Author: Rob Burdett

Apple Hires Google’s AI Chief To Help Boost Siri

Posted on by Rob Burdett

In a bid to develop Siri and catch up with competitors in the digital assistant battle, Apple has hired Google’s top AI man, John Giannandrea.

Falling Behind

The battle to dominate the digital assistant market has been going on for some time now, but industry commentators have noted that Apple’s Siri, which was first introduced on the iPhone 4S in 2011, has fallen behind the competition i.e. Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Siri Problems

The problems that have plagued Apple’s Siri since its early lead and subsequent falling behind in the market are thought to include:

  1. Infighting and internal politics within the Siri team at Apple.
  2. Too many attempts to reorganise the basic underpinning technology.
  3. Press criticism of the poor AI in Apple’s HomePod – the company’s attempt to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home smart speakers.

Hiring

Apple has, therefore, sought to quickly boost its expertise in AI and machine learning through hiring-in the top talent.
John Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 and previously worked as Netscape’s chief technologist. Mr Giannandrea is widely credited as being responsible for rebuilding the technology that is now at the heart of Google’s landmark products, which include search, translation and voice recognition. He is also recognised as being the person responsible for putting Google on a par with Amazon for technological supremacy in the field of voice-controlled assistants.

As well as hiring Google’s top AI man, Apple is also reported to have posted adverts for 160 other openings for work related to improving Siri.

Other high profile hires by Apple in the AI field in recent times include Carnegie Mellon professor Russ Salakhutdinov who studied at the University of Toronto under Geoffrey Hinton, who helps to oversee the Google Brain lab.

Different Approach

One of the key challenges that Giannandrea and the other news recruits will have to address is how to dramatically improve the AI and machine learning performance of Siri while giving it less detailed data for its AI training. This is because Apple has decided to take a different approach to Amazon and Google in terms of trying to gather less personal data about its users.

Apple believes that it can still produce good AI personalisation results for Siri users with a smaller dataset, and hopes that customers will value its attempts to protect their privacy, and that this will add to the positive differentiation of Siri.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The big tech companies can see the future potential value of widening the range of services that can be offered via digital assistants. As well as being able to access them through our mobile devices, smart speakers are now commonplace in many UK homes, and there will soon be business-focused versions.

The hope is that we will use our digital assistants for almost all of our daily activities e.g. paying bills, purchasing, and calling friends and customers. This illustrates why it is so important for Apple to quickly catch up with competitors and to make sure that its digital assistant is at least as capable as Amazon and Google’s offerings in terms of key AI and machine learning.

Apple is in the fortunate position of being able to attract and pay for top Silicon Valley talent, and the hiring of Google’s top man will no doubt be seen as a small victory in itself in the ongoing battle of the digital personal assistants.

UK Universities Are Cryptojacking Targets

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The latest attacker behaviour industry report by automated threat management firm Vectra shows that UK higher education institutions are now prime targets for illicit cryptocurrency mining, also known as ‘cryptojacking’.

Cryptocurrency Mining

‘Cryptocurrency mining’ involves installing ‘mining script’ code such as Coin Hive into multiple web pages without the knowledge of the web page visitor or often the website owner. The scammer then gets multiple computers to join their networks so that the combined computing power will enable them to solve mathematical problems. Whichever scammer is first to solve these problems is then able to claim / generate cash in the form of crypto-currency – hence mining for crypto-currency.

Taking Coin Hive as an example, this crypto-currency mining software is written in Javascript, and sends any coins mined by the browser to the owner of the web site. If you visit a website where it is being used (embedded in the web page), you may notice that power consumption and CPU usage on your browser will increase, and your computer will start to lag and become unresponsive. These slowing, lagging symptoms will end when you leave the web page.

Why Target Universities?

According to Vectra report, the UK’s universities are being targeted by cryptojackers because they have high bandwidth capacity networks, and they host many students on their networks who are not protected. This makes them ideal cyber-crime campaign command and control operations centres.

This means that students who are using the bandwidth e.g. to watch movies online could unwittingly be giving cyber criminals access to computing resources in the background by using websites that host cryptojacking malware.

It is also believed to be possible that the relative anonymity and power of the computing resources at universities are enabling a small number of students to tap into them, and carry out illicit cryptocurrency mining activities of their own.

