Google today announced it’s making several changes to the Google Play Store that will impact Android apps’ discoverability, how developers can market their apps to consumers, and various trust and safety concerns. Most importantly, Google is now advising developers that the Play Store will begin to prioritize apps that deliver on both technical and in-app quality by promoting them in more places across the Play Store where they can be discovered by consumers.
The changes hint at Google’s intent to take a more editorial eye as to how apps are featured and distributed on the Play Store. That’s an area that’s typically been a heavier focus for Apple in prior years — especially following its own App Store revamp in 2017, which saw it separating games and apps into their own tabs and the introduction of editorial content, including articles and tips, on the store’s main page.
The Play Store isn’t going quite that far, however. Instead, Google says it will now begin to steer consumers away from lower-quality apps by changing how it determines which apps will be made more visible on the platform.
Specifically, it’s implementing new quality thresholds that will exclude apps that exceed certain crash rates and “app not responsive” (ANR) rates, both on an overall and per-phone model basis. Google says the apps that don’t meet these thresholds will be excluded from some areas of the Play Store, including recommendations, while others may even include a warning on their store listing to set appropriate user expectations.
Image Credits: Google
Beyond technical quality, Play Store editors will also look at a range of factors, like whether or not the app or game has a polished design, if the content keeps users engaged, if the onboarding process is clear, if the ads are well-integrated, if the app is accessible, and if the navigation, controls and menus are easy to use, among other things. They’ll also check to see if the app meets Android’s quality guidelines and best practices, detailed on the Android Developers website.
In addition, the company will roll out to developers new promotional content formats and a new type of Custom Store Listing designed to help place apps in front of more users.
In the case of the former, developers will be able to leverage LiveOps — the special merchandising units for promoting apps on the Play Store. Today, these are used to promote discounts and offers, major app updates, in-app events, pre-registration announcements, and more. Apple has a similar feature, launched last year. The sorts of marketing units give app stores a more real-time feel as they can market on reasons to download and launch apps now, instead of just serving as a general promotion.
Image Credits: Google
Google notes that developers using LiveOps have seen a 3.6% increase in revenue and 5.1% increase in 28-day daily active users versus similar titles that don’t take advantage of the offering. Now, it will rename LiveOps to “Promotional Content” to reflect longer-term plans to expand the feature to support new content types — including those which will see the promotional units appearing more deeply integrated within the Play Store across users’ homepages, in search and discovery areas, in title listings, and directly in apps via deeplinks.
Developers will also soon be able to create a new type of listing that will allow them to specifically target churned users (people who tried the app or game, then abandoned it). This “Churned-user Custom Store Listings” format, which will roll out closer to year-end, will be able to display a specific message designed to re-acquire prior users.
Two other changes are focused on app safety and protecting developers — and the consumers downloading their apps — from coordinated attacks.
Google will update the Play Integrity API, which helps protect against risky and fraudulent traffic, with more features. Developers will be able to customize API responses, set up tests in the Play Console, and use new reporting to analyze their API responses. They’ll also be able to debug API responses from the Play Store app’s developer settings on any device.
Plus, Google says it’s launching a new program designed to address coordinated attacks on app ratings and reviews. The company didn’t offer much information on how this program would work, but it would give developers a way to fight back if their app was being unfairly targeted with fake reviews either by users or their competitors, presumably. This is an area of concern that recently made the news, in fact, when a top-ranked new social app, Gas, suddenly became the target of a hoax that claimed it was being used for human trafficking, leading users to delete their accounts.
The changes follow earlier updates to the Play Store designed to help consumers better discover non-smartphone apps that run on their smartwatches, TV, or tablets. Earlier this year, Google also warned developers it would hide and block downloads for outdated apps. Google alerted developers they must now, as of Nov. 1, 2022, target API level 30 (Android 11) or above if they want their app to be discoverable on the play Store by new users running newer versions of the Android OS.
Following the recent introduction of parent-controlled watchlists on Google TV and the revamp of its parental control app Family Link, Google today announced it’s also now bringing parental controls to its Google Assistant platform. The new features will roll out over the next several weeks to Google Home, as well as the Family Link and Google Assistant apps on iOS and Android, and will allow parents to limit or even entirely disable certain Assistant functionality, configure kid-friendly settings, adjust downtime, and more.
In addition, the settings will allow parents to configure default services, restrict kids from making calls, and limit what sort of answers they can get from the Assistant. The update will also introduce new kid-friendly features and new voices.
Image Credits: Google
With the new Assistant features, parents will be able to select which music and video providers the child has access to, including YouTube Kids, YouTube, and YouTube Music. This limits them from being able to explore content from other services.
With the parental controls, parents and guardians can specify what features their child can access through Assistant — like whether they can make phone calls on smart speakers, whether they can use Google Actions, what kind of answers they receive (basic or all, the latter which could contain mature content), whether they can play music or videos, whether videos are filtered, and more. Parents can also choose to shut off access to news and podcasts on their child’s devices if they prefer.
A new feature called Kids Dictionary is being added, as well, in order to offer the option of having Google Assistant provide more age-appropriate answers. When the Assistant detects by way of the voice matching feature that a child is asking a question, it can switch to the Kids Dictionary to respond with easy-to-understand definitions better suited to younger people. This will work across smart speakers, smart displays and mobile devices, Google notes.
In addition, Google Assistant will gain four new kid-friendly voices that speak a little slower and in a more expressive style, designed to enhance the Assistant’s storytelling capabilities and aid in comprehension.
To complement Google’s existing screen time controls for other devices, parents will be able to set up downtime hours for Assistant, too. That way kids couldn’t stay up past their bedtime asking Assistant questions or playing music or games, for instance.
Image Credits: Google
The changes are a part of a broader set of reactions among tech giants in the face of increasing scrutiny by regulators and lawmakers over how their tech products are used by children, how they do or do not protect children’s privacy, what sort of data is collected and how it’s used. In light of these developments, Google last year introduced increased protections for minors on its platforms, including Search, YouTube, and other apps.
More recently, however, Google’s focus has been on empowering parents to adjust specific settings across select Google services to offer further protections that are more customized to their own family’s needs. This month, for example, the company redesigned its main parental controls app, Family Link, which now allows parents to configure geofences with alerts and make one-off adjustments to screen time without changing their normal schedule, among other things. The company also introduced new parent-controlled watchlists to its TV platform, Google TV, as well as A.I.-suggestions for kids.
The new Assistant features can be changed in the supported apps or with voice commands, like “Hey Google, open Assistant settings” or “Hey Google, change your voice.” They’ll become more broadly available in the weeks ahead.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
It’s official, Elon Musk now owns Twitter. In typical Musk fashion, the transition has been nothing but chaotic, with the deal closing just ahead of the deadline set by the Delaware Chancery Court — the court where Musk was planning to try to exit the deal by claiming Twitter had misled him about the number of bots on the platform. (He was really looking to get the price down, of course!) In any event, the Telsa and SpaceX exec now has a new toy and everyone is waiting to see what comes next. Earlier, Musk had hinted at layoffs, then later retracted his statements, saying he wouldn’t fire 75% after all. However, he did immediately clear out the C-suite, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde — a sign that he’s planning to fill out Twitter’s top ranks with execs who will do his own bidding and not fight for the Twitter of days past.
Still, Musk’s talk about a Twitter that’s more permissive of “free speech” doesn’t quite align with his message to advertisers posted shortly after the deal’s close: He promised marketers that Twitter can’t turn into a “free-for-all hellscape.” That’s clearly a tacit acknowledgment on Musk’s part that advertisers don’t want to post their content next to hate speech-filled tweets. And despite Musk’s plans to grow Twitter’s subscription business, around 90% of Twitter’s revenue today comes from advertising. Given what he had to pay to own Twitter, Musk probably doesn’t want to have to pay to keep it running, too.
