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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Instagram tops 100 million active users per month: what policy uproar?

Instagram tops 100 million active users a month what terms of service uproar

Instagram started reporting its active user base in what many saw as an attempt to quell talk of an exodus following its terms of service debacle. It has a better reason to post hard numbers today, however: there's now a neat, tidy 100 million active Instagram users every month. The milestone suggests that another 10 million mobile photographers got hooked on square-shaped photography in about five weeks, and it implies that the Facebook-owned company isn't about to slow down just yet. Not that everyone is in a position to join the party, mind you.

Source: Instagram

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

EU regulators unsatisfied with Google's response to privacy policy concerns

European Union regulators weren't exactly content with Google after it rolled up most of its privacy policies into a monolithic document early last year, and it doesn't seem like that's about to change. After giving Page and Co. four months to respond to 12 recommendations regarding its new policy, French regulator CNIL has come to the conclusion that "Google did not provide any precise and effective answers." Though EU officials aren't happy with Mountain View's responses, Google says its policies respect European law and that it replied with steps to address the concerns by the January 8th deadline. Still, data protection regulators are committed to their investigation and are aiming to form a group before the summertime that would respond to the search titan.

Source: Reuters

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Best Buy to make online price-matching policy permanent

Best Buy started matching prices of online retailers in time for the holidays last year, and now it's set to make the practice permanent in an effort to cure its showroom syndrome and turn window-shopping visitors into paying customers. Come March 3rd, the policy will go into effect for the outfit's website, typical brick and mortar locations, Best Buy mobile shops and even phone orders. Officially dubbed the Low Price Guarantee, the plan will meet prices for all local competitors and a total of 19 online storefronts, including the likes of Amazon, Apple, Staples, NewEgg and Target. Also, the pricing arrangement has been expanded to additional products, but it still doesn't cover on-contract smartphones and other items. While customers might end up saving some coin with the new deal, they'll see the item return period drop from 30 days to 15. By the looks of it, company founder Richard Schulze might be getting his way with plans to save his struggling creation.

[Image credit: Daniel Oines, Flickr]

Show full PR text

Best Buy ends 'showrooming' with Low Price Guarantee

MINNEAPOLIS – February 15, 2013 – Best Buy's Low Price Guarantee hits online and in stores on March 3, signaling the end of "showrooming." Best Buy will price match all local retail competitors and 19 major online competitors in all product categories and on nearly all in-stock products, whenever asked by a customer.

Best Buy is the only retailer to offer a Low Price Guarantee in addition to having a full range of the latest and greatest devices and services, a sales force dedicated to providing impartial and knowledgeable advice and full support for the life of the product.

With a Low Price Guarantee, our customers will have the best of both worlds when they shop BestBuy.com or come to a Best Buy store. They will get unbiased service from our Blue Shirts and support for the life of their product while also knowing they have a Low Price Guarantee on nearly every item. This guarantee is available on BestBuy.com, at more than 1,000 Best Buy big box stores, more than 400 Best Buy Mobile stand-alone stores in the United States, as well as on the telephone.

The full Low Price Guarantee policy – including exclusions and the list of online retailers we will match prices from – can be found on BestBuy.com.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: Best Buy

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Rogers adopts sane device unlocking policy, $8 pay-per-use US roaming

Rogers to revolutionize U.S. wireless data roaming rates for Canadians

Cost and complexity of wireless roaming cited as top two barriers to smartphone use while travelling;

New simplified roaming will encourage smartphone use while travelling and give consumers peace of mind;

New roaming rates one of several new initiatives that respond to customer feedback

TORONTO, Feb. 8, 2013 /CNW/ - Rogers Communications announced today it will soon launch a new, more affordable, roaming rate for customers travelling to the United States. Canadians travelling to the U.S. use their wireless devices to go online more than in any other country, and want to have access to simple and predictable roaming. Rogers will lead the market with a new easy and worry-free roaming solution.

Coming this spring, the company is introducing a new $7.99 pay-per-use roaming rate that gives customers access to 50 megabytes of data over a 24 hour period while travelling in the U.S. This new rate, available to consumers and businesses, gives customers nearly twice the data that they would typically use domestically. With 50 MB of data, customers can view approximately 50 maps, 200 web pages, 1,000 emails or over 5,000 tweets. Customers will be alerted before reaching 50 MB which means they will be able to control their roaming costs.

"Our customers have consistently told us they want certainty and peace of mind when using their wireless devices to access the Internet while travelling," said Raj Doshi, Rogers Senior Vice President of Products. "Canadians' connected habits are evolving, and our new roaming model is an important step in addressing the changing needs of our customers. With this simple and affordable roaming rate, customers will be able to use their devices while travelling just as they would at home."

To help further enhance the customer experience, Rogers is also changing its cellphone unlocking policy this March so that customers can unlock their wireless phones as early as 90 days after activating their devices on the Rogers network.

In addition, the company has recently introduced the following programs and initiatives to help its customers:

* Simplified wireless rate plans, including unlimited text and voice, making it easier for customers to understand their plans.
* FLEXtab, a program that allows customers to pay off their device subsidy at any time.
* Rogers Device Protection and Rogers Anti-Theft, services that offer customers enhanced protection on their wireless device.
* Rogers TechXpert for wireless and Rogers TechXpert for high speed internet customers offering extended technical support, 24/7
* Tech Essentials, a new education program to help consumers better understand how to use technology safely and smartly.

