars using petrol or diesel).

Which Car Companies?

Although it was reported three years ago that CATL had developed a battery that could power an EV for 1.2 million miles over a 16-year lifespan and that deals may have been in place to supply Tesla, BMW, Daimler, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo, it is not clear from its latest more detailed announcement about the Shenxing battery’ which car manufacturers will be the first to use the new battery.

Record Breaking EV Sales In Recent Times

Even with the battery challenges, EVs are two or three times more efficient than conventional petrol/diesel-powered vehicles, plus they have the added benefit of having zero emissions (during driving). Major carmakers have already committed to making EVs and phasing out cars with internal combustion engines entirely by 2040, and it’s predicted (IEA) that electric car sales could overtake fossil fuel-powered car sales within the next 15 years. However, the hope is that breakthroughs in battery technology could make this happen faster which is good news for governments looking to hit carbon emissions targets and deadlines for phasing out fossil fuel vehicles.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

EV battery technology development and how it affects factors like speed-of-charging, range, battery weight, cost (and more) are factors which affect the wider adoption of EVs. The superfast charging and long range (700 km on a full charge) of CATL’s Shenxing battery appear to tackle two of the major challenges, although there are still many more, including charging infrastructure and EV prices.

However, if deals are successfully made with major manufacturers to use the battery and are they’re able to communicate the benefits to the car buying public, this could be one element that could speed up the uptake of EV ownership and the many benefits that brings (e.g. environmental / climate) and giving a better chance of hitting carbon reduction targets.

As mentioned, there are number of challenges that need to be met to make conditions better to enable larger sales of EVs, but this new battery technology could be an important step in the right direction.

Ancient Data-Disasters

So far in 2023, Canada’s had wildfires devouring over 30 million acres, an expanse comparable to Kentucky. This has already surpassed Canada’s earlier record set in 1989, where flames ravaged more than 18 million acres.

As the wildfire-season isn’t over yet, using the 1989 figures (much less than 2023) 18 million acres could yield in the order of 18 billion trees, assuming a thousand trees per acre. A typical pine tree, measuring approximately 45 feet in usable trunk length and eight inches in diameter, is believed to yield about 10,000 sheets of A4 paper, i.e., the 1989 Canadian wildfires possibly burned around 180 trillion sheets of A4 paper – enough to cover up the whole of Europe or stock the ancient Library of Alexandria 30 billion times over! The exact number of scrolls the Library of Alexandria contained isn’t definitively known and varies across historical sources, so it was assumed the library held 500,000 scrolls (estimates can range anywhere from 40,000 to over a million). It was also assumed that one scroll is equivalent to 10 sheets of A4 paper, for simplicity.

When the ancient Library of Alexandria was burned down (the second time), it wasn’t due to climate change but because Julius Caesar fancied Cleopatra and when he became involved in the internal conflict between her and Ptolemy XIII, he ignited the ships at the port of Alexandria and it’s speculated that this blaze extended to the library, leading to its total devastation.

It wasn’t the only time a Roman leader burned down the library because another section of the library was housed within a temple devoted to the deity Serapis. In 391 CE, under the edict of Roman Emperor Theodosius, Christianity was proclaimed the sole permitted religion of Rome, leading to the demolition of all pagan temples. Consequently, the Serapis temple in Alexandria was razed, resulting in the loss of the library’s secondary branch (talk about single-minded).

It’s believed by historians that the Library of Alexandria once contained more than half a million documents sourced from regions like Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, among others. While gauging the storage for images remains challenging, the textual contents of this vast library could feasibly fit on a 16Gb USB drive.

Whilst this ancient information-storage is impressive, it pales into insignificance when compared to the amount of worldwide information being produced daily. This amount of information is growing geometrically and inexorably as this page and image (c/o Statistica) shows : https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/

The next time you see a humble USB-stick, consider all the trees/wood/paper/books it could back-up and spare a thought for how the ancient librarians must have felt after the fires without an effective disaster-recovery policy!

If you’d like to see, or remind yourself of what Google’s search engine was like back in 1998 when it started, here’s a fun, instant way to do just that:

Type ‘Google in 1998’ into Google’s search bar.

Google will immediately adopt the old look, complete with the logo + exclamation mark.

To change it back, click on the “Take me back to the present,” or conduct a search using the old search box at the top.