App Store Review Guidelines now give Apple a cut of NFTs, in-app advertising
Image Credits: TechCrunch
Along with the launch of iOS 16.1, Apple also introduced new App Store Review Guidelines. Among the major changes were two new rules designed to give Apple a bigger slice of the NFT market and Meta’s core advertising business.
The company said apps will be allowed to list, mint, transfer and let users view their own NFTs, but clarified that owning an NFT could not be a shortcut to unlocking any more features in an app. In other words, the ownership of an NFT shouldn’t be a way to route around Apple’s in-app purchases. In addition, Apple said NFT apps can’t display external links or other calls-to-action to purchase NFTs — that can only take place through Apple’s own in-app purchases system, as well.
This change is not all that surprising. As the web3 market grows, Apple wanted to find a way to stake its claim on the revenue and transactions that are occuring inside these new apps. Plus, it’s a better consumer experience for NFT marketplace apps to not just function as a showcase for users’ purchases, but as a place where users can actually transact.
The other big rule adjustment, however, is a bit more startling. In a bold move, Apple essentially said it deserves a cut of Meta’s ads business as well as any other social app. The new rule around social media apps now states that purchases of “boosts” have to flow through Apple’s in-app purchase system.
This could impact any app that sells the ability to boost a post to a wider audience, like Meta (Facebook, Instagram), TikTok, Twitter, dating apps and others. Meta, of course, took significant issue with this change, saying that Apple’s policy undercuts others in the digital economy after Apple had previously said it wouldn’t take a share of developer ad revenue. While Meta isn’t exactly a sympathetic player here, it’s concerning that Apple has decided it can now tax advertising inside iOS apps at the same time it runs its own expanding ads business. That seems like a move regulators will need to look into asap.
App Store gambling ads backlash
Speaking of Apple’s ads business…The company’s App Store ads platform expanded this week to include new ad slots like the main Today tab and a “You Might Also Like” section at the bottom of individual app listings. The slots are available in all countries as of October 25, except China. The ads have a blue background and an “Ad” label to differentiate them from other listings.
Developers, however, were immediately disturbed by the instant deluge of gambling ads that appeared marketed alongside their own, including against kids’ applications and, in at least one case, a gambling addiction recovery app. This was a poor look for Apple. After all, the gambling category itself is already controversial — many developers would rather not share an app marketplace with these often predatory apps in the first place, much less have them advertised alongside their own.
Apple at least moved quickly to respond to the backlash by “pausing” gambling ads and a few other categories on App Store product pages, but the company didn’t say how long this pause would last or what it planned to do about the situation in the long term.
Spotify accuses Apple of anti-competitive behavior, this time around audiobooks
Just ahead of its Q3 earnings, Spotify published a blog post that again accused Apple of anti-competitive behavior with regard to its launch of audiobooks in the U.S. On an accompanying website, Spotify noted that its app update to include the audiobook expansion was rejected three times without “clear direction” as to what needed to be changed to come into compliance. The site details Spotify’s criticisms of Apple’s platform, explaining how Apple requires audiobook purchases to use Apple’s own in-app purchases — or, if selling elsewhere, prevents Spotify from telling users why, where or how to make those purchases outside of iOS.
Because Spotify wants to avoid the 30% IAP commission, it doesn’t let users buy audiobooks in its app. Instead, users select the book they want to purchase and are emailed a link that points to a website where they can complete the transaction.
“The Audiobooks purchase flow that Apple’s rules force us to provide consumers today is far too complicated and confusing — confusing because they change the rules arbitrarily, making them impossible to interpret,” Spotify’s blog post stated.
The company has regularly battled with Apple over its App Store policies but is sometimes seen as an unsympathetic victim due to its size, revenues and its role in moving the music industry to streaming, which artists say doesn’t pay.
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Image Credits: TechCrunch
Apple released iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16.1, macOS Ventura and watchOS 9.1. The updated software delivers new features like iCloud Shared Photo Library, Continuity Camera, Stage Manager for the Mac and iPad, Live Activities, Apple Fitness+ for iPhone and more.
Apple expanded its App Store ads platform to include the main Today tab and a “You Might Also Like” section at the bottom of individual app listings in all countries on October 25, except China. The ads have a blue background and an “Ad” label to differentiate them from other listings.
SKAdNetwork 4.0, which lets advertisers measure ads’ success, became available in iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 this week.
Apple also released the first betas of macOS Ventura 13.1, iOS 16.2, and iPadOS 16.2 which included the new Freeform app, announced at WWDC. The app is a whiteboard app that lets you create sketches notes, files, documents and more, which can be accessed across devices.
Apple reported its Q4 earnings with iPhone revenue up 9.67% YoY to $42.63 billion, Mac up 25.4% to $11.51 billion, but iPad revenue down 13.06% to $7.17 billion. Wall Street was expecting iPhone revenue of $43.21 billion, sending the stock down in late trading. Other products were $9.65 billion (up 9.95%) and the Services division, which includes the App Store, was up 4.98%.
Platforms: Google
Google filed a brief opposing Epic and Match’s recent motion to amend and expand their antitrust claims in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the Android maker. In it, Google disputes that its incentive program for developers to publish to the Play Store would prohibit developers from creating competing app stores, as alleged. It also noted the motion from Epic and Match comes too late, after the December 3, 2021 amendment deadline.
The company also announced updates across three main areas of Jetpack: architecture libraries and guidance, application performance and user interface libraries and guidance. It noted that 90% of the top 1,000 apps use Android Jetpack.
Google introduced a Gradle Bill of Materials (BOM) specifying the stable version of each Compose library. The first BOM release, Compose October 22, contains Material Design 3 components, lazy staggered grids, variable fonts, pull to refresh, snapping in lazy lists, draw text in canvas, URL annotations in text, hyphenation and LookAheadLayout. And it launched the first alpha of Compose for Android TV.
Android Studio got updates, too, including updated templates for Wear OS. And Google launched a stable Android R emulator system image for Wear OS.
E-commerce & Food Delivery
The FTC sanctioned Uber-owned Drizly, an alcohol delivery service, and its CEO Jason Rellas for data security abuses that saw the personal information of the company’s 2.5 million customers exposed. Drizly will have to implement a security program, destroy unnecessary data, implement new security controls and train employees and cybersecurity.
Amazon began letting select U.S. customers pay with Venmo on its website and in its mobile app, with plans to roll out the support to all U.S. customers by Black Friday.
Blockchain
Twitter began testing a blockchain-agnostic tool that allows users to display their NFTs in tweets in partnership with Dapper Labs, Magic Eden, Rarible and Jump.trade. The feature is only available to select users at this time.
Fintech
PayPal added support for Apple Passkeys on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, with more platforms to come. Passkeys are a new industry standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium — in partnership with Apple, Google and Microsoft — that are designed to replace passwords.
Social
New analysis indicates India’s homegrown TikTok clones, like Moj and Josh, haven’t been able to replicate TikTok’s success in the country following its ban, leaving Instagram and YouTube to take over the short-form video market locally.
Meta added Reels to Facebook Groups, noting that most Facebook users are members of at least 15 active groups and that there are 100 million-plus group joins every day.
Snap reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth ever in the third quarter. The social app maker missed analyst expectations with $1.13 billion in revenue, versus $1.14 billion expected, leading the stock to drop from $11 to $8 in late trading on the day of the earnings announcement. DAUs, however, were up 19% YoY (up 53 million) to 363 million in Q3. The company said it also plans to close its San Francisco office, which was only lightly used due to remote work policies.
The Snapchat app rolled out Director Mode, a feature offering TikTok-like tools including a green screen, quick edit and camera speed features, as well as a BeReal-like dual camera mode.
Pinterest reported its Q3 revenue was up 8% YoY to $684.6 million, above estimates of $666.7 million. However, global MAUs remained flat YoY at 445 million, above estimates of 437.4 million. The stock jumped 11% on the news.
