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Month: January 2019

Ethereum Hackathon ETHDenver Partners With UNICEF on Blockchain Bounty System

Ethereum Hackathon ETHDenver Partners With UNICEF on Blockchain Bounty System

  

Upcoming Ethereum (ETH) hardware hackathon ETHDenver is partnering with UNICEF

on a blockchain bounty token system, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Jan. 31. The token aims to incentivize developers to create projects which promote social good, the press release notes.

ETHDenver — set to take place February 15-17 in Denver, Colorado — has partnered with UNICEF Ventures, UNICEF France and ETH startup Bounties Network on the prototype for what it calls a “positive action token,” the firm stated in the press release. While the token is yet to have a name — indeed, its creators are appealing to ETHDenver attendees to contribute to finding one — it forms part of an incentivization program dubbed “The Impact Track.” As ETHDenver Diversity and Impact Steward Nick Rodrigues has outlined, the program encourages developers to think systematically about the positive social impact of a given piece of

technical innovation:

“For example, if someone had a project where they happened to develop a way to shard more efficiently which therefore required less energy consumption, they would be meeting a sustainable development goal.”

As a non-monetary, value-driven community coin, the token cannot be redeemed for fiat currency, as the organizers report. Instead, users can use their tokens to get early access to future UNICEF and Impact Track events, mentorship sessions, incubator-style support, and similar offerings. ETHDenver has also pitched the token as “digital public acknowledgement of positive actions.”

In a separate blog post published Jan. 30, ETHDenver and blockchain startup MakerDAO (MKR) — creator of the Ethereum-collateralized stablecoin Dai (DAI) — have also announced the creation of an ETHDenver pop-up token economy based on an ephemeral “localcoin.” Hackathon attendees will reportedly each be issued with a unique “xDai” wallet, which runs on their phone’s default web browser and is pre-loaded with the localcoin, dubbed “buffiDai.” The coin is pegged to the Dai and redeemable for food, drinks and activities at the event, the blog post reports.

As previously reported, the positive action token represents just one of UNICEF’s many forays into the blockchain space. Last month, the UNICEF Innovation Fund announced it would be investing $100,000 in six early stage and open-source blockchain companies working toward humanitarian goals. In February of last year, the organization appealed to PC gamers to use their computers to mine ETH and donate their earnings to a charity campaign for Syrian children.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-hackathon-ethdenver-partners-with-unicef-on-blockchain-bounty-system

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Apple bans Facebook’s Research app that paid users for data

Apple bans Facebook’s Research app that paid users for data

  

In the wake of TechCrunch’s investigation yesterday,

Apple blocked Facebook’s Research VPN app before the social network could voluntarily shut it down. The Research app asked users for root network access to all data passing through their phone in exchange for $20 per month. Apple tells TechCrunch that yesterday evening it revoked the Enterprise Certificate that allows Facebook to distribute the Research app without going through the App Store.

TechCrunch had reported that Facebook was breaking Apple’s policy that the Enterprise system is only for distributing internal corporate apps to employees, not paid external testers. That was actually before Facebook released a statement last night saying that it had shut down the iOS version of the Research program without mentioning that it was forced by Apple to do so.

TechCrunch’s investigation discovered that Facebook has been quietly operated the Research program on iOS and Android since 2016, recently under the name Project Atlas. It recruited 13 to 35 year olds, 5 percent of which were teenagers, with ads on Instagram and Snapchat and paid them a monthly fee plus referral bonuses to install Facebook’s Research app, the included VPN app that routes traffic to Facebook, and to ‘Trust’ the company with root network access to their phone. That lets Facebook pull in a user’s web browsing activity, what apps are on their phone and how they use them, and even decrypt their encrypted traffic. Facebook went so far as to ask users to screenshot and submit their Amazon order history. Facebook uses all this data to track competitors, assess trends, and plan its product roadmap.

Facebook was forced to remove its similar Onavo Protect app in August last year after Apple changed its policies to prohibit the VPN app’s data collection practices. But Facebook never shut down the Research app with the same functionality it was running in parallel. In fact, TechCrunch commissioned security expert Will Strafach to dig into the Facebook Research app, and we found that it featured tons of similar code and references to Onavo Protect. That means Facebook was purposefully disobeying the spirit of Apple’s 2018 privacy policy change while also abusing the Enterprise Certificate program.