“This Message Sent Around The World”

At 7:00 p.m. on August 20, 1911, a commercial telegram was sent by the telegraph operator at the Times, working on the seventeenth level of the newspaper’s headquarters in Times Square. The message made a westward journey from New York, and shortly afterwards, the very same operator received his transmitted message back, having arrived back to him eastwards.

The New York Times had wanted to find out how long a commercial telegram would take to travel around the world, so they tried it!

The message simply said “This message sent around the world.”   And it did indeed go around the world … in just sixteen and a half minutes!

Not bad, but that was a commercial telegram and therefore it wasn’t sent with all the priority that could potentially be mustered.
That honour went to President Roosevelt years before back in 1903 on July 4^th (Independence Day) when his absolutely-top-priority message travelled around the world in just nine and a half minutes.
By way of comparison, that’s faster than it’d take to parcel-up your message, instruct a driver, team-up (& feed) some horses and get a mail-coach out of the yard and onto the road!

Talking of horses, the Pony Express became immediately obsolete and ceased trading just two days after the first trans-continental telegraph was sent many years earlier, during the American Civil war. Of course, sending a telegram in those early days was wildly expensive (a relatively short-distance telegram could likely cost $100 for a modern Twitter-equivalent message.

With the rate of pace of change these days, it’s easy to forget that technological progress even 150 years ago was still pretty awesome. For example, the 98-letter message sent from Queen Victoria to the US President Buchanan (in Pennsylvania, US) was very difficult to decipher and took 16 hours to send. It was nevertheless revolutionary to send electronic communications across vast oceans in 1858 and so the novelty of her message meant it was followed by a hundred-gun salute, street-parades, church-bell ringing and all other sorts of other excitement across the land.

Perhaps take a moment a think about that next time you send an encrypted video-message via WhatsApp to a friend back home whilst you’re abroad on your holidays!

Following the news that US Federal regulators have sued Amazon, alleging that people have been “tricked” into buying hard-to-cancel Prime memberships, we take a closer look at ‘inertia selling’.

What Happened With Amazon Prime Subscriptions? 

Back at the end of June, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it was taking action against Amazon.com Inc, for “enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without consent and sabotaging their attempts to cancel”. The FTC, which alleged that Amazon had been involved in this kind of inertia selling for years, went so far to say in its complaint that Amazon had been using “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs” which it describes as “dark patterns,” designed to “trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions.” 

The FTC Chair Lina M. Khan, said in the complaint: “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.” 

Denial From Amazon

Amazon issued a statement in response, denying the TFC’s allegations, saying they were “false on the facts and the law” and that “The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership.” 

Inertia Selling 

‘Inertia selling’ is a controversial sales technique which usually applies to a company sending unsolicited goods or services (or a subscription for services) to individuals with the expectation that they will buy or continue to buy the items. The idea is that the inertia of the consumer (i.e., the natural tendency of consumers to avoid taking action and stick with the default option) will mean that they either keep and pay for the item or to continue a subscription service, often without fully understanding the terms and conditions involved.

As the name suggests, this approach relies on the consumer’s inertia to drive sales, rather than obtaining explicit consent or agreement for the transaction.

Making Things Too Difficult 

In the recent complaint against Amazon by the FTC, it was alleged that making the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was difficult for consumers to locate by not being clear in the transaction that in choosing that option consumers were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription. Also, the FTC alleged that when consumers tried to cancel Prime membership, they were faced with multiple steps, first having to locate the cancellation flow, and then being redirected to multiple pages that presented several offers to continue the subscription at a discounted price, turn off the auto-renew feature, or to decide not to cancel. The FTC said that only after clicking through these pages could consumers finally cancel the service. In other words, its alleged that consumers may have been tricked into consent in the first place and then the sheer complication of cancellation made consumers give up and opt for keeping the service.

Is It Illegal? 

Although these “dark patterns” (as described by the FTC) sound as though they must be illegal, it’s not quite as clear cut. Inertia selling is generally considered to be an unfair commercial practice under UK law, and it can be illegal. For example, UK consumer protection legislation like the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, is designed to prevent unfair or deceptive practices, including inertia selling. These laws require that businesses provide consumers with clear, truthful information so they can make informed choices.

