January 2020 Things of Interest

All Things Tech

• Samsung’s mysterious “artificial human” project Neon, here. The Six Million Dollar Man updated for the 21st century? See also Seth Godin's End of Someone. "It's worth confirming the source before you believe what you see," he says. That's really good advice.
• The STEM crisis is "threatening" the future of work
• This is scary. TikTok's deepfake maker lets you put your face in somebody else's video. Imagine if you were imposed in some video without your knowledge or approval.
• America limits the export of artificial intelligence software for geospatial analysis to keep it out of China's hands. Morning Brew says “Washington and Beijing are taking actions to minimize exposure to each other’s hardware and software, a process known as “decoupling.” The tech involved in this decoupling ranges from 5G to office computers. But it’s not easy because (1) the tech industry’s globalised supply chains and (2) the inherent difficulty of managing software imports/exports.”
• Sonos, the maker of home speakers, sues Google. [Also here]. Sonos CEO, Patrick Spence, will be testifying to U.S. lawmakers in January 2020. Sonos alleged that after partnering with Google, the tech giant stole the company’s multiroom speaker technology, as laid out in a series of patents. The partnership was meant to allow Sonos speakers to stream music through Google’s apps, but Sonos says Google stole the designs and flooded the market with its own speakers, subsidising the cost by extracting more data from consumers. And while Sonos has the same complaint against Amazon, it could only sue one.
• Facebook Bans Deepfakes but Permits Some Altered Content. The social-media giant seeks to combat misleading content altered with artificial-intelligence tools.
• Big Tech’s Ad-Fraud Defences are being bypassed. Fraudsters use readily available technology to boost site and ad traffic, bolster search results and pad reviews.
• Tech Giants Defend Privacy Efforts, Promise Improvement.
• The Atlantic on the Dark Psychology of Social Networks.
• From the ChangeThis blog, The Age of Software and Data is here. Fast beats slow. And fast and big will win almost every time.
• The White House gave guidance on AI regulation, releasing 10 principles [pdf] to guide federal agencies when making laws about artificial intelligence, stressing fairness and security, but also cost-benefit analyses. The US urged its international allies to take a similar hands-off approach. The principles are open for the public's comments.
• Google's trying to get hold of people's medical records. Can it be trusted? 
• Facebook introduces new 'Login Notifications' feature to alert a user when they use Facebook to engage with 3^rd party applications.
• Facial recognition technology's lessons from Florida: the technology is no magic bullet, says the New York Times, here.
• The AI Now Institute's report on the risks and harms of AI technology, here.
• Kevin Werbach on The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust, here.
• The Pathways for Prosperity Commission presents The Digital Roadmap: How Developing Countries Can Get Ahead, here. The Commission is part of the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Their two earlier reports are The Digital Manifesto and The Digital Economy Kit. 
• WIPO's draft issues paper on intellectual property policy and artificial intelligence, here. 
• Nicholas Petit, Deployment of algorithms and artificial intelligence systems in markets, here.
• Facebook, Google, and other major tech firms were every student’s dream workplaces. Until they weren’t. New York Times. Another example of the toxic culture prevalent at Google, here.
• Is LinkedIn a waste of time? WSJ, here. I’ve been reducing my list of contacts recently. There are people with whom I have no conversation with and don’t expect to, also.
• How to live life in a subscriptions world, New York Times, here.
• Bad Algorithms Didn't Break Democracy and better ones won't save it, Wired, here. 
• The OECD's report on Analytics for Integrity, here.
• Malaysia will forego revenue from 5G spectrum auction to encourage necessary investment in infrastructure, South China Morning Post, here. 
• Six reasons why smaller companies want to break up big tech, Vox, here.
• The World Economic Forum releases its Central Bank Digital Currency Policy-Maker Toolkit, here. Comments on the toolkit by ING Bank, here.
• A digital tax war is inevitable, South China Morning Post, here. 
• Apple’s valuation reaches $1.4 trillion driven by renewed exuberance on the iPhone, WSJ, here.
• After 40 years, including eight as CEO, Ginni Rometty steps down from IBM, WSJ, here.