Other Targets

Higher education institutions are, of course, not the only main targets. The report highlights the entertainment and leisure sector (6%), financial services (3%), technology (3%) and healthcare (2%) as also being targets for cryptojackers. The effects of being targeted by cryptojackers can be increased power consumption and a reduction in hardware lifespans.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For higher education institutions, they can only issue notices to students they detect cryptomining, and / or issue a cease and desist order. They can also provide assistance in cleaning computers, and try to advise students on how to protect themselves and the university by installing operating system patches and creating awareness of phishing emails, suspicious websites and web ads. These measures, however, don’t go far enough to address the challenge of better detection, and / or stopping cryptomining from happening in the first place.

Businesses are also struggling to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated activities of cryptojackers and other cyber-criminals, particularly with a global shortage of skilled cyber-security professionals to handle detection and response. In the meantime, the answer for many enterprise organisations has been the deployment of artificial intelligence-based security analytics. Where cryptojacking is concerned, AI is proving to be essential to augmenting existing cyber-security teams to enable fast detection and a response to threats.

The increased CPU usage and slowing down of computers caused by mining scripts waste time and money for businesses. If using AI security techniques are beyond your current budget and level of technical expertise, you may be pleased to know that there are some more simple measures that your business can take to avoid being exploited as part of a cryptojacking scam.

If, for example, you are using an ad blocker on your computer, you can set it to block one specific JavaScript URL which is https://coinhive.com/lib/miner.min.js . This will stop the miner from running without stopping you from using any of the websites that you normally visit.

Also, a dedicated browser extension called ‘No Coin’ is available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. This will stop the Coin Hive mining code being used through your browser. This extension comes with a white-list and an option to pause the extension should you wish to do so.

Coin Hive’s developers have also said that they would like people to report any malicious use of Coin Hive to them.
Maintaining vigilance for unusual computer symptoms, keeping security patches updated, and raising awareness within your company of current scams and what to do to prevent them, are just some of the ways that you could maintain a basic level of protection for your business.

Tech Tip – Track Changes To Your Word Documents

Posted on by Rob Burdett

If, as so many businesses do, you use Microsoft Word, and you have shared documents that others can make changes to, you may find the ‘Track Changes’ feature very useful.

By turning on ‘Track Changes’ you can see who has made changes to your document, you can choose which changes to accept or reject, and you can view and delete comments. This is a great feature for reviewing a document. Here’s how:

On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, choose Track Changes. Word then marks up and shows any changes that anyone makes to the document.

If you turn off Track Changes, Word stops marking up new changes, but any changes that were already tracked remain marked up in the document until you remove them.

On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, in the Simple Markup list, you can choose to view:
– Simple Markup – the default option which indicates where changes are with a red line in the margin.
– No Markup – which hides markup to show what the incorporated changes will look like.
– All Markup – this shows all edits with different colours of text and lines.
– Original – this shows the document in its original form.

In the Show Markup list, you can choose the revisions you would like to see – Comments, Ink, Insertions and Deletions, Formatting, Balloons, Specific people.

‘See In The Dark’ Phone Camera

Posted on by Rob Burdett

Chinese electronics company Huawei is heading to the European market with a smartphone that uses a long exposure and AI to take photos in near-dark conditions without a flash.

How?

The revolutionary phone camera is able to gather enough light to take a photo in near dark conditions thanks to an exposure lasting up to six seconds. This means that 960 frames per second can be filmed at 720p “high-definition” resolution, thereby delivering a better final image.

The artificial intelligence element is then able to work on the image to remove any blurring and smearing so that the end result is a sharp photo, something that would not be achievable with most other phone cameras.

The Use Of AI

The AI part of the camera is essentially used to find the optimum frame for each item in a shot, take information from other frames to improve the definition of each object, and then merge all the information from those frames together in a single photo that appears brighter than the human eye would see it.