Meta announced its Q3 earnings with revenue down 4% YoY to $27.7 billion, net income down 52% YoY to $4.4 billion, DAUs across its apps up 4% YoY to 2.93 billion. The stock dropped 25% on the revenue decline as investors voiced concerns about how much Meta is spending on its metaverse ambitions.
Bumble open sourced its AI, Private Detector, which the app uses to detect unsolicited nude images. (Get it?) The app gives the user the choice as to whether or not to open the image when a potentially lewd photo is detected. Now other apps can access the same technology.
Match-owned dating app Hinge will add a profile verification feature in November that will ask users to take a video selfie in the app as part of a crackdown on scammers.
Messaging
Telegram said it plans to auction usernames via the TON blockchain, a move inspired by an auction for wallet usernames that saw some selling for as high as $200,000. Founder Pavel Durov suggested other elements of the Telegram ecosystem could become a part of this marketplace in the future, including channels, stickers or emoji.
Apple raised prices for Apple Music, Apple TV+ and its Apple One bundle in the U.S. Apple TV+, which is getting its first price hike, will increase by $2 monthly and $10 annually. Subscribers will be charged $6.99 per month or $69 per year. Apple Music is getting a price increase of $1 for individual subscribers and $2 for families. The individual plan will now be $10.99 per month and the family plan will be $16.99 per month. And the Apple One bundle will cost $16.95/month, $22.95/month and $32.95/month, respectively, for the individual plan, family plan and Premier plan.
YouTube is raising the rates for its Premium Subscription for families across several countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada and Argentina, effective November 21. In the U.S., the price is going up from $17.99 to $22.99. The plan allows up to five family members to watch ad-free videos, download videos for offline access and play videos in the background.
Deezer also bumped its monthly premium price to $10.99 in the U.S.
Given the competitors’ increases, Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek noted on the earnings call that the company is considering a price hike as well. Spotify’s revenue in Q3 was up 21% YoY to €3.04 billion, MAUs were up 20% YoY to 456 million, and Premium subscriptions were up 13% YoY to 195 million. But Spotify’s stock dropped 6% after earnings due to a miss on advertising growth.
YouTube’s mobile app on iOS and Android got a makeoverthat includes a new look, precise seeking, new buttons, ambient mode, darker dark mode and a “pinch to zoom” feature to see more details in a video. Later, the company rolled out an update across platforms that separated long-form, Shorts and Live videos into their own tabs on channel pages.
Gaming
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that more than 20 million people have now streamed games through Xbox Cloud Gaming, up from 10 million in April 2022. The gaming subscription service allows consumers to stream games to their phone via a web browser. This year, Microsoft brought the popular game Fortnite to the platform.
TikTok is expanding further into games, according to the FT, which said the app would add a dedicated gaming tab by November 2, which would feature ad-supported mobile games and in-app purchases.
Government & Policy
The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority said it plans to investigate Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta’s moves into retail financial services over competition and consumer harm concerns, the FT reported.
Turkey’s competition authority fined Meta 346.72 million lira ($18.6 million) for combining user data across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
India’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition Commission of India, fined Google $113 million for abusing the dominant position of its Google Play Store. It ordered the company to let app developers use third-party payments for in-app purchases or for purchasing apps and to drop any anti-steering guidelines. Google has three months to comply.
Square parent company Block was reported to be selling access to customers’ email addresses used to receive receipts. While not illegal, privacy experts argue this means of selling marketing information is “walking a fine line,” per Protocol’s report.
Apple patched a bug in iOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura that could have allowed apps with Bluetooth access to record users’ conversations with Siri without requiring microphone access.
TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker offered an inside look into TheTruthSpy, the stalkerware operation that’s spying on thousands of people worldwide, including in the U.S., via Android apps planted by someone with physical access to a person’s device. Leaked data from the operation includes call logs, texts, location data and other personal info.
Free banking app Crowded raised $6 million in seed funding led by Garage, with participation from Deel co-founder Philippe Bouaziz, Innoventure Partners’ Michael Marks and a group of former bank executives. The app targets member-based nonprofits, like fraternities, sororities and booster clubs.
Onward, an app designed to help co-parents navigate and managed their shared expenses, raised $9.7 million in Series A funding led by Atlanta-based TTV Capital.
Joro, an app that helps people track and reduce their carbon footprints, raised a $10 million Series A led by existing investors Sequoia Capital and Amasia. Also participating were Norrsken, Nest co-founder Matt Rogers’ Incite, Jay-Z’s Arrive and Mike Einziger, the lead guitarist of Incubus.
Downloads
Duolingo Math
Image Credits: Duolingo
Language-learning company Duolingo officially launched its math app to the public this week, following beta trials. The app represents the first expansion beyond language learning and literacy for the company. The app allows users to choose between an elementary version that focuses on basic concepts like multiplication and division and an adult version that’s more optimized for “brain training” exercises that put skills into practice. A future version may even expand into higher-level math, like linear algebra or college-level math. The app is remaining free to use for the time being.
Pixel Pals
With my new Pixel Pals app, you can finally have adorable pets in the new Dynamic Island 24/7, *everywhere*, fully animated and cute as heck. they're freeeeeeeee! pic.twitter.com/3hPL8FaUiY
Apollo developer Christian Selig thought he’d have a little fun with the new iOS 16 feature, Dynamic Island, so he added a feature to his popular Reddit client called “Pixel Pals” that let users collect and care for small, animated pets that run atop the black bar at the top of the screen. The feature took off as people adopted their pixelated pets, fed them and played with them to earn their love.
Taking a cue from users’ interest, Selig launched a standalone app for Pixel Pals, which now allows pet owners to do more with their animated friends, including pinning them to the Home Screen as transparent widgets, adding them to the Lock Screen as animated widgets and enjoying them through iOS 16’s Live Activities, among other things. If anything, the app works to demonstrate iOS 16’s new features in a clever and entertaining way. Users seem to enjoy the new experience, too — as Selig noted this week, the app hit the top 3 in the Graphics & Design category on the App Store.
With the big three — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — reporting earnings this week, we learned that the cloud infrastructure market topped $57 billion for the quarter, up $11 billion over the same period last year.
That adds up to 24% growth, according to data from Synergy Research. It might not be the growth we are used to seeing from this market, but at a time of economic instability, it continues to perform remarkably well.
Still, it is a step back from the days when we saw growth steadily in the 30s. It’s even down from last quarter when the market grew 29%. So it’s fair to say that growth is slowing in an area that’s seen explosive expansion over the last several years.
Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale attributed this slowdown to several factors. First of all, there’s the law of large numbers, which states that as a market size increases, growth decreases. When you combine that with a strong dollar affecting earnings outside the U.S. and a shrinking market in China, it is having an impact.
“It is a strong testament to the benefits of cloud computing that despite two major obstacles to growth, the worldwide market still expanded by 24% from last year. Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path, then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” Dinsdale said in a statement.
The other news here is that of the big three, Google Cloud was the only one to gain share, up a tick to 11%, as the work that CEO Thomas Kurian is doing to build the business continues to pay dividends. Meanwhile, Amazon held steady as the market leader at 34%, good for around $19 billion for the quarter, with Microsoft in second at 21% with revenue of almost $12 billion. Google’s 11% came in at around $6 billion.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story as Amazon’s cloud growth slowed to 27.5% in the quarter, down from 33% growth the prior quarter.
As the chart below showing third-quarter data back to 2017 illustrates, the market has grown in leaps and bounds over the five-year period, from just over $10 billion to almost $60 billion.
Image Credits: Synergy Research
It’s also worth noting that only Google beat analysts’ expectations for cloud revenue, while both AWS and Microsoft came up short of their predictions. The usual caveats apply here around numbers matching publicly reported amounts. Synergy counts public platform, infrastructure and hosted private cloud services in its numbers. Total revenue reported by individual companies may also include other elements, which Synergy doesn’t count.