Antitrust and Competition Law (and Consumer Protection)

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on competition in the online market. "None of us signed up for an Internet composed of "a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four", but here we are, watching as hyper-concentrated industries rack up catastrophic victories against net neutrality, right to repair, security auditing, and a host of other issues. These gains come at the expense of the public interest, and endanger the public interest Internet: the parts of the net that let anyone, anywhere collaborate with anyone, anywhere without permission from someone who has interposed themselves between them. They represent a triumph of lobbying over evidence, and such lobbying is only possible because the industries behind it are so fantastically concentrated that their top executives literally fit around a modest boardroom table."
• Bloomberg, Big Tech to Spur Global Antitrust Rewrite in 2020
• AI, machine learning, and pricing. A competition issue?
• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on consumer protection and a vision for 2020.
• And the FTC and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) have asked for public comments on the revised vertical merger guidelines. 
• The FTC's new and improved data security orders: Better guidance for companies, better protection for consumer.
• FTC chair aims to resolve Big Tech antitrust probes in 2020.
• The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has asked Facebook and eBay to stop the sale of fake reviews through their sites. The CMA is also concerned "About Big Tech’s Chokehold on Digital Advertising," here.  
• A review of the evidence on the impact of regulation on competition in the UK, released by the Competition and Markets Authority, January 2020.
• 2019's most downloaded articles on antitrust/competition, according to Thibault Schrepel.
• China fires a warning shot at big tech. Alibaba and Tencent on notice.
• China to take tougher antitrust efforts, says latest draft on anti-monopoly law, currently open for public comments.
• Five key trends to watch out for in 2020 in EU merger control activity. "Expect continuity in approach from Vestager at the top and throughout DG Competition – that is, tough, focussed and enforcement-minded in particular with regard to the digital sector."
• What else will antitrust policy look like in 2020? Disruptive Competition shares some thoughts.
• Colombia ordered Uber to cease its ride-hailing operations effective immediately, after a judge ruled the company violated competition rules. See also Engadget, here.
• Antitrust enforcement officials in the US and EU are watching developments surrounding the use of pricing algorithms and artificial intelligence. One area in particular that has drawn attention is the emerging use for AI to combine data and analytics to more accurately price products. 
• Why There Is No “Countervailing Power” Against Monopolies, JSTOR, here.
• Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List. Some great stuff here.
• Towards a bolder Annual Report on EU Competition Policy, here.
• Advocacy Versus Enforcement in Antitrust Compliance Programmes, here.
• India orders antitrust probe of Amazon, Walmart's Flipkart, Reuters. Also covered in the New York Times and Foreign Policy.
• Herbert Hovenkamp & Fiona Scott Morton, Framing the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis, here.
• VISA to spend US$ 3.5 billion for Plaid, a fintech start-up, as part of an effort to tap into consumers’ growing use of financial-technology apps and non-card payments. The price is 2x its final private valuation.
• Makan Delrahim talks about Drug Pricing, No-Poach Deals for Antitrust Action in 2020, WSJ, here. Ryan Young's comments on the article, How Antitrust Intervention Backfires, are on the Competitive Enterprise blog, here.
• Bill Baer, who worked at the FTC between 1995 and 1999 and headed the DOJ's Antitrust Division between 2013 and 2016, joins Brookings. 
• Fender fined 4.5 million pounds in the UK for violating competition law, Reuters, here.
• State Attorney Generals  and Justice Department officials co-ordinate the Google probe, WSJ, here. Investigations centre on Google’s dominance in advertising, online search.
• An FTC Commissioner doesn’t think antitrust enforcement is the answer to tech concerns, WSJ, here.