Three Lenses

One of the most noticeable features of the P20 Pro built-in camera is that it has three rear lenses, each offering the user different capabilities. For example:

  1. The main lens offers a high resolution (40 megapixels) and can use ‘light fusion’ to create 10MP photos that look good even in low-light conditions. ‘Light fusion’ is a way of combining four smaller pixels together to make a much larger pixel.
  2. The second lens can take better monochrome shots because it has a 20MP black-and-white sensor.
  3. The third lens has a hardware-stabilised 3x zoom lens, which can produce 5x shots when used with a software-based digital zoom, thereby comparing favourably to the 2x zoom of the Galaxy S9+ and iPhone X.

Two other key benefits of the phone are the composition suggestions that it makes to the user e.g. when to loosen or tighten a shot and the object-recognition which enables the camera to automatically adjust its settings to suit each subject, while not requiring a connection to the internet to do so.

Not In The U.S. Yet

One major challenge that Huawei has with the launch of the P20 Pro is that it is still having problems entering the US market because of suspected ties to the Chinese government. This is thought to have resulted in AT&T and Verizon pulling out of talks to sell its devices.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For many businesses, sending photos to potential customers and posting photos online e.g. website and social media is an essential part of their daily business. Lighting is not always perfect, cloudy days are common in the UK, and many services are delivered in dimmer conditions or in the evening. A phone with a camera that can make the most of these conditions could, therefore, be a useful business tool.

This story is also an example of how a company that doesn’t have the brand power of some of its bigger competitors e.g. Samsung or Apple, has gone the extra mile in terms of the product, and part of the challenge will be to get this message across.

For other phone manufacturers that sell in the European market, this product innovation and Huawei’s need and desire to throw everything at it to make up the sales volume expectation that it had in the US, is likely to have them worried.

Contactless ‘Pay to Pray’

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The Church of England has announced that it will be able to accept contactless card payment for donations at 16,000 churches, cathedrals and religious sites.

Why?

The Church of England raises a whopping £580m every year in donations, but in today’s society, particularly among young people, cash is carried less often, and there is a trend towards using contactless card payments for most daily transactions.

For example, contactless payments now account for around one-third of all debit card payments, and in terms of value, debit card payments in the UK (£13.4 billion) now exceed cash payments (£13.3 billion). Also, in July last year, Transport for London (TfL) figures showed that 40% of public transport customers in London are paying for their journeys with contactless payment cards.

There has also been a noticeable decline in the use of cash over many years. In 2006, 62% of all payments in the UK were made using cash, and by in 2016 that proportion had fallen to 40%. It has been predicted (UK Finance figures) that by 2026 cash will be used for just 21% of all payments.

Contactless Collections

The Church of England has already tested its contactless payment system in a trial involving 40 churches last year. The system will use technology by London-based fintech start-up ‘SumUp’ and parishioners will be able to make donations using contactless payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay, plus chip and pin transactions.

Donations will be made on a self-service basis. It is thought that this may include including passing around a reader for the collection.

Standing Order Still King

Despite the added convenience that the contactless scheme may offer to both church and churchgoer, the Church of England has said that it expects that most regular donations will continue to come from standing orders.

Catholic Church Too

Back in October last year, the Catholic Church also explored other donation options. For example, several Catholic parishes allowed parishioners to donate via text message on their mobile phone, and a code was made available to them to allow them do this.

Also, worshippers at cathedrals including Guildford and Liverpool have been encouraged to make donations by credit or debit card instead of putting cash in a collection plate or box.

Not Just For Donations

Contactless payment schemes in churches are also helpful for services other than donations. For example, couples can use contactless payment to pay for marriage banns.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In a society where it is known that fewer people carry cash and more people prefer to use contactless payments, it makes sense that the church appears to be moving with the times to take account of these trends, and to make the most of the technology that is now more easily available.

Among some commentators, there is an argument that with declining congregations in many churches, more opportunities for donations need to be generated from existing members of the congregation i.e. contactless payments will enable more money to be collected from existing churchgoers.

For many, this move by the church is simply a reflection of the trends in society, and an example of how technology, religion, history and tradition can co-exist in a practical and beneficial way.

£870 Million Super-Cyber-Crook Captured

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The suspected leader of the criminal gang behind the Cobalt and Carbanak malware campaigns that targeted banks and netted £870 Million has been arrested in Spain.

The Carbanak & Cobalt Malware Attacks

Cobalt and Carbanak are names of the different generations of malware, increasing in sophistication – 3 were used in all – which the cyber-criminal gang were able to introduce to 100 banks and other financial networks in 40 countries.