The fact is that in spite of economic headwinds, the market remains surprisingly strong, and while companies may be looking for places to cut, as we wrote back in June, it’s not that easy to reduce cloud spending because it’s fundamental to most businesses these days. Most companies born in the cloud aren’t going to suddenly build a data center, and those in the midst of shifting to the cloud need to keep moving workloads because of all the benefits the cloud brings around business agility.
Companies looking to cut spending can and should be looking for waste, but regardless, the cloud market will likely continue to produce decent numbers, even if the economics force down overall revenue and slow growth in the short term.
We usually include Canalys data as a means of comparison in these reports, but the data was not available yet at the time we published. As soon as Canalys publishes its data, we will update the article.
A Google regulatory filing appears to have confirmed rumors in recent months that the European Union’s competition division is looking into how it operates its smartphone app store, the Play Store.
However TechCrunch understands that no formal EU investigation into the Play Store has been opened at this stage.
The SEC Form 10-Q, filed by Google’s parent Alphabet (and spotted earlier by Reuters), does make mention of “formal” investigations being opened into Google Play’s “business practices” back in May 2022 — by both the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Thing is, the Commission’s procedure on opening a formal competition investigation is to make a public announcement — so the lack of that standard piece of regulatory disclosure suggests any EU investigation is at a more preliminary stage than Google’s citation might imply.
The UK antitrust regulator’s probe of Google Play is undoubtedly a formal investigation — having been publicly communicated by the CMA back in June — when it said it would probe Google’s rules governing apps’ access to listing on its Play Store, looking at conditions it sets for how users can make in-app payments for certain digital products.
While, back in August, Politico reported that the Commission had sent questionnaires probing Play Store billing terms and developer fees — citing two people close to the matter. And potentially suggesting an investigation was underway. Although the EU’s executive declined to comment on its report.
A Commission spokeswoman also declined to comment when we asked about the “formal investigation” mentioned in Google’s filing (at the time of writing Google had also not responded to requests about it).
But we understand there is no “formal” EU probe into Play as yet — at least not how the EU itself understands the word.
This may be because the EU’s competition division is still be evaluating responses to enquiries made so far — and/or assessing whether there are grounds for concern.
Alternatively, it might have decided it does not have concerns about how Google operates the Play Store. Although developer complaints about app store commissions levied by Google (and Apple) — via the 30% cut that’s typically applied to in-app purchases (a 15% lower rate can initially apply) — haven’t diminished. If anything, complaints have been getting louder — including as a result of moves by the tech giants to expand the types of sales that incur their tax. So lack of competition concern here seems unlikely.
Last year, the Commission also charged Apple with an antitrust breach related to the mandatory use of its in-app purchase mechanism imposed on music streaming app developers (specifically) and restrictions on developers preventing them from informing users of alternative, cheaper payment options.
So app store T&Cs are certainly on the EU’s radar.
More than that: The EU has recently passed legislation that aims, among various proactive provisions, to regulate the fairness of app store conditions. So the existence of that incoming ex ante competition regime seems the most likely explanation for why there’s no formal EU investigation of Google Play today.
Another consideration here is that EU lawmakers have had a very busy year hammering out consensus on a number of major pieces of digital regulation — including the aforementioned ex ante competition reform (aka, the Digital Markets Act; DMA) which will cast the Commission in a centralized enforcement role overseeing so-called Internet “gatekeepers”.
That incoming regime is requiring the Commission to rapidly spin up new divisions to oversee DMA compliance and enforcement — so the EU may be feeling a little stretched on the resources front. But — more importantly — it may also be trying to keep its powder dry.
Essentially, the Commission may want to see if the DMA itself can do the job of sorting out app developer gripes — since the regulation has a number of provisions geared towards app stores specifically, including a prohibition on gatekeepers imposing “general conditions, including pricing conditions, that would be unfair or lead to unjustified differentiation [on business users]”, for example.
The regulation is due to start applying from Spring 2023 so a fresh competition investigation into Google’s app store at this stage could risk duplicating or complicating the enforcement of conditions already baked into EU law. (Although the process of designating gatekeepers and core platform services will need to come before any enforcement — so the real DMA action may not happen before 2024).
For its part, Google denies any antitrust wrongdoing, anywhere in the world its business practices are being investigated.
In the section of its filing rounding up antitrust investigations targeting its business, it writes: “We believe these complaints are without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
Its filing also reveals that it intends to seek to appeal to the EU’s highest court after its attempt to overturn the EU’s Android decision was rejected last month. (The CJEU will only hear appeals on a matter of law so it remains to be seen what Google will try to argue.)
The regulator said it had found Google to be complying with commitments given so far — and listed its current priorities as: Ensuring Google designs a robust testing framework for its proposed new tools and APIs; continuing to engage with market participants to understand concerns raised by them, challenging Google over its proposed approaches and exploring alternative designs for the Privacy Sandbox tools which might address these issues; and embedding a recently appointed independent technical expert (a company called S-RM) into the monitoring regime.
The CMA’s report also reveals that — along with the UK’s privacy watchdog, the ICO — it’s in discussions with Google about the design of user controls for when Privacy Sandbox reaches general availability in 2023.
So it will be interesting to see if the UK regulators are switched on enough to present the usual manipulative design tricks from being cynically baked into these future consent interfaces.
“Google has presented its current proposed user interfaces for controls relating to Topics, FLEDGE and ad measurement. Together with the ICO, we are continuing the dialogue with Google about this and what underlies current design decisions on the consent flow for opting in or out,” the CMA notes on that.
“A key feature of our final assessment of the Privacy Sandbox will be evaluating both the privacy impacts of the technologies themselves and how they compare with their performance against the Development and Implementation Criteria, including competition,” it goes on, adding: “We are continuing to work with the ICO on approaches to measuring and assessing the impacts of Google’s changes on data privacy.”
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
Epic Games and Match attempt to expand their antitrust lawsuits against Google
Image Credits: Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images
Epic Games and Match Group are looking to fortify their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their initial complaint, filed last year, which illustrate the lengths Google supposedly went to in order to dominate the Android app market. The companies, a week ago, filed a motion to amend their complaints in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid off business rivals not to start other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. This would be a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states.
Epic Games and Match Group had originally detailed Google’s plans in a filing last year, where they detailed a Google program known as “Project Hug,” or later, the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.” This effort was focused on paying game developers hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to keep their games on the Google Play Store, it had said.
Now, Epic Games and Match Group are looking to add to their complaint with two new allegations specifying how Google had either paid or otherwise induced its potential competitors to agree to not distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competing app stores. Google, it reads, had identified developers who were “most at risk … of attrition from Play” and then approached them with an offer of an agreement.
The complaint now deems this a “per se” violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations,” it says. (You can read the full story here on TechCrunch.)
Google Play revamp continues
Image Credits: Google
Google announced this week new features for its Play Store that are designed to put more of developers’ store listing assets “front and center.” The company says that on large-screened devices, like tablets, foldables and Chromebooks, the Play Store redesign will make better use of app screenshots, videos and descriptions directly in the Apps and Games Home. This will help Android users when they’re browsing for new apps and games to install, Google says.
It’s also adding the ability for developers to upload Chromebook-specific screenshots in the Play Console, to better portray the Chromebook experience. Developers can upload up to eight screenshots, in the recommended 16:9 screenshots for landscape, with dimensions of 1080-7690px. Google is updating its quality guidelines for tablets for consistency across large screens, as well, but notes that previous uploads won’t be impacted by the changes.
Google additionally published a set of content quality guidelines to help developers learn best practices about how to showcase apps on large screens.
The changes announced this week follow an earlier revamp of the Play Store that offered users the ability to filter search results by device, making it easier for them to discover and download apps for non-phone devices like smartwatches, TVs and cars, including through remote installs. The feature was timely, given Google’s recent debut of its first Pixel-branded smartwatch this month.
