“Billion Dollar Bully” Yelp Keeps Pressure On Businesses

Despite bad publicity and lawsuits, Yelp continues to tank ratings in order to punish those who won’t advertise.

By Art Keller | February 5, 2020 | Advertising, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Food, Law | Advertising, Billion Dollar Bully, Bullying, Communications Decency Act, Conflict of Interest, David Balto, Davide Cerretini, Dining, Documentaries, Eric Goldman, Extortion, Food, FTC, Harvard Business Review, Kaylie Milliken, Levitt v. Yelp, Marketing, Ratings, Restaurants, Reviews, Section 230, Vince Sollitto, Yelp, Yelp Exposed

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Podcast #32: Josh Golin on Marketing to Kids

Josh Golin, Executive Director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, fights a metastasizing marketing machine that has swept kids into its orbit of consumerism and surveillance.

By Mo Lotman | June 19, 2019 | Advertising, Community, Culture, Education, Ethics, Family, Law, Media, Podcasts, Privacy, Psychology | Activism, Advertising, Alexa, Amazon, Baby Einstein, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Children, Citizenship, Commercials, Community, Consumerism, Critical Thinking, Digital Nanny, Disney, Echo Dot for Kids, Ed-Tech, Edward Markey, Environment, Fast Food, Hello Barbie, Internet, iPads, Josh Hawley, Marketing, Mattel, Movement Building, Obesity, Pornography, Schools, Scree-Free Week, Screen Time Action Network, Screens, Smartphones, surveillance, Technology in Schools, TV, Violence, YouTube

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Podcast #28: Jonathan Taplin on Internet Aggregators

Jonathan Taplin, former music and film professional, tells first-hand what the new rentier economy of Internet aggregators like Google and Facebook has done to the creative arts, journalism, and democracy.

By Mo Lotman | March 13, 2019 | Advertising, Culture, Economics, Journalism, Law, Media, Podcasts, Politics, Society | Addiction, Advertising, Amazon, Annenberg Innovation Lab, Antitrust, Art, Automation, Bing, Bodycams, Cambridge Analytica, Campaign Finance, China, Civil War, Consumers, Copyright, Creative Fields, Decentralization, Democracy, Digitization, Dystopia, Eric Garcetti, Europe, Fake News, Federal Government, GDPR, Google Facebook, Head Tax, Infrastructure, Internet, Jeff Bezos, John Seely Brown, Journalism, LA Times, Larry Page, Law, Levon Helm, Local News, Localism, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Luther King, Middle Class, Musicians, New York Times, Newspapers, Parking Apps, Peter Thiel, Photography, Privacy, Producers, Recommendations, Record Business, Robert Bork, Roger McNamee, Royalties, Safe Harbor, Search Engine, Social Credit, Social Networking, State Politics, surveillance, The Band, The Last Waltz, The Weight, Throat Cancer, Tim Berners-Lee, Tristan Harris, Vint Cerf, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Watchdog Role, Winner-Take-All, Yelp, YouTube

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What Facebook Knows

We’ve long known Facebook is selling our data to advertisers in a vague sense; now we can see what they’re hoarding and who’s buying.

By Art Keller | August 21, 2018 | Advertising, Economics, Ethics, Media, Privacy | Advertisers, Advertising, Alec Sears, Brad Bauer, Browser Fingerprint, Browser Sniffing, Cambridge Analytica, Compass, Credit Agencies, Dan Nainan, Data, Data Brokers, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Jessica Scherlag, Logan Abbott, Pete Zaborsky, Privacy Badger, Social Media, Spear-Phishing, surveillance

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Podcast #19: Tim Kasser Talks Materialism

Tim Kasser has spent over two decades studying the relationship between materialism and well-being. As it turns out, they don’t always go together.

By Mo Lotman | August 15, 2018 | Advertising, Cognition, Community, Environment, Media, Podcasts, Psychology, Relationships, Society, Well-Being | Advertising, Behavior, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Education, Extrinsic Values, Hedonism, Intrinsic Values, Mastery, Materialism, Media, Spirituality, The Values Circumplex, Values, Well-Being

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Geofencing: Corporate Surveillance in the Real World

Geofencing is the way corporations and advertisers track your every move–literally.

By Isabel Sterne | August 8, 2018 | Advertising, Economics, Privacy | Advertising, Android, Apps, Geofencing, iOS, Location Tracking, Marketing, Privacy, Smartphones, surveillance, Tracking, Urban Outfitters

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Q&A with David Sax, Author of The Revenge of Analog

Our own Art Keller chats with author David Sax about the themes in his book The Revenge of Analog.

By Art Keller | July 25, 2018 | Culture, Journalism, Media, Psychology, Publishing, Society, Well-Being | Advertising, Analog, Board Games, Books, Cameras, CDs, Choice, David Sax, Digital Technology, eBooks, Education, Embodiment, Film, Food Service, Gaming Culture, iPads, Magazines, Newspapers, Physicality, Presence, Print Media, Records, Smartphones, Social Disconnection, Tangible, The Paradox of Choice, Third Space, vinyl, Virtual Reality

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He Started #DeleteFacebook… Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago, three artists created a controversial site to make a statement about Facebook’s practices. The company sued and accused them of scraping data. Oh, the irony.

By Art Keller | April 11, 2018 | Culture, Ethics, Law, Media, Privacy | Advertising, Apps, Art, Bits of Freedom, Cambridge Analytica, Chris Wylie, Congress, Danja Vasiliev, Dark Patterns, Data Scraping, Data-Mining, Deleting Accounts, Developers, Digital Art, Edward Snowden, EFF, Facebook, Fraud, Gordan Savicic, Manipulation, Mark Zuckerberg, Moddr, Privacy, Privacy Zuckering, Social Commentary, Social Media, Tobias Leingruber, Twitter, Walter Langelaar, Web Suicide Machine

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For Yelp, Extortion Has a Starring Role

Yelp uses the power of its rating system to bully small businesses into buying their expensive advertising; if they decline, so do their ratings.

By Art Keller | August 23, 2017 | Advertising, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Food, Law | Advertising, Alia Meddeb, Better Business Bureau, Billion Dollar Bully, Bullying, Dining, Documentaries, Extortion, Food, FTC, Google Reviews, Janie Gilarde, Kaylie Milliken, Marketing, Morocco, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, North African Cuisine, Ratings, Restaurants, Reviews, Rod Brant, Tunisia, Yelp

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The Suicide Algorithm: Facebook’s Self-Appointed Role in Mental Health

Facebook’s invasive attempts to identify suicidal individuals, while collecting revenue from advertisers targeting them, may do more harm than good.

By Lucy Uprichard | June 28, 2017 | Advertising, Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Health, Media, Prediction, Psychology | Advertising, AI, Algorithms, Anxiety, Artificial Intelligence, Care, Community, Depression, Facebook, Forums, Health Care, Insecurity, Intervention, Medicine, Mental Health, Profiling, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide, The Australian, The Guardian, Therapy, Trust, Vice

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