Anunak was the first malware campaign to be used by the gang in late 2013. This was followed the same year by Arbanak, which was used in until 2016. Finally, the gang used more sophisticated attacks involving tailor-made malware based on the Cobalt Strike penetration testing software.

EUR 10 Million Per Heist

Cumulative losses to the gang from financial institutions are believed to be in the region of EUR 1 billion, and the Cobalt malware alone allowed criminals to steal up to EUR 10 million per heist.

Sent To Key Staff Members In Emails

The malware was sent to key staff members in booby-trapped phishing emails. When the computers of key staff members became infected with the malware e.g. by being tricked into opening the booby-trapped emails from the criminals, the gang was able to gain remote access to the banking networks to steal money.

Money was stolen by using remote access to order ATMs to dispense money at specific times (collected by gang members), and by altering databases to increase account balances so that more ‘mules’ could be used to collect even more money from inflated accounts via chosen ATMs.

Stolen money was also laundered via crypto-currencies and payment cards which enabled the purchase of luxury goods and houses.

Carbanak was claimed to have been discovered in 2014 by the Russian/UK Cyber Crime Company Kaspersky Lab.

Arrested

The person (as yet un-named by authorities) believed to have masterminded the crimes was arrested in Alicante, Spain. The arrest was the result of a complex investigation by the Spanish National Police, supported by Europol, the (US) FBI, the Romanian, Moldovan, Belarussian and Taiwanese authorities and private cyber security companies.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It’s all-too-often that we hear of major hacks and security breaches of businesses and organisations but it is rare to hear about the culprits being caught. The remote and often invisible nature of the crimes, coupled with the anonymity and complexity of the methods of attack and money collection tends to make cyber criminals difficult to apprehend. A combined and expert effort is needed, which is what has happened in this case, and it can only be good news for businesses worldwide that one key player appears to have been caught.

More cynical commentators may say that it was the large sums of money involved, and the facts that banks and financial institutions were victims that prompted such and effort to catch the perpetrators, something that, perhaps, smaller businesses may not expect when they are targeted, even though the results of an attack may be more devastating.

This story is also a reminder that not only are many attacks sophisticated, but human error by staff members is still an important element in allowing successful cyber attacks to take place. Cyber security is the responsibility of all of us, and companies and organisations should make sure that all staff receive training about likely cyber threats and what procedures to follow when dealing with emails or requests to transfer money. Making it a rule to never open unknown emails is one basic way of counteracting the serious threat posed by malware.

Facebook Revamps Privacy Settings

Posted on by Rob Burdett

In a move that Facebook says was due to happen before the recent personal data harvesting scandal, the social media giant has updated its privacy tools to make users more informed and in control.

50 Million Profiles Harvested

The high-profile outcry that followed revelations over data from 50 million profiles that were harvested for use by Cambridge Analytica has resulted in around £56bn being wiped off Facebook’s market value since 16 March.

It is also unknown as yet how much damage has been done to the Facebook brand and the trust placed in it by users, although some commentators have suggested that Facebook is so much a part of daily life for people, and there is a lack of real alternatives, that the damage in terms of user loyalty may not be as bad as the media has suggested.

Changes

Even though Facebook has suggested that privacy settings changes were on the cards long before this latest scandal hit the headlines, some commentators must feel justified in saying that it is no coincidence that Facebook have announced on their Blog this week, changes to the platform that are intended to help people understand how Facebook works and the choices they have over their data.

In summary, the changes that Facebook has announced are:

  • Generally making data settings and tools easier to find. In short, a re-designed settings menu on mobile devices means making everything accessible from a single place, plus, outdated parts have been cleaned up to clarify what information can and can’t be shared with apps.
  • There is a new ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ menu where you can:
    – Add more security e.g. add more security layers e.g. two-factor authentication.
    – Review what personal information you’ve shared and delete it if you want to – this includes posts you’ve shared or reacted to, friend requests you’ve sent, and things you’ve searched for on Facebook.
    – Manage the information you give that will influence the type of adverts you’re shown.
    – Manage who sees you posts and profiles.
  • The introduction of a new ‘Access Your Information’ section where you can securely access and manage e.g. posts, reactions, comments, and things you’ve searched for, as well as being able to delete anything from your timeline or profile that you no longer want on Facebook.
  • Giving you the ability to download a secure copy of the data that you’ve shared with Facebook, and giving you the option to move it to another service. This includes photos you’ve uploaded, contacts you’ve added to your account, and posts on your timeline.