BeReal’s real traction
Gen Z social media app BeReal encourages its users to take a photo every day — a format designed to create a daily habit. But only a small number of the app’s users are currently doing so, new estimates from a third-party app intelligence firm indicate. According to research from Sensor Tower, BeReal is demonstrating significant traction across some metrics — it topped 53 million worldwide installs across the App Store and Google Play and has seen its monthly active users jump by 2,254% since January 2022, for example. But only 9% of its active Android installs are opening the app every day as of the third quarter of this year, the firm found.
Active users are a better indication of an app’s adoption than downloads, as many people will install an app out of curiosity to check it out, but then abandon the app if they don’t end up enjoying the experience.
On this front, BeReal is still trailing established social media giants, Sensor Tower says. Today, 9% of BeReal’s active installs on Android (users who downloaded the app and are actively using it) are now launching the app daily. That’s far behind Instagram and TikTok. Instagram leads this category with 39% of its active installs opening the app every day, while TikTok comes in second with 29%. This is followed by Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter at 27%, 26%, 20% and 18%, respectively.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Of course, BeReal proponents point out that the app’s Android adoption is not at the same pace as iOS, as we said in our initial report. With many of its new installs being from young people in the U.S. — where iOS is preferred — this figure may not present a full picture of the app’s current usage. However, it’s a window into a company that’s media-averse, declining to speak to press on the record or share any of its metrics or growth, or even tout its funding. So for now, third-party data is what we have — and, if Android usage can be extrapolated to iOS, it shows that many of BeReal’s users aren’t necessarily everyday addicts. (Yet?)
Elsewhere, another mobile app data firm, 42matters, estimated BeReal’s MAUs on Android were only up by 633% this year, growing from 43,899 MAUs in January to 321,787 MAUs by August 2022. (You can read the full report here on TechCrunch.)
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Image Credits: Apple
Apple launched “Ask Apple,” a new series for app developers that allows them to connect directly with Apple experts for questions about integrating the latest technologies, design, testing and more. The sessions will run from October 17-21 and will include one-on-ones and group Q&As across multiple languages and time zones. To participate, developers will need to be members of either the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications are open and will close on December 5, 2022.The camp supports underrepresented founders and developers and will offer three online cohorts for female, Black or Hispanic/Latinx founders starting in January 2023.
Apple will add 5G support to the iPhone 12, 13 and 14 models in India through an iOS update by December,The Economic Times reported. India’s government is pushing handset makers, like Apple and Samsung, to expedite software upgrades on their phones to make them compatible with local 5G airwaves.
Apple is planning to launch iPadOS 16.1 alongside new hardware including MacBook Pros and new iPads in late October, Bloomberg reported. The iPad software update is expected the week of October 24, the report claims.
As part of Microsoft’s announcements at its Ignite conference this week, Apple will be bringing more of its services, including Apple Music and iCloud storage with the Photos app in Windows 11, to Microsoft’s platforms.
Apple rolled out iOS 16.1 beta 5 and watchOS 9.1 beta 5 to developers and as public betas. It also launched iOS 16.0.3 with fixes for the slow camera launch or slowness in changing camera modes, low microphone volume in CarPlay calls, delayed call and app notifications and more.
Apple owners are reporting their iPhone 14 and Apple Watch’s crash detection features are being triggered by riding roller coasters.
Google approved the Truth Social app on the Play Store after the company updated its moderation policies. The app, which was denied entry in August 2022, said it would agree to enforce some policies around posts inciting violence, in order to gain approval.
E-commerce
TikTok is planning to build its own fulfillment centers in the U.S., Axios reported, citing jobs posts in an effort to scale its e-commerce strategy. The company earlier this year was said to be dropping its live e-commerce “Shop” venture in the U.S., after it failed to gain traction abroad.
Chinese fast fashion retailer Shein has seen its valuation decline from $100 billion+ to $65-85 billion in recent months, FT reports.
Shein parent company, Zoetop, meanwhile has to pay $1.9 million in a fine to New York for a 2018 data breach that impacted 39 million Shein users and 7 million Romwe accounts.
Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts in the Wallet app for Apple Card holders. The accounts can be funded with Daily Cash (cashback) from card purchases or through linked bank account transfers. Support for the accounts will arrive with an iOS update in the “coming months.”
Children’s financial app Greenlight introduced a suite of new family safety features, putting the app in closer competition with services like Life360. A new subscription, Greenlight Infinity, will include family location sharing, SOS and emergency alerts, crash detection with automatic 911 dispatch and more.
Samsung announced its Samsung Wallet will roll out to 13 more markets this year, including Bahrain, Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Vietnam and UAE. The wallet is already available in China, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.
It also announced updates to its TikTok Creator Marketplace, including improved search, new recommendation tech, invite links, improved reportingand tools to anchor app store links or clickable links in comments. TikTok introduced Showtimes on TikTok for movie studios looking to promote films and connect users with ticketing partners, and a new campaign offering called Focused View, where brands only pay when users watch their ad for at least six seconds.
TikTok plans to take action against exploitive begging on its app after a BBC investigation found Syrian refugees pleading for digital gifts from TikTok users.
A U.K. report found that one-third of children between 8 and 17 with social media profiles were using fake ages to make them “adults” on the apps by signing up with fake birth dates.
Instagram expanded its AI-powered age verification program to India and Brazil, which, combined have around 400 million MAUs on the app. The verification program, which began testing in the U.S. earlier this year, runs video selfies through an AI system. Privacy advocates warn the California Age-Appropriate Design Code will lead to more invasive age verification practices like this.
Twitter is now asking users to enter their birthdates to view sensitive content in its app, unless they have already done so and are over 18. The feature has no apparent built-in controls to prevent children lying about their age.
Search-driven advertising has helped Pinterest stock rise 34% from its two-year low in mid-June,Bloomberg reported. This outpaces Meta and Snap, down 22% and 12%, respectively.
Snapchat rolled out its parental controls to users in India through the new in-app Family Center. The launch follows the U.S. debut a couple of months ago, and allows parents to see who their teens are friends with and messaging on the app without being able to read the content of those messages.
Signal announced it will soon be removing SMS support for Android users, explaining that it wants to simplify the experience for users instead of continuing to support two different messaging types in the app.
A report by Rest of World looked into the issues around spam on WhatsApp in India, where users are complaining about receiving too much spam from brands, some of which are using WhatsApp’s own business tools.
WhatsApp is beta testing a feature that allows users to put 1,024 friends into a single group chat.
China’s internet censors have suspended thousands of WeChat accounts and removed posts following a protest in Beijing against “dictator and traitor Xi Jinping,” FT reported.
Streaming & Entertainment
Netflix announced its ad-supported plan will go live next month. The $6.99 per month subscription will arrive in 12 markets to start, initially with Canada and Mexico on November 1 then the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Korea and Brazil on November 3, followed by Spain on November 10.
YouTube announced the launch of “YouTube handles,” a way for creators to identify their channel using the @username format across channel pages, video descriptions, comments and Shorts. The handles will be rolled out gradually, becoming available first to creators with larger subscriber bases, but will ultimately be offered to everyone on YouTube.
NBCU and Meta are partnering to bring VR experiences, including those from the Peacock app and shows like The Office, to its Quest headsets.
Streaming media company Roku launched a new Roku Smart Home mobile app to support its expanded product line that now includes smart home devices like security cameras, video doorbells, smart lights and voice-enabled smart plugs. The devices are available at Roku.com and Walmart.com. A camera subscription service is also offered.
Apple-owned Shazam updated its iOS app to offer users new wallpapers for the iPhone and Apple Watch. The app now includes an “Exclusive Downloads” section where users can customize their iPhone or watch with wallpapers from favorite artists.
Gaming
Harry Potter-themed mobile games have generated a combined $1 billion in player spending globally to date,a report from Sensor Tower indicates. The game with the highest revenue is “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery” from Jam City, which has earned more than $400 million since its April 2018 launch.
A Newzoo gaming report on the habits of Gen Z users found that 70% of Gen Z are interested in socializing in in-game worlds beyond gameplay and 1 in 2 Gen Alpha and Gen Z users are spending money on games, compared with 42% of the total online population.