Sources tell us that Apple revoking Facebook’s Enterprise Certificate has broken all of the company’s legitimate employee-only apps. Those include pre-launch internal-testing versions of Facebook and Instagram, as well as the employee apps for coordinating office collaboration, commutes, seeing the day’s lunch schedule, and more. That’s causing mayhem at Facebook, disrupting their daily work flow and ability to do product development. We predicted yesterday that Apple could take this drastic step to punish Facebook much harder than just removing its Research app. The disruption will translate into a huge loss of productivity for Facebook’s 33,000 employees.

For reference, Facebook’s main iOS app still functions normally. Also, you can’t get paid for installing Onavo Protect on Android, only for the Facebook Research app. And Facebook isn’t the only one violating Apple’s Enterprise Certificate policy, as TechCrunch discovered Google’s Screenwise Meter surveillance app breaks the rules too. This morning, Apple informed us it had banned Facebook’s Research app yesterday before the social network seemingly pulled it voluntarily. Apple provided us with this strongly worded statement condemning the social network’s behavior:

“We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”

That comes in direct contradiction to Facebook’s initial response to our investigation. Facebook claimed it was in alignment with Apple’s Enterprise Certificate policy and that the program was no different than a focus group. Seven hours later, a Facebook spokesperson said it was pulling its Research program from iOS without mentioning that Apple forced it to do so, and issued this statement disputing the characterization of our story:

“Key facts about this market research program are being ignored. Despite early reports, there was nothing ‘secret’ about this; it was literally called the Facebook Research App. It wasn’t ‘spying’ as all of the people who signed up to participate went through a clear on-boarding process asking for their permission and were paid to participate. Finally, less than 5 percent of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental consent forms.”

We refute those accusations by Facebook. As we wrote yesterday night, Facebook did not publicly promote the Research VPN itself and used intermediaries that often didn’t disclose Facebook’s involvement until users had begun the signup process. While users were given clear instructions and warnings, the program never stresses nor mentions the full extent of the data Facebook can collect through the VPN. A small fraction of the users paid may have been teens, but we stand by the newsworthiness of its choice not to exclude minors from this data collection initiative.

Senator Mark Warner has since called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to support legislation requiring individual informed consent for market research initiatives like Facebook Research. Meanwhile, Senator Richard Blumenthal issued a fierce statement that “Wiretapping teens is not research, and it should never be permissible.”

The situation will surely worsen the relationship between Facebook and Apple after years of mounting animosity between the tech giants. Apple’s Tim Cook has repeatedly criticized Facebook’s data collection practices, and Zuckerberg has countered that it offers products for free for everyone rather than making products few can afford like Apple. Flared tensions could see Facebook receive less promotion in the App Store, fewer integrations into iOS, and more jabs from Cook. Meanwhile, the world sees Facebook as having been caught red-handed threatening user privacy and breaking Apple policy.

Article Produced By
Josh Constine

Editor-At-Large

Josh Constine is a technology journalist who specializes in deep analysis of social products. He is currently an Editor-At-Large for TechCrunch and is available for speaking engagements. Previously, Constine was the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook through its acquisition by WebMediaBrands, covering everything about the social network. Constine graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a Master's degree in Cybersociology, examining the influence of technology on social interaction. He researched the impact of privacy controls on the socialization of children, meme popularity cycles, and what influences the click through rate of links posted to Twitter.

Constine also received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Stanford University in 2007, with a concentration in Social Psychology & Interpersonal Processes. Josh Constine is an experienced public speaker, and has moderated over 120 on-stage interviews in 15 countries with leaders including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whistleblower Edward Snowden (via on-stage video conference), and U.S. Senator Cory Booker. He is available to moderate panels and fireside chats, deliver keynotes, and judge hackathon and pitch competitions. Constine has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, The Atlantic, BBC World Magazine, Slate, and more, plus has been featured on television on Good Morning, America, The Today Show, China Central Television, and Fox News. Constine is ranked as the #1 most cited tech journalist on prestigious news aggregator Techmeme.

