A ‘fine’ end to 2022
ET BrandEquity
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When Amazon, Apple, Fortnite game maker, Epic, and Microsoft expected a fine end to 2022, this is unlikely what they bargained for.
While Epic was fined USD 520 million by the Federal Trade Commission for privacy violations and e-commerce abuses, Microsoft faced the ire of the French authorities and a Euro 60 million fine. In the latter case, this was the largest penalty imposed by the French regulator National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) in all of 2022.
Amazon reached a settlement with the European in three antitrust probes . It was saved by a fine that could add up to 10 per cent of its global turnover.
What are these giants accused of? Fortnite was accused of a payment wall that tricked unsuspecting youngsters into making unintended purchases. Microsoft was panned for putting out an interface in its search engine, Bing, which made it easy to accept cookies but it was not as simple to refuse them. The search engine also allegedly deposited cookies on computer terminals without user consent.
Amazon was accused of using size, power and data to its unfair advantage. Apple was fined one million by a Paris court for unfair App Store practices.
The above anecdotes only shake consumer confidence further in an already wobbly tech landscape. Yes, there is no running away from technology, as it has become an inseparable part of our lives. But will marketing technology be used prudently to reap the rich harvest of data, or will we allow greed to kill the golden goose??