Apple’s Music app launched on Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. The app is a free download from the Microsoft Store.
In the wake of Stadia’s demise, Google’s new gaming-focused Chromebooks from Acer, Asus and Lenovo will support cloud gaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna.
Meta said its Quest Store has generated $1.5 billion in total revenue to date and that more than one-third of its 400 titles have grossed more than $1 million in sales; 33 titles surpassed $10 million in gross revenue. It also announced the game Among Us will head the Quest 2 platform on November 10.
Health & Fitness
Diet and health coaching app Noom laid off 10% of its workforce, or around 500 people, mostly from its coaching team. The company was valued at $3.7 billion in May 2021.
Productivity
Google Meet added automatic meeting transcriptions and said its companion modewill now work on mobile devices. Also, users with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech can now use adaptive framing.
Google Docs to soon allow users to embed other apps into docs, including those from Asana, Miro, Figma and Tableau.
Microsoft announced a number of new apps and features at its Ignite conference, including a Teams Premium subscription, which includes customized avatars and AI features like Intelligent Recap for meetings; a new app called Places aimed at helping companies address hybrid work challenges; and plans to integrate DALL-E 2 with its new Microsoft Designer app and Image Creator tool.
Utilities
Google’s keyboard app Gboard updated with support for Android tablet layout, which includes easier-to-type on keys and an overall taller keyboard.
Samsung and Google partnered to allow Samsung’s SmartThings app users to onboard Matter-enabled devices even if they’re set up in Google Home and vice versa.
Reading & News
Instapaper rolled out an update, version 8.2 on iOS, that introduced in-article search, text justification and several other design updates. Among the changes, users can now manually add a link from the side menu by tapping on the + icon instead of worrying about clipboard detection prompts — useful, considering iOS has cracked down on apps reading users’ clipboards with an initially buggy security feature.
Security & Privacy
Google rolled out support for signing in with passkeys — a new way to sign in on the web and in apps without using passwords — on Android and Chrome to beta testers. The feature is expected to launch more broadly later this year.
Security researchers discovered that many apps associated with Apple services on iOS 16 send data that bypass users’ VPN connections.
Funding and M&A
Real estate investing app Fintor raised $6.2 million at an $80 million valuation in an extension round from existing investors including Public.com, Hustle Fund, 500 Global, VU Ventures, Graphene Ventures and angel investors such as Manny Khoshbin, Andy Madadian, Cindy Bi and Marcus Ridgway. The app allows non-accredited investors to invest in real estate.
Teen banking app Step borrowed $300 million in debt financing led by Triplepoint Capital and Evolve Bank & Trust. To date, the company has raised $500 million in equity and debt. Last year, Step raised a Series C equity round from investors including Coatue, Stripe and angels such as Charli D’Amelio and Jared Leto. The app will also now expand into crypto.
Paris-based Homa, which offers an SDK to indie mobile game studios, raised $100 million in Series B funding, led by Quadrille Capital and Headline. The SDK offers tools for tracking metrics in order to improve session and retention times, along with other A/B testing tools.
Cairo-based fintech app Telda raised $20 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital and Global Founders Capital, with Block also participating. The app offers money management, payments and offers a Mastercard-powered card. The company has onboarded 25,000 users and has a waitlist of 110,000.
London-based GoHenry, a digital banking app aimed at kids, raised £49 million+ ($55 million) in Series B funding. The company said 2021 revenue grew 55% year-over-year to £30.5 million, with losses up 20x year-over-year. The startup claims to have 2 million users.
Lego parent company Kirkbi is acquiring the U.S. edtech company Brainpop,which makes short educational videos for kids, for $875 million. Brainpop’s videos, available online and through its apps, reached around 25 million children per year across two-thirds of U.S. school districts.
Downloads
Yonder
Image Credits: Naver
Naver, the parent company behind Webtoon and Wattpad reading apps reaching a combined 200 million monthly users, has launched a new app called Yonder, a serialized fiction platform. The app aims to attract both those who are already avid consumers of serialized fiction as well as those new to the space but looking for a more premium experience without ads or distractions.
At launch, Yonder will include hundreds of titles and exclusives from authors like romance author Ivy Smoak (The Hunted Series), bestsellers P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (House of Night) and fantasy author Ruby Dixon, along with titles from publishers including Blackstone Publishing, Aetheon, Sterling and Stone, Portal Books and Wraithmarked. Unlike Naver’s Wattpad and Webtoon app, where anyone can contribute, Yonder’s stories are curated.
To monetize, the app will offer users the ability to explore and read several chapters for free, then unlock the rest of the story using virtual coins purchased in-app. The app will be available on Android and soon, iOS.
Members of the European Parliament have lodged complaints against three tech giants, Amazon, Google and Meta, with the EU’s Transparency Register — aka, the oversight process that’s intended to track lobbying activity aimed at the bloc’s lawmakers — accusing the trio of breaching the lobbying transparency rules by using smaller front organizations to press their interests opaquely.
The complaints, which were reported earlier by Politico and Bloomberg, also take aim at a series of tech industry associations and lobby groups — including a number whose names imply they represent the interests of startups and small businesses — that the MEPs allege have been involved in a Big Tech astroturfing operation targeted at two major pieces of EU digital regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), per documents we’ve reviewed.
Tech trade association the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), online ad industry body the IAB Europe, and SME and startup lobby groups Allied for Startups, SME Connect and the Connected Commerce Council (3C) are also named in the astroturfing complaints — which have been filed by three social-democrat lawmakers: Paul Tang, René Rapsi and Christel Schaldemose.
The MEPs are calling for the accused tech giants’ access to the European Parliament to be revoked if their complaints are upheld. We understand nine complaints have been filed in total (two targeting Google).
Deceiving lawmakers with fake lobby groups harms the democratic process. That’s why @SchaldemoseMEP@repasi and I tabled complaints triggering official investigations. If proven, access to parliament for involved Big Tech companies needs to be denied https://t.co/x9Z1hL7VsF
While the DSA and the DMA have both now been adopted, the EU lawmakers remain concerned about the impact on future digital policymaking if non-transparent Big Tech policy influenceOps are not rooted out.
The MEPs’ complaints follow a report back in April, compiled by civil society groups Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness using freedom of information requests, that revealed how a raft of tech giants sought to influence the two major EU digital policy files — spending big on pushing self-interested amendments to the (then) draft regulations.
Some of this Big Tech lobbying activity included injecting detailed suggestions into late-stage closed-door policy discussions between EU institutions — presenting lawmakers with suggested wording for amendments aimed at watering down provisions that directly threaten their interests — such as in areas like tracking-based advertising. (In the event, the DSA and DMA were passed with some restrictions on tracking-based advertising, though not the outright ban a number of MEPs had been pushing for.)
The complaints also cite a Medium post by Georg Riekeles — a Brussels-based director of the European Policy Centre think tank (which lists a few tech giants as members itself) and a former EU official himself — who warned this summer that: “As the EU debated the DSA and DMA package, front groups and other forms of hidden lobbying were swarming. I dare say never before had Brussels seen efforts at such a scale and with such brazenness. Many of practices deployed are not only totally out of line with the established code of conduct in interest representation but also with the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.”
“As public scrutiny and research uncovered in the case of ‘Big Tobacco’, outsized vested interests create ecosystems of thought and influence to manipulate civil society and policymakers,” Riekeles’ blog post went on. “At this point, Big Tech’s interference strategies need to be systematically monitored, and actions taken to counter them. The EU’s capacity to act in defence of fundamental interests starts with the independence and transparency of EU institutions but requires also a wider societal ecosystem of tech control.”
Systematic monitoring of Big Tech lobbying is exactly what the EU lacks, the MEPs’ complaints suggest, as transparency rules that are intended to spotlight corporate lobbying are being systematically circumvented by the use of a sprawling network of third parties funded by (or otherwise press-ganged into alignment with) well-resourced tech giants in order to project their interests by making their talking points resemble a grassroots lobbying campaign, rather than what is actually behind the effort: Gigantic self-interest.