[Disclosures: Josh Constine temporarily advised a college friend's social location-sharing startup codenamed 'Signal' that was based in San Francisco before dissolving in 2015. This advising role was cleared with AOL and TechCrunch's editors and has concluded. Constine's fiancée Andee Gardiner co-founded startup accelerator Founders Embassy. Constine's cousin Darren Lachtman is the founder of influencer advertising startup Niche that was acquired by Twitter, and he's since left and founded teen content studio Brat. Constine does not write about Founders Embassy or Brat. Constine has personal acquaintances stemming from college housing circa 2007 with founders at Skybox Imaging (now Terra Bella), Hustle, Snapchat, and Robinhood, but does not maintain close social ties with them nor does that influence his writing. Constine occasionally does paid speaking engagements at conferences, but only those funded by companies he does not cover. Constine owns a small position in Ethereum and Bitcoin cryptocurrencies, does not day-trade, and discloses his positions directly in articles where appropriate. Constine does not do consulting, angel investing, or public stock trading beyond public stock invesments by his parents' estate that he has no role in managing or advising.]

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/apple-bans-facebook-vpn/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Do you want to own a portion of Markethive?

Do you want to own a portion of Markethive?

Seriously, we have built Markethive to be member driven, not investor driven. Investor driven takes the benefits of the system and is driven away from the user. We are focused on the alternate outcome, you having access to the major benefits in both the functions as well as the inevitable success.

We have made this possible by making one of the benefits of the Entrepreneur program an accrual for you to earn back more than 100% of what you pay into it as shares in the revenue of Markethive.

So we have 2 revenue funding options within Markethive. The traditional crowdfunding using an ICO like system called the ILP. Frankly, the ILP is far more fair, legal and effective as it is based on the revenue of a successful company. So an investor can purchase an ILP or many ILPs that are now in phase 2 and selling for $15,000 per and each represents one share at a maximum of 1000 shares of 20% of Markethive’s revenue.

The Entrepreneur program gives you 8 solid advantages above the core of the system, the Inbound Marketing platform and social network.

The 8 points of upgrade
 

  1. Profile Page turns into lead “associates” capture page

  2. 100% matching bonus from the airdrops via your “associates”

  3. 10% matching bonus from your direct “associates” upgrade

  4. Loyalty Program 12 straight months, we contribute to you a full 10% ILP*

  5. Unlimited Banner advertisement in all of our traffic portals

  6. Equal share from Markethive’s co-op advertising

  7. Traffic Portals seller classification

  8. Receive their own ILP site receive matching ILP shadow shares

*This article is intended to concentrate on point 4, the transfer of revenue to you the small guy and gal. An easy entry to have possession  of what may become one of the best decisions of your life.

What if?

Marketo, a vertical Inbound Marketing platform alone (Not a Market Network) recently sold to Adobe for 4.75 billion dollars. Their platform is very similar to Markethives. Marketo delivers the following for a range between $2k and $25k per month:

  1. Email marketing

  2. Landing pages and forms

  3. Campaign management

  4. Lead nurturing/scoring

  5. Lead lifecycle management

  6. CRM integration

  7. Social marketing capabilities

  8. Marketing analytics.
     

Markethive, an  Inbound Marketing Market Network offers an integrated Inbound Marketing platform that delivers the following for free and even pays incentives to use:

  1. Email Marketing

  2. Landing Pages

  3. Campaign Management

  4. Lead Nurturing and Scoring

  5. Lead management

  6. Customer management and calendaring actions

  7. Social Marketing subscribing and broadcasting

  8. Advanced tracking and marketing analytics

  9. Building group collaborations

  10. Internal focus groups

  11. Paid to learn tutorials

  12. Paid to build incentives
     

Like LinkedIn

Markethive also delivers many commerce portals all integrated within the social network and inbound marketing platform. Making the entire platform and profile pages more interactive and comprehensive in tracking, branding and building each subscribers profile superior to LinkedIns system, including but not limited to profiles with Blogs, videos and images but also resumes, endorsements and testimonials as well as social credit scoring. All private, member only or public according to each subscribers wishes.

LinkedIn's last published quarterly revenue statement for 2016 showed earnings of 959 million dollars. If Markethive reaches 20% of that target (speculative $191,000,000.00) within 10 years, that will represent a monthly amount per MH ILP share of $63,000 per month per full share and $6,300.00 per month for a 1/10 of an ILP share. For at least 20 years per contract with each contract renewable and transferable.

We are offering this deal of the century to the top active 1000 Markethive Entrepreneur upgrades. For just $100 per month.

Markethive has been equivicated as being a dynamic integrated amalgamation of a social network like (Facebook, LinkedIn) and Inbound Marketing platforms like (Hubspot and Marketo) and commerce portals like (Ebay and Amazon) all in one incentivized, gamified and powerful secure blockchain platform.

Our selling platforms are vertical and we have many of them.