Big Data, Cybersecurity, and Privacy

• New year, new digital you! Some helpful tips at Stay Safe Online also, here.
• India's data protection bill may not quite do that where the government is concerned!
• FBI warns about MAZE ransomware.
• China targets 41 apps on their data collection practices.
• Check your phone for these privacy stealing apps, story on Komando, here.
• And eight apps with a total of more than 2 billion downloads in the Google Play store have been exploiting user permissions as part of an ad fraud scheme that could have stolen millions of dollars, according to BuzzFeed. And another BuzzFeed investigation uncovered a sophisticated ad fraud scheme involving more than 125 Android apps and websites, some of which were targeted at kids.
• Possible cyber-attack on the London Stock Exchange.
• The Privacy Officers’ New Year’s Resolutions!
• California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) came into effect on 1 January 2020. And more on the CCPA from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, here. Ten questions-and-answers about the CCPA, from the EFF, here. But if you want to manage your personal data under the CCPA, paradoxically you’ll end up giving more of it.
• Also, OneTrust releases cookie auto-blocking for website compliance. This capability automatically scans, finds and blocks all tracking technologies until the visitor has provided consent through user’s OneTrust consent solution for both GDPR/ePrivacy opt-in, and CCPA opt-out of sale options.
• EFF’s guides for Surveillance Self-Defense offer advice on how to protect your digital privacy in a number of situations, including online communications and at protests. If you plan to travel internationally, EFF has a guide on protecting your digital data at the border, as well as a printable pocket guide on border searches
• The United States Senate introduces the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA). This digital privacy act would offer U.S. consumers the same types of data privacy protections as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and would also create a full-staffed bureau directly within the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce those privacy rights.
• No kidding!!! Facebook Refuses to Change Web Tracking Practices, Believes That CCPA Does Not Apply to Them.
• Facebook says its ok to lie in political ads.
• The 5 Biggest Cybersecurity Trends In 2020 Everyone Should Know About, according to Bernard Marr, here.
• A look at cybersecurity in 2020...and beyond.
• The cybersecurity mistakes startups make when they grow big: they don't scale their security in proportion to their growth, says Wall Street Journal, here.
• Interested in an online course on privacy and cybersecurity?
• Who am I? Defining digital identity. 
• The end user is the weakest point in cybersecurity chain.
• The road ahead in data privacy.
• Protecting children online!
• Wired, Personal Data Is Valuable. Give Pricing Power to the People.
• There's no link between data anonymisation and privacy, says Matt Lock, UK Technical Director at Varonis.
• Oops!!! The UK government has publicly apologised for accidentally publishing the addresses of more than 1,000 New Year Honours recipients online.
• The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England (BoE) outlined their plans to develop their data and analytics capabilities. Both authorities depend on access to high-quality data to fulfil their respective missions of maintaining monetary and financial stability, market integrity, effective competition and consumer protection.
• Accenture has agreed on a deal with Broadcom to acquire Symantec’s Cyber Security services business to bolster the capabilities of its own security division. 
• Heinrich Böll Stiftung and The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue on Privacy in the EU and US: Consumer experiences across three global platforms, here.
• Report on Experience Gained in the Implementation of the GDPR by the Conference of Independent German Federal and State Data Protection Supervisory Authorities (DSK), here. 
• What do we mean by data empowerment?, here. 
• Thesis: On the Privacy Implications of Real Time Bidding, here.
• Most websites are still not GDPR-compliant. 
• Research from the Norwegian Consumer Council shows online advertising industry is behind comprehensive illegal collection and indiscriminate use of personal data.
• A recent Amnesty International report shows how data-driven business models are a serious threat to human rights such as freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, and the right to equality and non-discrimination.
• 2019 sees €400m in data protection fines in Europe. 
• Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Trends Everyone Should Be Watching In 2020, Bernard Marr, here.
• Avast, the computer security software used by an estimated 400 million people globally, has been collecting and selling user data. The extent of that effort has been laid out in new reports from Vice and PCMag. Avast and subsidiary AVG use browser extensions to watch everything their customers do. That data is then sold to customers as “insights” through a subsidiary called Jumpshot. Each deal is worth millions of dollars, and clients include Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and McKinsey.
• US government use of facial recognition technology should be banned “pending further review,” according to 40 organisations that signed a letter, drafted by the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Centre. EPIC says the technology not only risks being inaccurate for people of colour but could be used to “control minority populations and limit dissent.”
• Facebook will now show you exactly how it stalks you — even when you’re not using it, Washington Post, here