"These are just a few examples of steps we're taking to continually respond to customer feedback and to create a better experience for our customers," said Doshi. "We know Canadians want their wireless experience to be simpler and easier...we've listened to their input on the national wireless consumer code and we support having a single set of wireless standards across the country to provide equal ease of use for consumers from coast to coast."

In March of 2012, Rogers led the industry and proposed a draft national wireless consumer code to the CRTC. In early December 2012, Rogers reaffirmed its support for a national wireless consumer code that will lead to strong consumer ease of use standards that treat Canadians equally. Today, different rules apply in different provinces when it comes to contracts, cancellation policies, renewals and more. Having a single set of standards across the country would make it easier for customers to know what to expect from their service provider, no matter where they live in Canada.

Rogers will provide its view and looks forward to hearing more from Canadians at the upcoming CRTC hearing starting February 11, 2013.

Planning to roam before the spring? Don't worry, Rogers has got you covered with our existing line-up of affordable and easy to use roaming packs and passes. For more information, visit www.rogers.com/roaming.

Source

By: Unknown On 8:51 PM

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Facebook responds to recent app blocking criticism with policy 'clarification'

After the whole Vine kerfuffle and Yandex situation, Facebook clearly feels it has some explaining to do. Over at the site's Developer Blog, director, platform partnerships and operations Justin Osofsky would like to set some things straight about the social network's platform policies. He begins by assuring developers that most can just keep on keeping on.

Osofky adds, however,

For a much smaller number of apps that are using Facebook to either replicate our functionality or bootstrap their growth in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook, such as not providing users an easy way to share back to Facebook, we've had policies against this that we are further clarifying today

Those developers (and interested civilians) who'd like to drill down a bit further into those newly clarified policies can check the fine print in the source link below.

when.eng("eng.perm.init")

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Foursquare changes privacy policy, but it shouldn't cause a ruckus

"Hello Foursquare community!

2012 has been a pretty huge year. We’ve released over fifty new features, welcomed nearly 15,000,000 new people to Foursquare, and had our 3,000,000,000th check-in. It’s a bit clichéd to say this, but your support really is what keeps us going day after day.

As our product evolves, one of the things we do is update our policies to match it. And a big aspect of that is privacy (something we think about a lot). This email lays out a couple changes that we’ll be making to our privacy policy in the coming month, and explains how they affect you and what you can do about it.

We know that privacy policies can be dense, so we put together a high-level document that we think of as our “Privacy 101.” It describes, in an easy-to-read way, how we build privacy into our product. While it doesn’t replace the legal need for the complete description of our privacy practices (which you can read here), we hope it helps you better understand how we think about privacy. We’ve also added new explanations of how privacy works throughout the app in our FAQs, including our default privacy settings and how they can be adjusted.

In addition to creating and refining those documents, we want to point out two specific changes to our policy, both of which will go into effect on January 28, 2013.

1. We will now display your full name. Currently, Foursquare sometimes shows your full name and sometimes shows your first name and last initial (“John Smith” vs. “John S.”). For instance, if you search for a friend in Foursquare, we show their full name in the results, but when you click through to their profile page you don’t see their last name. In the original versions of Foursquare, these distinctions made sense. But we get emails every day saying that it’s now confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public. As always, you can alter your ‘full name’ on Foursquare at https://foursquare.com/settings.

2. A business on Foursquare will be able to see more of their recent customers. Currently, a business using Foursquare (like your corner coffee shop) can see the customers who have checked in in the last three hours (in addition to the most recent and their most loyal visitors). This is great for helping store owners identify their customers and give them more personal service or offers. But a lot of businesses only have time to log in at the end of the day to look at it. So, with this change, we’re going to be showing them more of those recent check-ins, instead of just three hours worth. As always, if you’d prefer not to permit businesses to see when you check into their locations going forward, you can uncheck the box under ‘Location Information’ at https://foursquare.com/settings/privacy.

The Foursquare of today is so different than the first version that launched in 2009, and we appreciate that you let us continue to evolve and build our vision. This occasionally means altering our privacy policy. When we do, we make it a priority to come up with clear ways to help you understand your privacy choices, and to communicate them clearly. If you have any questions or want more details, head over to our updated privacy policy or support.foursquare.com.

Have a lovely holiday, and thanks for being part of the nearly 30,000,000-strong Foursquare community. We have a lot planned for 2013!

- Team Foursquare"-Email to Foursquare members

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 12:35 PM

Foursquare alters privacy policy, will show users' full names site-wide

More social privacy changes afoot

Foursquare has announced that the full names of users will soon be appearing publicly across the site.

The location-based social network has informed members of a new privacy policy that, from next month, will see the full surname of every user displayed, rather than their initial.

This means not only will the full name appear on the user's profile page, but in any comments and check-ins they make on business pages, exposing their full names to strangers.

The company said it has made the move to reduce confusion caused by full-names currently appearing in search results, but not on profile pages and in comments and check-ins.

In an email to users, Foursquare wrote: "In the original versions of Foursquare, these distinctions made sense. But we get emails every day saying that it's now confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public."

If wishing to maintain a semblance of anonymity on the site, users can alter their full name in the settings section of the app.

It remains to be seen whether this latest privacy change will cause a similar backlash as the recent proposed changes to Instagram's terms of service.

Foursquare also announced that it is allowing businesses to see more check-in data than just the current last three months, although didn't specify just how much.

Via The Next Web