$100 gets you all of this and a lot lot more. Exclusive wonderful amazing leads, and Markethive coins that can and most likely will crest to the moon in record time.

And we will pay you to learn how to market with this juggernaut. Are you on board? Can you see how easily this will be for you to build a business on? Your business? And that is why Markethive is “The Ecosystem for Entrepreneurs”.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Google’s Latest Plan to Sell Your Data Will Leave you FURIOUS

Google’s Latest Plan to Sell Your Data Will Leave you FURIOUS
Giving our behavioral data to companies with this grand a scope will likely never be completely safe, but this is beyond reproach. 

  

One of the most invasive and unnerving realizations

that we must face in our new technological age is the fact that we are very literally being mined by the products that we use.

There is a great deal of convenience in the internet.  We can use it to travel around our city on even the busiest of days with ease.  We can order any number of dishes from any number of restaurants.  Heck, we can even rent an electric scooter to ride around town, leaving it where we like when we’re finished. But, as the wise have always told us, nothing in this life is free.  Sure, we pay for these services, and we pay to have access to the internet, but that’s not nearly all of the value that is being taken from us by the corporations whom we trust online.

Story Continues

Google, Facebook, and others have long been selling our online behavioral data to advertisers, in order for those advertisers to then weaponize their work in the most effective ways.  Google is literally telling Dupont and these other enormous chemical companies, what time of day is best for them to run laundry detergent commercials in order to maximize their weaseling into our pockets. Worse still; this game is played at such a high level that only Holy Rollers need apply for a seat.  That means that you and I are simply pawns in the game. Has that stopped forward-facing companies like Google from continuing this habitual debauchery?  Of course not.

 

And it’s getting worse. 

MOST OF THE data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like “SimCity.” A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has set out to change that.

The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city’s patterns of movement. Like “SimCity,” Replica’s “user-friendly” tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It’s an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They’re not completely sure where the data is coming from.

This “appealing prospect” sounds a lot more like data harvesting for the sake of targeting us with more advertisements.

To make these measurements, the program gathers and de-identifies the location of cellphone users, which it obtains from unspecified third-party vendors. It then models this anonymized data in simulations — creating a synthetic population that faithfully replicates a city’s real-world patterns but that “obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people,” as Bowden told The Intercept.

The program comes at a time of growing unease with how tech companies use and share our personal data — and raises new questions about Google’s encroachment on the physical world.

 

Concerns over the use of this GPS data are obvious enough to understand, but a fun analogy awaits you anyway: Let’s say that Amazon puts a new Whole Foods store in your town, and Google isn’t happy about it for whatever reason.  Google has the power to reroute traffic to the area near that store to make it an unappealing commute.  Eventually, people will stop coming. Or, even crazier, if Google decided they didn’t want the location to even show up in their Maps app.  You could be literally lost, confused, and impaired while driving. Giving our behavioral data to companies with this grand a scope will likely never be completely safe, but this is beyond reproach.

Article Produced By
Andrew West

Andrew West is an Atlanta-based author who enjoys his pursuit of happiness to the fullest, whether it be craft beer, the great outdoors, or playing music.

https://flagandcross.com/googles-latest-plan-to-sell-your-data-will-leave-you-furious/

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

UAE-Saudi Arabian Digital Currency ‘Aber’ to be Restricted to Select Banks at Start

UAE-Saudi Arabian Digital Currency 'Aber' to be Restricted to Select Banks at Start

  

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) central bank (UAECB)

and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) have announced that the interbank digital currency they are co-developing will be called “Aber.” The news was reported by the national Saudi Press Agency on Jan. 29.

A joint statement from the banks has reportedly outlined that the use of Aber will be limited to financial settlements using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) “on a probational basis and [for] exclusive use by a limited number of banks in the two countries.” While news of the two countries’ plans for a digital currency for cross-border interbank settlement has previously been reported, this appears to be the first official indication of the currency’s name and initial circulation scope.

The banks clarified that the currency’s issuance falls within a proof-of-concept framework, aimed at:

“[…] studying the dimensions of modern technologies and their feasibility through practical application and the determination of their impact on the improvement and the reduction of remittances costs and the assessment of technical risks and how to deal with them.”