Books

• Getting a book on the bestseller list without effort
• Bill Gates' book recommendations for winter 2019-20.
• Fast Company's book recommendation on becoming a better leader in 2020, here. I wish I had The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo when I started working in the mid-1990s. Some excellent advice here.
• Six more non-fiction book recommendations, here. Looking forward to reading Daniel Levitin's Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives.
• The antitrust books you should’ve read in 2019 [part 1]
• Coming soon à Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt, McKinsey, here.
• December 2019's best business books and non-fiction books, according to Porchlight.
• In the 19^th edition of strategy+business's Best Business Books, here are the three most compelling reads in seven genres.
• Ray Dalio's Principles: Life and Work is a wonderful book! Many videos on Ray's YouTube channel.
• Read to lead! Reading books to increase your intelligence, Ryan Holiday, here.
• Some more book recommendations in the Star Tribune, here. Andrew Robert's Churchill: Walking with Destiny is on my list!

e-Commerce

• Top ten e-commerce trends in 2020. The “e” in “eCommerce” is superfluous!
• Digital to Profit: When AI and Machine Learning Meet Pricing, here.
• e-Commerce and subscribers, McKinsey, here.
• McKinsey's report on Chinese consumers in 2020. 5,400 Chinese consumers in 44 cities were asked about their spending patterns and their attitudes and expectations about products across a variety of categories. Their answers revealed five trends that companies should understand to stay competitive in one of the world’s most important markets.
• The Competition Commission of India released its market study on e-Commerce, calling for more transparency on the discounts offered by e-Commerce vendors. The report is here.
• A story on e-commerce developments in Pakistan, Business Recorder, here.
• Big Brands such as IKEA and Nike Are Cutting Ties With Amazon, here. 
• U.S. Signals Crackdown on Counterfeit Goods Sold Online, WSJ, here.

Economics

• Abhijit Banerjee on coaching the poor
• Interesting article on corporate purpose.  
• Raising the minimum wage just $1 would cause suicide rates to drop anywhere between 3.5% to 6%. That's quite a bit!
• On the other hand, 10,000 people were willing to work for free at Disney World.
• Matt Stoller asks, what is the point of economics? 
• Despite a strong global economy, capitalism is still under fire, WSJ, here. People are skeptical of major institutions.
• Tim Harford on the changing face of economics. 
• From the Economic Collapse blog: The global economic slowdown that began last year is really picking up pace here in early 2020, and global financial markets are perfectly primed for a meltdown of epic proportions.  Unfortunately, most people simply do not understand how badly the global economy has been deteriorating.  For example, global auto sales have now fallen for two years in a row, and even CNN is admitting that the global auto industry has been in a “recession” for some time…

Entertainment

• I am excited about Star Trek: Picard! And even though Season 1 is out this month, it's already been renewed for a second season! And here is Patrick Stewart talking about the early days of The Next Generation. Read Rolling Stone’s review of episode 1, here.
• MC Hammer's You Can't Touch This! is 30 years old.
• And Rush's Permanent Waves is 40! Shocked at first, and when it sunk in, saddened at the death of Neil Peart. What a remarkable talent. "Suddenly you were gone...from all the lives you left your mark upon."
• Star Wars is not very popular in China, it seems. New York Times, here.

