Joseph Brookes

US Government backs Facebook and Google’s resistance to paying for news content in Australia
The US government has requested Australia suspend its plan to make Google and Facebook pay publishers for news content shared by the platforms, labelling the proposed laws “extraordinary” and “premature”. Its comments were contained in a submission to a Senate committee currently reviewing the proposed media laws. Australia’s proposed news

Taboola puts social media stories format on publishers’ sites
Taboola today announced a beta program for its own version of the stories format popular on Instagram and Snapchat. Taboola Stories will allow publishers to embed the vertical, mobile-friendly stories on their own websites. Brands will be able to place ads in the new format. Users will need to click

Boomi deepens ties with AWS, eyes more public sector work
Boomi has joined the AWS Public Sector Partner Program, signalling more focus on the government, education, and non-profit sector. The Dell Technologies’ iPaaS provider has also released Boomi Kubernetes Molecule on AWS Quick Start, claiming to have reduced deployment times for a Boomi Molecule running on AWS to under an

Gone phishing: Australians lost $176 million to scams in 2020
Australians reported 23.1 per cent more scams in 2020, losing $176.1 million dollars. Phishing remains the most popular type of attack, which experts say is because of its low effort and potentially high return for scammers. People are being urged to remain vigilant and not click on suspicious links or

Integral Ad Science Acquires Amino Payments
Integral Ad Science has acquired Amino Payments, the ad spend transparency and optimisation company it partnered with last year to develop the Total Visibility product. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Amino Payments brand will be retired and the popular Total Visibility product will become an IAS brand.

‘Burnout’ reported by 77 per cent of ANZ knowledge workers in 2020
More than three-quarters of Australian and New Zealand knowledge workers say they suffered burnout in 2020 as they worked longer and much later following the rapid shift to remote work, according to new research. The results suggest the perceived benefits of working from home can be quickly undermined by longer

ACCC knocks back Google’s promises for Fitbit acquisition
The competition watchdog has rejected Google’s promise that it would not distort competition should it be allowed to acquire wearables manufacturer Fitbit. The tech giant had undertaken that it would not use the acquisition to harm competition, restrict competitors access to health data or use health data for advertising. While

Australian Fintechs flourish in 2020
Despite difficult economic conditions, a net 104 new Australian fintechs emerged in the last 15 months according to new data from KPMG. Most of the growth was in blockchain, cryptocurrency and lending while the number or regtechs, wealthtechs and analytics startups decreased. Today KPMG released its Fintech Landscape 2020, describing

Banks argue against privacy protecting dead people’s data
Australian banks don’t think dead people’s data should be as well protected as the living because community attitudes to the issue are unclear, despite law reform commissions arguing for better protections. In a submission to the current review of the Australian Privacy the Australian Banking Association, which represents most major

Xinja’s struggles underscores the need for a comprehensive business model, say analysts
Last week Australian neobank Xinja announced it was abandoning retail banking after struggling to raise capital in a challenging COVID market. The startup will now attempt to pivot to non-banking areas like share trading, although even it concedes that is uncertain. The digital only bank’s failure, after seemingly having the