Such astroturfing tactics very obviously erode accountability and subvert democracy — enabling the corporate interests with the deepest pockets and greatest market power to build the most potent influence operations, by expanding the reach and interconnectedness of their third party networks through which they can channel and amplify their lobbying firepower while keeping their own brand name ‘clean’ at a safe distance.
A couple of lobby campaigns cited in the complaints — one called ‘Targeting Startups‘ (which is now busy taking aim at a fresh EU digital policy proposal, the Data Act); and a second called the ‘Coalition for Digital Ads of SMEs‘, which ostensibly promoted small business interests in tracking-based advertising — are shown in one of the documents as not themselves registered in the EU transparency register but having a long list of backers/funders; some of which are in the transparency register (including some entities that list Big Tech entities as their members/backers), while others are not, so their funding sources are not declared.
“You can only get an access badge for EU institutions [as a lobbyist] if you are registered [in the transparency register]. But as Google, Amazon and Meta are in the register they have agreed to abide by the codes of conduct. And the codes demand all registrees to not obstruct the register itself as well. So having another organization lobbying on their behalf is obstructing,” Tang told us, explaining how transparency concerns arise from this interlinked mesh of declared and non-declared interests lobbying EU policymakers.
“What we are dealing with here is all kinds of branch organizations / national organizations / EU lobby organizations etc, that are actively promoting the narrative coming from Big Tech — and the only thing we know is that someone called the 3C contacts us and if we look them up in the transparency register they are not connected to anyone,” he added.
TechCrunch contacted the three tech firms named in the MEPs’ complaints for comment.
At the time of writing, Meta had not responded. But Amazon and Google denied any breach of the EU lobbying rules.
Here are their statements:
A Google spokesperson: “Transparency and openness are important values for Google in how it engages with the EU Institutions. For several years we have included extensive information on our lobbying activities in the transparency register. We are committed to transparent engagement and declare our sponsorship and partnerships with various organisations in a comprehensive list on the register’s website. Our partnership with the Connected Commerce Council is clearly and transparently listed on our declaration.”
An Amazon spokesperson: “In the EU, Amazon has not asked the Connected Commerce Council to lobby on the DMA, DSA or any other European legislation. Amazon does not work with the Connected Commerce Council in Europe.”
Amazon did confirm it works with 3C in the US — where the association’s website lists both Amazon and Google as “corporate partners”, and goes on to claim the pair “invest in supporting small businesses and provide several free and low-cost digital tools that help small business leaders run and grow their business” — but the ecommerce giant’s response essentially rejects the notion that any of its activity with 3C in the US trickles across to the EU arm of the same organization. (Its spokesman declined to comment on our questions about that.)
We also contacted the five industry groups referenced in the MEPs’ complaint.
Four had responded at press time and they also denied any wrongdoing — with several flagging their listings in the transparency register as if the existence of a listing is itself a badge of compliance.
Allied for Startups’ Inés Moreno-Alonso said: “Allied for Startups is proud to be a member supported organisation made up of over 40 not for profit independent startup associations who represent entrepreneurs and innovation globally. Our policy priorities are defined in our mandate, which is voted on annually by all of these members and is clearly laid out in our bylaws. We have been listed in the transparency register since 2015 and fully comply with EU lobbying rules.”
While 3C’s executive director, Rob Retzlaff, told us it was investigated earlier this year by the register — but said the procedure closed in June without sanction.
“We received an inquiry from the Transparency Register in March 2022, we responded, and as of June 2, 2022, the case was closed, and our filing is accurate and to the satisfaction of the Transparency Register,” he said.
The 3C lobby group’s listing in the EU transparency register lists it as a US non-profit trade and business organization, with an address in Washington DC — and a claimed “single goal… to promote small businesses’ access to essential digital technologies and tools”.
No members are listed for 3C’s European operation, nor any memberships of any other organizations, but its listing states that its estimated annual costs listing also states that, as of 5/1/22, it is “no longer advocating with respect to EU policy” — a timing that shows the lobby operation wrapping up shortly after political agreements on the detail of the DMA and DSA had been secured, the latter by late April.
CCIA Europe and the IAB Europe also denied that expressing some public support for the aforementioned Targeting Startups campaign constituted any kind of EU transparency rule violation.
A CCIA Europe spokesperson told us:
“CCIA Europe values transparency and adheres to the code of conduct that regulates the EU policy making process. CCIA has been a voluntary signatory to the EU Transparency Register since its launch more than a decade ago.
As is common practice for any Brussels-based industry association, CCIA Europe is regularly approached to co-sign joint letters or statements, usually together with dozens of other stakeholders.
CCIA’s involvement with Targeting Startups has been limited to a few joint statements that included many signatories. At no point was CCIA involved in the internal workings of Targeting Startups, nor have we ever supported them financially.”
NB: The CCIA Europe lists Amazon, Google and Meta (among other tech giants) on its member page.
The IAB Europe also sent us this statement:
“IAB Europe joined some of the publicly communicated actions within a ‘Targeting Startups’ coalition, but the suggestion that IAB Europe would pretend to represent anyone other than its own members is absurd. We would need to see the purported complaints to comment further.”
The IAB Europe also lists the Big Tech trio — Amazon, Google and Meta — in its more sprawling member directory. So its straw-man line that it “would pretend to represent anyone other than its own members” is, in this context, certainly absurd.
Update: SME Connect has also responded to our request for comment. In a statement it told us:
“In SME Connect we believe in collaborative efforts and evidence based policy making and will continue representing views of SME’s in the EU policy debates.
We are organised as a network which brings together over 27 organizations across Europe and gives them a platform to engage issues in Brussels. This includes Friends of SMEs which allow supportive large companies to come together and engage with SME Connect members.
SME Connect is registered in EU Transparency Register.
Coalition for Digital Ads of SMEs (CDA) has been established by 14 organizations that represent a common position on the topic of digital advertisement. CDA has always been transparent about being part of SME Connect.”
In recent years, the EU has emerged as the global center of digital policymaking as regional lawmakers have managed to achieve some form of consensus on a flurry of major regulations — at a time when their lawmaking counterparts over the pond (and in the UK) have, all-too-often, been thwarted by domestic disagreement or other political distractions on how to regulate the Internet.
That means that Brussels has become a major target for Big Tech lobbying, with a report last year finding hundreds of companies, groups and business associations shelling out a total of €97M (~$115M) annually to try to influence EU institutions — with ten tech giants accounting for a third of that (declared) spend (a list led by Google and Facebook/Meta).
However, as that report pointed out, astroturfing tactics indicate that Big Tech’s real lobbying budget is far greater than that as funds are distributed and deployed to scores of less known third parties that tech giants have links to. So robust investigation of tech giants’ long-reach influence networks does look like essential work for upholding democratic accountability.
While Meta is trying to convince consumers to strap on its VR headsets to enter the metaverse, Google continues to experiment with a different sort of false reality: its holographic video chat project known as Project Starline. Announced last year, Project Starline is a video-calling booth that uses 3D imagery, high-resolution cameras, custom depth sensor sensors and a breakthrough light field display to create a lifelike experience for callers on both sides of the screen — and all without a required headset. Now, Google says it’s expanding its real-world tests with an early access program that will see Starline used in the offices of various enterprise partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health.
Google will begin installing Project Starline prototypes in select partner offices for regular testing starting later this year, it noted.
Until now, the 3D calling booths were found in Google’s offices in the U.S. where employees were able to test them for things like meetings, employee onboarding sessions, and more. The company had also invited more than 100 enterprise partners in areas like media, healthcare and retail to demo the technology in its offices and offer their feedback about the experience.
With the launch of the new early access program, those partners will be able to test the calling booths in their own offices, providing Google with valuable feedback and insights about how such a technology would be used in the real world and what sort of challenges it may face.