The statement did not determine an official launch date for the currency’s pilot issuance, but outlined that it would initially be focused on technical aspects. The announcement also reported that if “no technical obstacles are encountered, economic and legal requirements for future uses will be considered.”‏

The two countries said bilateral issuance is important as they consider that while national central systems for remittances and domestic transactions have proved their solidity to date, some aspects of international remittances require further development. The Aber project aims to ascertain whether a digital currency could be supportive of this development, the

statement adding:

“The project will also enable considering the possibility of using the system as an additional reserve system for [a] domestic central payments settlement system in case of their disruption for any reason.”

Issuance of Aber reportedly forms part of a seven-point bilateral cooperation plan between UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, negotiated in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Saudi-Emirati Co-ordination Council Jan. 17. As reported, the UAE is looking to join the list of leading destinations for blockchain firms in 2019 by establishing a new pro-crypto legal framework. In Saudi Arabia, customs authorities have recently concluded a pilot scheme linking their cross-border trade platform “FASAH” with IBM and Maersk’s “TradeLens” blockchain infrastructure.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-central-bank-will-consider-expert-input-before-enacting-crypto-regulations

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

North Europe’s Largest Conference Moontec Set to Welcome Top Enterprise Blockchain Projects

North Europe’s Largest Conference Moontec Set to Welcome Top Enterprise Blockchain Projects

  

The Moontec conference is set to welcome speakers

from companies including Maersk, IBM, and Revolut to Tallinn, Estonia on 26 November for a two-day event that will emphasize the development of workable blockchain solutions for business.

Such a forward-thinking information society as Estonia provides the ideal setting for blockchain projects as it works to attract the cutting-edge of innovation. Citizens in Estonia, now not even limited to residents since the advent of E-Residency, have access to a digital identity which can encompass various facets of their day-to-day life. Since Estonia introduced licensing for companies operating in crypto less than a year ago, there have been nearly a thousand successfully issued licenses. Such moves have helped to position Estonia at the top in terms of providing a conducive environment for blockchain entrepreneurs, along with other popular locations such as Malta, Switzerland, and South Korea.

Interest shown towards blockchain in Estonia has never been higher and this year’s Moontec is dedicated to discussing the biggest challenges facing the nascent technology nowadays. These are issues surrounding regulation, market adoption, and crucially finding application in real-world practice. This reflects a notable shift in the space from a focus on exploring the manifold use cases, to building practical solutions for business. It is likely that this will be where blockchain starts to realize its full potential; many top businesses, such as those sending thought leaders to Moontec, are investing money into developing blockchain projects.

Moontec thus hopes to stimulate discussion and help to clarify the wider, general goals of blockchain in enterprise. By contributing to a discourse that helps build consensus for a stable vision of blockchain development, attendees and speakers alike can help foster progress towards functional applications. Support from the highest levels of Estonia is self-evident with the former Prime Minister, now Vice Chairman of the Finance Committee, due to be in attendance. Opening the event with a speech is Ott Vatter who is Deputy Director of the E-Residency programme.

So the message coming out of Moontec 18 is already clear: let’s work as a community towards building the best practical blockchain applications for business. There is also a clear message from Estonia as the pioneering Baltic nation continues to send positive signals to businesses. They say they are committed to aiding this process as much as possible and will innovate to help entrepreneurs from all corners of the world. It is self-evident that they are currently doing this to great effect. Moontec will to this end be a crucible for wider progress in blockchain for enterprise.

Article Produced By
Bob Keith

Chronic crypto nut and freelance writer/editor for longer than I care to remember. Have finally found a home here at Crypto Disrupt.

https://cryptodisrupt.com/north-europes-largest-conference-moontec-set-to-welcome-top-enterprise-blockchain-projects/

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Altcoin | What is an altcoin?

Altcoin | What is an altcoin?

  

These days, everybody talks about altcoins.

Indeed, bitcoin is no longer a profitable coin to mine if you don’t have the specialized hardware. Therefore, people are looking for easier coins to mine. And with the large choice available, it’s not that simple to find the best altcoin to mine. But let’s start at the beginning: What is an altcoin?

Definition of altcoin

What is altcoin? The term altcoin, or alt coin, comes from ALTernative COIN (I also read about alternate coin sometimes). While some people use this term to define cryptocurrencies in general, I prefer to keep it as an alternative to bitcoin. Indeed, bitcoin is the first digital currency and, as such, is the reference. And all the newcomers are alternatives.

