Digiday
Tanya Dua

Pepsi cans and bottles will double up as gateways to Snapchat this summer — literally.

The soda maker is leaning heavily on Snapchat to promote its limited-edition cinnamon-flavored Pepsi Fire, stamping millions of Pepsi cans and bottles across the country with Snapcodes over the next eight weeks.

Users can use these Snapcodes, which are 2-D barcodes that the Snapchat mobile app can read using a smartphone camera, to unlock exclusive branded geofilters, sponsored lenses with floating 3-D objects and even a mobile game within the app. Pepsi is the first brand to use Snapcodes to unlock a World Lens and a game on such scale, and this is also one of the brand’s biggest pushes on the platform yet.

Read more: https://digiday.com/marketing/pepsi-putting-snapchat-barcodes-millions-soda-cans/

Consumerist
Kate Cox

Anyone who has watched a young child become fascinated with virtual “assistants” like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, or Google Home could guess that it was only a matter of time until one of these “smart” devices would be created specifically for monitoring kids. With Mattel set to release an all-in-one assistant/monitor, consumer advocates are questioning how secure, beneficial, or harmful these devices actually are.

The product is called Aristotle, and looks basically like a slightly taller Google Home, and includes a wall-mounted, WiFi connected camera that promises real-time HD streaming video of your kid to your phone or tablet. And the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood thinks it’s gross.

The website for Aristotle heavily features branding for manufacturer Nabi, a kids’ electronics brand that Mattel bought the parent company of back in January.

Nabi describes the product as “the first all-in-one, voice-controlled smart baby monitor that grows with your child.”

It works about the same way as your Google or Amazon counter-mounted assistant, too — always listening for cue sounds, then responding — but with a few extra features. The camera lets it function as a baby monitor, and the base not only has a speaker but also incorporates a light and a sound machine. The companion app, meanwhile, promises to function as a growth, feeding, and diapering tracker for new parents, as well as parenting automation — you can set it to turn on the light and play music in your baby’s room if it detects crying, for example.

Aristotle isn’t available yet, but shoppers can pre-order units, expected to ship in July, for $350.

Nabi at least seems to be well aware that internet connected baby monitors and cameras are basically the worst-secured, most easily-hacked devices in the world. It promises heavy-duty encryption on your video streams, and full compliance with COPPA, which regulates how and when companies can collect and use data pertaining to children under 13.

But security from would-be hackers is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the huge problems with Aristotle, the CCFC says.

In a petition asking Mattel not to release Aristotle, the CCFC says the product “isn’t a nanny, it’s an intruder,” and says, “Children’s bedrooms should be free of corporate snooping.”

Because Aristotle connects to other apps and online retailers, the CCFC says, data about families and children can be shared with all those partner corporations, who in turn can use it for deeply personal targeted advertising.

Additionally, the CCFC says, the device itself may cause more direct harms, by interfering with parts of infant development that, while exhausting for new parents, are totally normal. For example, soothing a child in the night or reading stories to them in person has a physical bonding aspect that digital caretaking does not.

Read more: https://consumerist.com/2017/05/10/privacy-advocates-raise-concerns-about-mattels-always-on-aristotle-baby-monitor/

Groups Call on Facebook to Disclose and Explain Its Collection of Psychological Insights About Its Youngest Users

Facebook Told Marketers It Can Detect Teens Feeling ‘Insecure’ and ‘Worthless’; Data Could Be Used to Drive Products Based on Mood and Using Manipulation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facebook, Inc. should immediately release all documents describing how it collected and analyzed psychological information it recently collected about its youngest users, some as young as 14, and college students, Public Citizen and a coalition of 26 groups said in a letter to the corporation today.

The groups are concerned about how this information might have been used or may be used in the future by marketers and others to take advantage of young people’s emotions, all without users’ knowledge. Marketing companies and Facebook have secretly moved to tap into teens’ emotions and developmental vulnerabilities strictly for profit, the letter says. The groups want to know how the data was used, when it was used, how many users were impacted and the names of the companies that received the data.

“What began as a way for college students to keep in touch has morphed into a platform for brand-saturated marketing and psychological manipulation,” said Kristen Strader, campaign coordinator for Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert campaign. “It is incumbent upon Facebook as a cultural leader to protect, not exploit, the privacy of young people, especially when their vulnerable emotions are involved.”

According to The Australian newspaper, Facebook presented research to one of its advertisers that shows it collects sensitive data regarding young users’ emotions and “mood shifts.” The research detailed how Facebook can analyze sensitive user data in real time to determine how young users are communicating emotion, and at which points during the week they are doing so, the letter continued. Facebook’s research was conducted without users’ knowledge, which raises ethical concerns.

“Because Facebook plays such a powerful role in the lives of teens, it must adopt a policy that respects and protects them,” said Dr. Kathryn Montgomery, professor of communication at American University and a consultant to the Center for Digital Democracy. “This should include not only strong safeguards for its advertising and data practices, but also clear limits on the kinds of research it conducts for marketing purposes. Under no circumstances should marketers be using emotional states, stress levels, biometric information or other highly sensitive data to target users. And this should apply to both young people and adults.”

“Facebook needs to come clean and publicly release the full internal document, reported in The Australian, describing how Facebook collected and analyzed psychological information on high school students, college students and young users, said Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, European Union co-chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. “The burden of proof is on Facebook to document publicly that they don’t collect and use such information. We are concerned that companies don’t overreach and abuse their users’ fundamental right to privacy and data protection.”

The public, its users and elected officials have a right to know how pervasive this research was, who was affected and how the company will ensure it does not occur again, the groups said. The only way to fully address those concerns is to publicly release the internal document and related materials, accompanied by a more detailed explanation from Facebook of what was intended, what happened and the company’s actual practices, the letter says.

Read the letter.

###

Read more: https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/groups-call-facebook-disclose-and-explain-its-collection-psychological-insights