Those who have been able to test Project Starline have described the experience as being incredibly realistic and an impressive technology, even in its early phases.
But there have been questions about to what extent Starline would ever exist beyond being a very cool tech demo, versus a technology that would eventually become a part of office workers’ — much less consumers’ — everyday lives. It’s unclear if Google has a plan to actually commercialize the tech, what these calling booths would cost businesses to either purchase and maintain, and whether or not there’s enough demand for the technology in a world where Zoom and Google Meet are considered “good enough” solutions for virtual meetings. (Plus, they can support more than the one-on-one conversations Starline offers.)
In addition, Project Starline’s long-term status at Google has been unknown as the project was wrapped up into a reorg a year ago that saw Google relocating its various AR and VR technologies, along with its internal R&D group known as Area 120, into a new “Labs” team. This September, Google then slashed the number of projects in Area 120 by half — an indication that it may not see these sorts of experiments as priorities in the current economic environment. Even some Googlers were not sure how Project Starline was still around, given the situation.
Still, Starline’s tech is an interesting bet on a different kind of “virtual” reality — one where people aren’t represented with gaming-like avatars, but rather as their real selves. Instead of developing tech that uses cameras to track eye and face movements to make avatars more realistic, as Meta is now doing, or figuring out how to add legs to your in-VR body, Google is working to present a person as they are — and without the additional encumbrance of having to wear something on your head.
Meanwhile, as more businesses are trying to figure out the hybrid future of work model, technology like Starline could bridge the gap between in-person meetings and the less-idea 2D video chat experience we have today.
Partners like WeWork and Salesforce spoke of their interest in trying out the tech, which they believe could help make connections between people more meaningful.
“In today’s digital-first world, companies need to provide the technology and tools to help employees be more productive and effective at work,” Andy White, SVP of Business Technology at Salesforce, said in a statement. “At Salesforce, we’re constantly exploring new ways to deliver incredible experiences to our employees and customers around the world. Project Starline has the potential to drive deeper connections between people by bridging in-person and virtual experiences.”
Google says it will share more about what it learns from its early access program next year.
Epic Games and Match Group are looking to fortify their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their initial complaint, filed last year, which illustrate the lengths Google supposedly went to in order to dominate the Android app market. The companies on Friday filed a motion to amend their complaints in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid off business rivals not to start other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. This would be a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states.
Epic Games and Match Group had originally detailed Google’s plans in a filing last year, where they detailed a Google program known as “Project Hug,” or later, the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.” This effort was focused on paying game developers hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to keep their games on the Google Play Store, it had said.
The program itself had arrived following Epic Games’release of Fortnite outside Google Play in 2018, where it bypassed Google’s marketplace fees. (The game later returned to Google Play in April 2020 until being removed for allowing users to bypass Google’s fees when making in-app purchases.) Google, at the time, had been concerned that Epic may choose to partner with an OEM like Samsung for a preinstall deal. It also worried that other companies might follow Epic’s lead, leading a new wave of alternative Android app stores.
The project had been said to involve helping the developers with additional promotions, resources and investments, and was deemed a success as Google signed deals with many of Project Hug’s targets, including Activision Blizzard.
Now, Epic Games and Match Group are looking to add to their complaint with two new allegations specifying how Google had either paid or otherwise induced its potential competitors to agree to not distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competing app stores. Google, it says, had identified developers who were “most at risk…of attrition from Play” and then approached them with an offer of an agreement.
The complaint now deems this a “per se” violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations,” it says.
Essentially, what this means is that the acts the companies are accusing Google of are so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal, and that no defense or justification on Google’s part should be allowed. Typically, per se violations include “plain agreements among competing businesses to fix prices, divide markets or rig bids,” the FTC explains.
Google, of course, has a different take on the matter.
The company last July filed a counterclaim against Match, saying the dating app giant is trying to use its services for free. Google says now that Epic had known about these agreements since the filing of its amended complaint in July 2021 and now wants to add new allegations without attaching or citing new evidence. It also claims that programs like “Project Hug” are a sign of healthy competition between platforms and app stores, not antitrust violations.
“Epic and Match are adding more inaccurate claims to their failing lawsuits and we’re looking forward to setting the record straight in court,” a Google spokesperson said, in a statement. “The program on which Epic and Match base their claims simply provides incentives for developers to give benefits and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content; it does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as they allege. In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous rivals for developers, who have a number of choices for operating systems and app stores,” they added.
Meetings — nobody wants them but everybody has them. So for those times when you’re in a meeting but mostly just surfing the web, it’s nice to have a transcript to make sure you didn’t miss that one important nugget of information that actually pertains to your job. Google knows this, so the company today announced that it is bringing automatic meeting transcriptions to its Meet video conferencing service.
Until now, you needed a third-party service like Otter to record and transcribe your call for you. Now it’s a built-in service. The new feature is now available for meetings in English, with support for French, German, Spanish and Portuguese coming in 2023.
Microsoft Teams, of course, started offering a similar feature for meetings in English more than a year ago. Given Google’s experience with other speech-to-text services like its Assistant or the Android Recorder app, it’s a bit odd that it took this long to add this to Meet, but better late than never.
Google’s overall implementation is still a bit basic, too. The feature will dump the transcript in Google Docs and for now, that’s it. Google noted, though, that having transcripts will also allow it to offer analytics and other features based on these recordings, but for now, it’s not launching any of those.
In addition to transcripts, Google also today announced that Meet’s companion mode now works on mobile and that users with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech can now use adaptive framing so that the speaker is always positioned nicely within a frame.
Google Chat, Google’s Slack competitor, is also getting a few new features that you may remember from Slack, including custom emojis, one-way broadcast spaces to blast information to the entire team or company without having to worry about inept comments and inline threaded conversations. Basically, Google is trying to catch up with Slack and reminding people that Chat exists.
Google today announced its plans for a major expansion of its physical Google Cloud infrastructure. The company plans to launch new Google Cloud regions in six new countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Norway, South Africa and Sweden. That’s on top of the regions in Milan, Paris, Madrid, Columbus and Dallas the company already announced and plans to bring online in 2023.
With these six new regions, Google Cloud’s footprint will expand to 41 regions. And maybe that’s no surprise. As more countries (and regions) get serious about data sovereignty, all of the major cloud providers will have to offer local regions in order to be competitive — and the software tools and controls to ensure that data stays in those regions, too. And while Google Cloud was notoriously slow to expand beyond its first core regions at first, the company has invested heavily in new data centers and the infrastructure to connect them in recent years.
Google Workspace, the company’s set of productivity tools most recently known as G Suite, is getting a major update at the company’s Cloud Next conference this week. This includes quite a few customer-facing features, but maybe even more importantly, Google is using this occasion to open up Workspace with new integrations and developer tools that expand the overall Workspace ecosystem well beyond the walls of Google’s own services.
It’s worth noting that Google already allowed for some integrations before. You’re likely familiar with add-one in Gmail, for example. But now Google argues that it is taking its “biggest steps yet in making Google Workspace the most open and extensible platform for users,” as the company described it in its press materials.
One of the ways it is doing that is by opening up its smart chips — those links to other documents, people and other information (and their respective pop-ups when you hover over those links) you can add by typing “@” in a Google Doc — to third-party vendors. With today’s launch, Google partnered with the likes of AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro and Tableau, all of which are already building integrations.
Image Credits: Google
Also new are a set of APIs for both Chat and Meet that will allow third-party developers to add functions like starting meetings or initiating meetings from their apps. Asana and LumApps are the launch partners here. These new APIs, as well as all of the other ones mentioned below, will become available in early 2023.
Also new is a Meet add-on SDK that will allow developers to integrate their apps right into Meet. Figma, for example, will allow teams to collaborate on designs this way and FigJam is bringing its collaborative whiteboard to Meet through this.
For those who want to build their own integrations, Google is launching a new integration with AppSheet so that anyone can use Google no-code tool to build integrations with Google Chat.
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