More Changes To Come

Facebook has also said that in the coming weeks, it will be proposing updates to its terms of service and its data policy to better spell out what data it collects and how it uses it. Facebook is keen, in the light of the recent scandal, to point out that the updates are about transparency, and not about gaining new rights to collect, use, or share data.

Some commentators have suggested that Facebook also intends to make the link to fully delete an account more prominent.

Acknowledges Trust Damage

Facbook has acknowledged that it has lost peoples’ trust and it needs to get to work on regaining it, and no doubt, the hope is that these changes (that Facebook has worked on with regulators, legislators and privacy experts) are intended as an initial offering in the move to achieve that as well as to make the platform more GDPR-ready.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Yes, there is an element of Facebook needing to get something positive out there quickly to show that it’s doing something in response to media and public opinion about the damaging recent scandal. These changes are also, however, a clear move by Facebook to make sure that it will be GDPR compliant when the new regulation comes into force in May. The sheer size of Facebook’s customer base, and the company’s earnings mean that the company is very aware of the challenges that GDPR could bring e.g. with data breaches and with GDPR in force, Facebook could potentially be looking at fines of 4% of its global turnover. It’s no wonder, therefore, that the changes to the privacy settings of the platform have been made now.

Your Computer Data Stored … On DNA?

Posted on by Rob Burdett

British scientists believe they have developed a technique that will enable them to store computer files in DNA code.

Why?

Data storage takes up a huge amount of space. It is estimated that there is now 3 zettabytes (3000 billion billion bytes) of digital data, with more being generated all the time.

Also, storage media such as hard disks are expensive and require a constant supply of expensive electricity, and even the best ‘no-power’ archiving materials e.g. magnetic tape degrade within a decade.

What’s So Good About DNA?

It is estimated that, if all the data on the internet was stored in DNA, it would be the size of a shoebox, and that every bit of datum ever recorded by humans could fit in a container about the size and weight of a couple of pickup trucks.

Using DNA could, therefore, provide a highly effective, ultra-compact space-saving solution, that doesn’t require large amounts of costly electricity.

Also, DNA can keep for hundreds of thousands of years if kept in a cool, dry place. Data stored in DNA won’t degrade over time, and it can be decoded relatively easily.

Another advantage of DNA is that it won’t become obsolete, and unlike other high-density approaches, new technologies can write and read large amounts of DNA in one go.

Synthesized DNA as a storage medium could, therefore, provide a very practical, high-capacity, robust, low-maintenance information storage solution long into the future.

How Can Digital Data Be Stored In DNA?

Scientists from the European Bioinformatics Institute have developed a method whereby the basis of digital data, which is made up of ones and zeros, is changed into their own code as Cs, Gs, and Ts.

This converted code is then sent to a US laboratory, which turns the letter code into physical DNA, so that it can act like an incredibly small hard drive. The laboratory uses DNA synthesis machines to transform the code into physical material in a similar way to how an inkjet printer lays down ink on paper. The physical result is a tiny piece of dust with the vital digital data stored inside. An estimated 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of data could be stored in a single gram of DNA.

Tried Back In 2013

The potential of using DNA storage was highlighted back in 2013 when scientists in Cambridge spelled out a collection of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets in DNA.

Expensive And Could Take Time

As you may expect, the costs of DNA data storage in the next 5 year period are expected to be very high, although experts believe that in the next 10 to 15 years, a more affordable system may be more widely available.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although the cost of this new storage system is likely to be prohibitively high to the vast majority of business it does hold a lot of promise for years to come. DNA storage could, in the long run, allow businesses to store and back up incredible amounts of data in a very convenient way with dramatically reduced space, equipment, and electricity costs, and to be assured that the data could be stored, without decay, for many thousands of years. The potential and real value of such a system is something that will only truly be understood by future generations.