Bitcoin alternatives

Bitcoin is not the only crypto-coin anymore. Indeed, since 2009, many new coins have hit the market. And all these new coins are alt coins. And the first alternative currency is the namecoin, which is based on the decentralization of domain name registration. The first clone of bitcoin, litecoin, is available since October 2011. And there are more than 700 cryptographic currencies available on the market today. While many of them are not worth much (or are simply scams like onecoin), some of them could make you rich!

Founding principles of altcoins

In the cryptomoney industry, there are founding principles each coin has to respect, such as decentralization and total transparency. Therefore, a true cryptocurrency always has a blockchain, or chain of blocks. And its code is generally available to the whole community. Furthermore, the community is in charge of all major decisions on the future of the currency, which should respect the specifications defined when creating the currency. As a result, if you find a “crypto-currency” that has neither a block chain nor free software available, it’s NOT an altcoin. But it’s most certainly a scam to extort money from you, using the reputation of the bitcoin.

What altcoins to invest in?

While you could buy many coins from many unknown altcoins, it’s a risky investment. Therefore, if you want to buy altcoins, you should focus on the currencies which have a daily trade volume of at least 100,000 USD. To play it safer, you could invest in the most serious alt-coins, with a daily exchange volume of more than a million dollars such as ethereum, ripple, litecoin, monero, Factom or Zcash. Since the currencies are dynamic, you should study their prices regularly before buying altcoins. And don’t forget to invest only what you can afford to lose!

Article Produced By

https://bestbitcoinalternative.com/resources/altcoin/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Top 10 Messenger App Telegram Plans Blockchain Platform Launch in March: Sources

Top 10 Messenger App Telegram Plans Blockchain Platform Launch in March: Sources

  

Global messaging app Telegram plans

to release the mainnet and token for its blockchain-based Telegram Open Network (TON) platform as early as March 2019. The news was revealed to Cointelegraph by a source close to Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov today, Jan. 23. Telegram — which reportedly counts 200+ million active users per month, placing it among the top ten most popular messaging apps worldwide — raised almost $1.7 billion in two private initial coin offering (ICO) rounds last year for both Telegram and its forthcoming platform TON.

Cointelegraph’s source has emphasized that Durov was reluctant to confirm a concrete date for TON's release and that the March estimate remains subject to change. According to a separate report from Russian business media outlet The Bell, Durov’s team has told investors that TON is 90 percent ready, but that delays are possible, due to the “innovative nature of the development.” As reported, details released so far have suggested that TON will aim to function as “new way of exchanging data,” and will be powered by the platform’s native cryptocurrency, dubbed “Gram.”

As reported in May, 2018, the staggering success of Telegram’s pre-sales prompted the company to subsequently decide to cancel a public ICO that had been slated for later in 2018. Despite rumors that the Russian billionaire and former owner of Chelsea FC Roman Abramovich backed the project, only two entrepreneurs — co-founder of payment service Qiwi, Sergei Solonin, and co-founder of dairy giant Wimm-Bill-Dann, David Yakobashvili — have publicly confirmed their investments to date.

Following news that TON was “70 percent ready” last October, the government of Iran stepped up its restrictions on the messaging app, declaring that any cooperation with the app to launch its Gram token would be considered an act against national security and a disruption to the national economy. Iran has enforced a spate of bans against Telegram since April 2018. The app has also notably been blocked in Russia — Durov’s birthplace — since April 2018, officially due to Durov’s refusal to share the app’s encryption keys with authorities in compliance with a local telecoms law. According to data at the time of the block, around 10 million of Telegram’s users are based in Russia.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/top-10-messenger-app-telegram-plans-blockchain-platform-launch-in-march-sources

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Facebook agrees to do more to tackle scam ads after celebrity defamation lawsuit

Facebook agrees to do more to tackle scam ads after celebrity defamation lawsuit

Facebook has agreed to plough more resource

into combating the use of its advertising platform by scammers, saying it will do more to tackle scam ads that use well-known public figures to try to trick consumers. It plans to launch a dedicated scam ad report button in the UK, slated to go live in around three months’ time, as well as set up a specialist, locally-based team to monitor ad reports, keep an eye on scammer trends and generally work on getting celebrity-exploiting scam ads taken down more quickly than its current AI-aided ad review systems have been doing.

The new measures were announced in a joint press conference with UK consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, who launched a defamation lawsuit against Facebook in April, saying the social network giant had failed to stop scammers using his image on scores of ads that aimed to swindle consumers, thereby damaging his reputation.