If a consumer in the UK receives unsolicited goods or services, they generally are under no legal obligation to pay for them. The law typically considers these unsolicited items to be gifts, and the consumer may not be required to return them. Also, companies must not demand payment for items that were not explicitly ordered as doing so could be considered an unfair commercial practice and may result in legal consequences.

However, for the consumer, it’s essential to carefully read the terms and conditions of any contract or agreement entered into, as there can be instances where the business has a legal basis for providing additional goods or services and charging for them. It appears, therefore, these situations can sometimes be nuanced.

Change Is Coming 

Although some areas of these practices may be nuanced, in April in the UK, the government announced that a new Bill will give the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) new powers to clamp down on “subscription traps.” The changes will also require businesses to give consumers clearer information before they enter a subscription contract, issue a reminder when (for example) a free trial or low-cost introductory offer is coming to an end, and a reminder before a contract auto-renews onto a new term, and give consumers a straightforward way to exit a subscription contract.

In March this year, in the US, the FTC proposed a “click to cancel” provision requiring sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrolment as it was to sign up. This change looks likely to help tackle hard-to-stop free trials, and auto-renewals (subscription traps).

In the EU, The CPC Network (coordinated by the European Commission) recently asked Mastercard, VISA and American Express to introduce a series of changes in their rules to ensure that traders provide clear information to consumers on recurrent payments before they enter into a subscription.

Others 

Inertia selling is not new but arguably, with the kind of subscription economy we now have, it may be easier for companies to use those practices. It’s worth noting that it’s not just Amazon that allegations of inertia selling of subscriptions have been made about. Other examples (and there are many more than these) include:

– Way back in 2013, when Adobe transitioned to its Creative Cloud subscription service, it received criticism about its subscription-only model and its cancellation policies.

– In 2015, Sky faced an Ofcom investigation for allegedly making it difficult for customers to cancel, e.g. cancellation requests not being “verified” without a call by the customer.

– In 2019, a Guardian newspaper report highlighted many companies which let customers sign up online but required a phone call to leave, e.g. Weight Watchers (WW), Ocado Smart Pass, British Gas Homecare, Which?, and others. The point was that requiring cancellation via phone call could be something that consumers forget.

– In 2020, the CMA took action against Roland for not making it sufficiently easy for online customers to cancel their digital piano rental agreements.

– Three, Vodafone, and EE all came under scrutiny from the CMA in the UK for the terms of their mobile phone contracts, some of which allegedly made it difficult for customers to switch providers or cancel their services.

– As in the US, gym chains in the UK have faced scrutiny for their cancellation policies. The CMA has now taken steps to ensure that gyms are transparent about their terms and conditions.

– In 2021, while the primary concerns with Viagogo (the multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale brand) surrounded ticket reselling, some consumers also complained about subscriptions that were difficult to cancel. This led to investigations and enforcement action by the CMA.

– Last year, as part of its investigation into the online console video gaming sector, the CMA identified concerns about some features of Microsoft’s auto-renewing subscriptions. For example, the CMA was particularly concerned about whether it was clear upfront that contracts would automatically renew, how easy it was to turn off automatic renewal, and whether people may not have realised they were still paying for services they no longer used.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

As we have moved more into becoming a subscription society, regulating all the practices has become more complicated. One of the chief concerns is how to protect consumers from business practices that essentially make the barriers to entry of a subscription contact incredibly low (or virtually invisible) and the barriers to exit extremely high through means such as excessive complication – two key characteristics of inertia selling.

In the US, UK, and EU matters such as hard-to-stop free trials, auto-renewals (subscription traps), and making consumers work hard to cancel are all being addressed with new proposed laws and new powers being given to regulators. For businesses offering subscriptions and wanting to avoid penalties, this will mean a review of their subscription process paying particular attention to clarity and options in sign-up and providing an easy way to cancel (with enough reminders along the way). Although Amazon is the latest to come under the regulatory spotlight it is by no means the only company to have been warned or had action taken against it by regulators over how subscriptions are sold, handled, renewed, or cancelled.

Although more legislation is in the pipeline and scrutiny more intense than ever, there is still some way to go in successfully tackling the many practices and nuances related to inertia selling. In the meantime, in the UK, customers who believe they have been the victim of inertia selling can report the practice to the CMA or their local Trading Standards office for further investigation.