Tech Tip – Google Keep

Posted on by Rob Burdett

If you need to jot down ideas and to-dos and share them with team members, you may find ‘Google Keep’ a useful tool.

With Google Keep can:

– Record voice memos within Google Keep on your Android or iOS device.
– Transcribe text from pictures, so you don’t have to worry about typing up notes from a meeting or whiteboard session – you can even photograph a note to get the text from it.
– Create drawings and search hand written notes.
– Take notes you’ve created in Keep, and drag them into Google Docs e.g. client proposals and more.

50 Million Facebook User’s Data With Cambridge Analytica

Posted on by Rob Burdett

Facebook is at the heart of a storm after a whistleblower alleged that the data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested 50 million Facebook profiles from a data breach.

Why?

London-based data analytics company, Cambridge Analytica, which was once headed by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon, has been accused of illegally harvesting 50 million Facebook profiles in early 2014 in order to build a software program that could predict and use personalised political adverts to influence choices at the ballot box in the last U.S. election.

Under Investigation

Cambridge Analytica is already the subject of two inquiries in the UK. The first is by the Electoral Commission which is looking into the company’s possible role in the EU referendum. The second is by the Information Commissioner’s Office which is looking into the company’s possible use of data analytics for political purposes.

Also, the company is the subject of an investigation in the US over possible Trump-Russia collusion.

It has been reported that Elizabeth Denham, the head of Britain’s Information Commission, is seeking a warrant to search the offices of consultancy Cambridge Analytica over the breach.

Facebook Under Scrutiny

Facebook has, of course, faced strong criticism over the breach, one tangible result of which has been nearly $40 billion off its market value as Facebook’s investors have become worried that damage to the reputation of the social media giant’s network will deter users and advertisers.

In a BBC radio report, the ICO’s chief Elizabeth Denhan said that the ICO is looking at whether or not Facebook secured and safeguarded personal information on its platform, and whether Facebook, when they found out about the loss of the data, acted robustly and whether or not people were informed.

Also, the head of Britain’s cross-party Media parliamentary committee is reported to have written to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg asking for more information by Monday 26 March, and in Dublin, Ireland’s privacy watchdog (the lead regulator for Facebook in the European Union) has said that it is following up with Facebook to clarify its oversight.

Harvested By Kogan’s App

It has been reported that the data was harvested from Facebook by an app on Facebook’s platform, created by British academic, Aleksandr Kogan, that was downloaded by 270,000 people, providing access to their own and their friends’ personal data too. It has been reported that Kogan says he changed the terms and conditions of his personality-test app on Facebook from academic to commercial part way through the project.

Facebook has said that Kogan violated its policies by passing the data to Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook was told that the data has since been destroyed, and has made its own efforts to obtain proof that it has been destroyed.

Mr Kogan has said on BBC radio that he was advised that the app was entirely legal, and that he thinks he’s being made a scapegoat for Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

This latest incident sees Facebook back in hot water following on from reports of how its platform was used by outside interests for posts and adverts that were designed to influence the result of the US election. The share price has been impacted significantly this week.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There are so many worrying facets to this story, not least that personal data may not have been protected well enough to allow it to be harvested by an app on the platform, and then passed to a third-party that allegedly used it to create a tool to influence elections. Also, it has been several years since the breach happened, and news of the breach has only just been released. Some industry insiders have described the incident as ‘horrifying’, and many may rightfully believe that Facebook has a lot of questions to answer, as does Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook will be painfully aware that if the ICO’s investigations find Facebook to be at fault, the social media giant could be looking at a fine of up to 500,000 pounds ($700,000), and with the introduction of GDPR in May, it could be facing fines of up to 4% of its global turnover.

Also, Facebook is a major advertising platform for businesses, and some marketing commentators have pointed to the fact that scrutiny of Facebook over this latest issue could impact Facebook’s ability to gather and deploy data for ad targeting, which has been vital to ad efficacy and budget growth.

All the recent bad publicity about Facebook has seen the number of daily users in the United States and Canada fall for the first time in its history, dipping in the company’s home market by 700,000 from a quarter earlier to 184 million.

We haven’t heard the half of this story yet, and it remains to be seen what information will be released in the coming days and weeks and as the result of numerous investigations.