Global

• Washington Post: Trump faces Iran crisis with fewer experienced advisers and strained relations with traditional allies. And Slate wonders if the advisers around the president even want to take the diplomatic route. What a mess! Targetting cultural sites is fair game.
• The New Yorker on America's contest with China.
• China's global infrastructure investments mapped.
• 6 Leaders who shaped the World in 2019.
• What happens now with Brexit? 
• The Financial Reporting Council, Britain’s watchdog for accounting and audit, finds companies struggle to define their purpose and use too many slogans.
• Why the United States government pays a lot to McKinsey for overpriced services. 
• AT Kearney's Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index. The 2019 report is called Facing a Growing Paradox, available here. 
• Is the Middle East really that important for most companies? The region scarcely registers on multinationals’ profit-and-loss statements, says Tyler Cowen. 
• Six global trends to watch out for in 2020, The Overseas Development Institute, here.
• We Need STEAM, Not STEM Education, To Prepare Our Kids For The 4^th Industrial Revolution, says Bernard Marr.
• The FBI didn't like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr very much, here.
• India’s Modi Faces New Challenge: A Slowing Economy, WSJ, here.
• Transparency International releases the Corruptions Perception Idex 2019.
• Al Gore interviewed at Davos 2020, Rolling Stone, here.
• The Corona Virus is termed a global emergency by the World Health Organisation, New York Time, WSJ. See also the economic impact of the virus, WSJ, here.

Health and Nutrition

• Reduce your sugar intake in 2020.
• Diet has more of an impact on weight loss, not exercise.
• Drinking 2% milk could speed up aging. I didn’t know that!

Life Hacks

• You don't have to be the smartest person in the room...no, really!
• Top ten techniques for a great 2020!
• Reinvent yourself in 2020.
• When you feel like quitting...keep going!
• Are you pushing yourself too hard?
• Are you pushing your kids too hard? Helicopter parenting has become the American norm, but it may not be the best way to connect with our kids, says the New York Times, here.
• Some advice on Freelancing and making money on the side.
• Ready to ignite your career?...
• ...declutter your life?...
• ...and listen more?
• ...Staying focused when you feel overwhelmed?...
• ...and not be a pushover at work?
• Cognitive dissonance psychology and your mood: when your thoughts and beliefs do not align. The Good Men Project, here. 
• Bloomberg says that middle-age misery peaks at 47.2 years and that a happiness curve exists all over the world.
• Why there is weakness in numbers - the importance of being yourself and making your own path, Ozan Varol, here.
• Micro-aggression. Some things that shouldn't be said at work, Business Insider, here.
• Five Areas of Personal Growth Where You Should Be the Expert, John Maxwell. Only you can be the expert of you. “Once you see your value and become intentional about adding value through your unique purpose and strengths, you are on your way to transforming the world around you for the better.”
• Here’s a handy template for planning the year – and work – ahead.
• Ten Ideas to Help You Turbocharge Learning this Year. "Learning demands effort, much like exercise. It’s time to renew your membership to your mental gym," says Art Petty, here.

Management and Leadership

• One man can make a difference!
• The most-hated bits of office jargon, according to the World Economic Forum.
• The 3 Challenges Every New CEO Faces.
• Management Today, 100 leadership lessons from the world's top bosses. Some interesting points here.
• The mindset and practices of excellent CEOs, McKinsey here.
• Artwork from the recent pages of strategy+business, on themes that include overcoming bias at work, competitiveness in the age of digitisation, and the ethics of CEOs.
• The impact of great and terrible leaders, Jacob Morgan.
• Leaders, how do you get your employees to respect you? Some advice from Lolly Daskal.
• Seven things leaders should do to succeed in 2020, according to Peter Economy, here.
• 3 Important Leadership Lessons From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Entrepreneur, here.
• Eight Management Ideas to Embrace in the 2020s, MITSloan Management Review, here. Also from MIT, How Digital Changes the Role of Leaders, here.

Pakistan

• The Pakistan-China free trade agreement II. Sell more to China. More analysis on the agreement in the Express Tribune, here.
• Moving past the World Bank's ease of doing business ranking, Business Recorder, here.
• The low productivity problem in Pakistan, Dawn, here. Ray Dalio calls productivity the one key metric for saving America's economy from inequality, Markets Insider, here.
• Implications for "hot money" for Pakistan, The News, here. In short, not very good.
• It's the economy, stupid! Dawn, here.