Lewis filed suit after becoming frustrated by the scale of scam ads bearing his image and Facebook’s tepid response to the problem its platform has created — telling the Guardian last year: “What is particularly pernicious about Facebook is that it says the onus is on me, so I have spent time and effort and stress repeatedly to have them taken down.” He confirmed today that he’s dropped the lawsuit after Facebook agreed to make changes.

“There were over 1,000 on Facebook in a year. And the way that the company acted then wasn’t good enough, so I had to resort to [taking legal action],” he said during the press conference, adding that he had wanted to see “tangible real change to the number of scam ads on the platform”, so was happy to drop the lawsuit because he believes the new report button will do that. Facebook has also agreed to provide funding to help get a citizens scam advice service up and running in partnership with UK consumer advice charity, Citizens Advice. Lewis said he was delighted with that outcome.

The social network giant, which took in $13.73BN in revenue last quarter, said it will donate cash and Facebook ad credits to the value of £3 million over the next three years to help set up the new scam advice bureau within the charity. This will be called ‘Citizens Advice scams action project’ (aka Casa), and the pair said it will aim to provide information and support to consumers who are concerned they are being targeted by or have fallen victim to a scam.

Facebook’s support for Casa breaks down into £2.5M in cash over the next two years, and £500,000’s worth of ad credit coupons for ads on its own platform, which it said will be distributed in tranches over the next three years. There was little detail on exactly how Casa will operate at this nascent stage but given the ad credit donation its work will presumably include running scam awareness ads on Facebook — funded (initially) by Facebook itself. Ergo, part of the company’s donation will be ploughed straight back into its own ad business.

Pressed on whether its approach with an ad report button still puts too much onus on consumers to have to protect themselves from scams being spread on Facebook’s platform, its regional director for Northern Europe, Steve Hatch, claimed it does already take down “huge amounts of these ads” but admitted its ad review systems are “not perfect” — hence the company seeing value in introducing a button for direct user reports of dodgy ads.

For his part Lewis said he had never wanted to have to go to court but said his intention had rather been to draw attention to the problem and pressure Facebook to do more. He said he was therefore pleased it had agreed to do more to tackle scam ads. “This button is only in the UK. This is not Facebook worldwide. This is unique to the United Kingdom that has not been done anywhere else and it is a direct result of this scam ads campaign. And I’m actually very grateful to Steve and his team here in the UK for pushing this on what is normally a global organization that works in a global way,” he said.

Albeit, to be clear, Facebook is not accepting legal liability for scam ads. And there’s no suggestion that any existing victims of the scam ads which bore Lewis’ image are going to be in line for any direct compensation from Facebook for their losses. Asked directly about the compensation point, Hatch sidestepped the question, saying Facebook is focusing on what more it can do to stop scammers from defrauding people in the first place.

Also pressed on why it had taken a lawsuit by a celebrity consumer champion to get it to do more, he said: “This is an area we’ve focused on for a very, very long time. But what [Lewis] has really pushed us towards is this specific focus about the use of public images and celebrity.” While the new measures are UK only for now, Hatch suggested Facebook might look to expand the approach elsewhere if it proves successful.

“We’ve started in the UK,” he said in response to another question. “Like any system if we find it works — and we sincerely hope that it does, we think we’ve got the right amount of focus, we think we’ve got the right amount of investment behind it — it’s very imaginable that we would take this out to other markets. But what we want to make sure is we’re getting this right.”

He also said it would be important for Facebook to find the right partner to work with in other markets, as it’s doing with Citizens Advice in the UK. While Lewis sounded happy to end his publicity focused legal battle against Facebook, having won some tangible concessions from the company, he warned that unchecked scam ads persist on other platforms, and said he is “not ruling out another lawsuit if things don’t improve”– namechecking Google and Yahoo as two of the other platforms now in his sights.

“Over the last few weeks I have again been plagued by scam adverts. A few of them have been on Facebook and when we’ve told Facebook they’ve taken them down very quickly. I can’t expect more. I accept that the technology isn’t perfect. What I want is proactive response, good team set up and them being taken down quickly. But that’s not the case with Google,” he said, adding that the problem is even more difficult to combat where Google is concerned given it’s more difficult to know where the ads are being served, as they can be served across even more touchpoints.

“I believe they’re not even giving us a direct contact at the moment,” he added, discussing Google’s response to complaints his team has filed about scam ads bearing his image. “We’re just having to go through the normal reporting channels, that everything goes through, even though I’m a major target of scam ads. By the nature of what I do, by both being on television and the subjects that I talk about — and being relatively trusted on that subject — means that my click through rate, apparently, for scam ads is really good!” We reached out to Google and Yahoo for a response to Lewis’ comments. (Disclosure: TechCrunch’s parent, Verizon Media Group/Oath, is also the parent company of Yahoo.)

A Google spokesperson told us:

Because we want the ads people see on Google to be useful and relevant, we take immediate action to prevent fake and inappropriate ads. We have a tool where anyone can report these ads and these complaints are reviewed manually by our team. In 2017, we removed 3.2 billion bad ads and we’re constantly updating our policies as we see new threats emerge.

A Verizon Media spokesperson also sent us the following statement:

Deceptive and misleading ads are not acceptable, and we expect our partners to comply with all laws, regulations and our policies, which prohibit this activity. We block ads in violation of our policies, as well as bad actors who work to circumvent our human and automated controls. The landscape of bad actors is continually evolving and we are committed to evolve with it to help keep our platforms and users protected.

“The big problem that we face is that [online advertising] is a Wild West,” Lewis continued, saying the problems he’s faced extend to “many other online advertising tools”. “This is an absolute Wild West with people sitting all over the world, and with very little regulation, no criminal enforcement — because frankly the Met Police are not going to go to whatever these country these people are in and arrest them, and that’s the problem with online advertising. Hence why I’ve targeted the platform to say the only thing we can do… is deny them the oxygen of publicity and deny them access to the individuals.”

“I want online advertisers to see this as a warning shot across their bows,” he also said, calling on Google and the online advertising industry as a whole “to start to take responsibility”, adding: “Real people are seeing their livelihood taken away, their life savings taken away. People are losing money that they need to live on by irresponsible advertising protocols. It’s about time other firms stood up, took responsibility, improved their reporting protocols and started to give money to Citizens Advice scam action.

“Scam adverts make people distrust advertising. So this isn’t just an issue for the people who put the adverts out there but any company who does advertising in the UK legitimately, trying to get their message across, this is diluting what you are doing. So the advertising industry as a whole — not just the platforms — need to try and make sure this stops. Otherwise you’ll get close to the point where someone like me says never trust an advert online.” The issue of direct compensation for consumers scammed via online platforms is a matter for policy makers and regulators to work on, he added.

Article Produced By
Natasha Lomas

Writer

Natasha is a senior reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based in Europe. She joined TC after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic), where she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms & networking, and IT skills issues. She has also freelanced for organisations including The Guardian and the BBC. Natasha holds a First Class degree in English from Cambridge University, and an MA in journalism from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/facebook-agrees-to-do-more-to-tackle-scam-ads-after-celebrity-defamation-lawsuit/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Insurance Giant Aetna Partners With IBM on Blockchain Network for Healthcare Industry

Insurance Giant Aetna Partners With IBM on Blockchain Network for Healthcare Industry

  

United States-based health insurance giant Aetna

has partnered with IBM to create a blockchain network tailored to the healthcare industry, Reuters reported Jan. 24. Estimated to serve over 39 million clients globally, Aetna has reportedly issued a joint statement with IBM clarifying that the blockchain system will be designed to streamline insurance claims processing and payments, as well as manage directories. The insurance giant also recently merged with retail pharmacy and healthcare firm CVS Health Corp.

Alongside American financial services firm PNC Bank, two other health insurers — which count over 55 million members combined — have also reportedly joined the initiative: not-for-profit Health Care Service Corp., the fourth largest American health insurer, with over 15 million members, and Anthem Inc., which provides coverage for over 40 million people in the U.S.

Chris Ward, an executive at PNC Bank’s treasury management unit, told Reuters that implementing a blockchain solution can “remove [the] friction, duplication, and administrative costs that continue to plague the industry.” Further members from the healthcare and technology sectors are reportedly expected to join the project in coming months, according to the statement.

Aetna is one of a group of major U.S. healthcare companies that formed an alliance last year to trial blockchain solutions for improving data integrity, security and cost efficiency. The initiative also includes leading American healthcare non-profit, Ascension. Blockchain technology continues to gain traction in the global healthcare sector, as insurers, hospitals and other industry professionals explore its benefits for sharing, securing and streamlining sensitive clinical and other health-related information.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/insurance-giant-aetna-partners-with-ibm-on-blockchain-network-for-healthcare-industry

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden