If you were only to read one thing…
Bloomberg Businessweek – How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet – Zeke Faux 3/27
- Affiliate networks (‘affiliates’) = companies/brokers that design advertisements and pay to place them on social media sites on behalf of merchants.
- “Granted anonymity, affiliates were happy to detail their tricks. They told me that Facebook had revolutionized scamming. The company built tools with its trove of user data that made it the go-to platform for big brands. Affiliates hijacked them. Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically.”
- “The basic process isn’t complicated. For example: A maker of bogus diet pills wants to sell them for $100 a month and doesn’t care how it’s done. The pill vendor approaches a broker, called an affiliate network, and offers to pay a $60 commission per sign-up. The network spreads the word to affiliates, who design ads and pay to place them on Facebook and other places in hopes of earning the commissions. The affiliate takes a risk, paying to run ads without knowing if they’ll work, but if even a small percentage of the people who see them become buyers, the profits can be huge.”
- “Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. ‘They go out and find the morons for me,’ I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.”
- “In a sense, affiliate scammers are much like Cambridge Analytica. Because Facebook is so effective at vacuuming up people and information about them, anyone who lacks scruples and knows how to access the system can begin to wreak havoc or earn money at astonishing scale.”
- This is not a new game.
- Affiliates are “…applying tricks on Facebook that had been invented by email spammers, who’d in turn borrowed the tactics of fax spammers in the 1980s and ’90s. New forms of media have always been hijacked by misleading advertising: 19th century American newspapers were funded in part by dishonest patent medicine ads. Within days of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, the makers of Bellingham’s Onguent were placing ads claiming the president had used their product to grow his trendy whiskers.”
- “Fake personal endorsements and news reports are still the most effective tricks. Dr. Oz, the Shark Tank judges, and Fixer Upper co-host Joanna Gaines are among the most popular imprimaturs…”
Perspective
howmuch.net – How Much Income You Need to Afford the Average Home in Every State in 2018 – Raul 4/2
WSJ – Daily Shot: Deutsche Bank – US Households with Zero or Negative Home Wealth 4/5
WSJ – Daily Shot: Deutsche Bank – Road Quality in the US 4/5
Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice
A Wealth of Common Sense – Situational Awareness – Ben Carlson 4/5
Bloomberg Businessweek – The Ancient History of Bitcoin – Peter Coy 3/29
- “Cryptocurrencies may seem brand-new and disruptive, but look to the past and it’s clear they can be regulated.”
Civil Beat: The Associated Press – Hawaii’s Low Unemployment Rate Masks Underlying Problems 4/4
- “In a state with a jobless rate of 2.1%, island residents have work if they want it. But their incomes often don’t pay the bills.”
NYT – Why China Is Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Trade War – Steven Lee Myers 4/5
- “In the political realm, however, Mr. Xi enjoys advantages that may allow him to cope with the economic fallout far better than Mr. Trump can. His authoritarian grip on the news media and the party means there is little room for criticism of his policies, even as Mr. Trump must contend with complaints from American companies and consumers before important midterm elections in November.”
- “The Chinese government also has much greater control over the economy, allowing it to shield the public from job cuts or factory closings by ordering banks to support industries suffering from American tariffs. It can spread the pain of a trade war while tolerating years of losses from state-run companies that dominate major sectors of the economy.”
- “’The American agricultural sector is quite influential in the Congress,’ said Wang Yong, a professor of economics at Peking University, explaining why China has targeted farm products such as soybeans with possible retaliatory tariffs. ‘China wants the American domestic political system to do the work.’”
WSJ – Even After a Tumble, the Stock Market’s Price Isn’t Right – Spencer Jakab 4/4
WSJ – At Quarter End, Tesla Suddenly Got Busy – Michael Rapoport 4/4
Markets / Economy
howmuch.net – How Vulnerable is Each State to a Trade War – Raul 3/27
Real Estate
WSJ – Daily Shot: LendingTree – Home Mortgage Purchase APR by Credit Score Range 4/5
Energy
FT – Alphabet becomes biggest corporate renewable energy buyer in US – Leslie Hook 4/4
- “Alphabet bought enough renewable energy last year to match the power needs of all its data centers and global operations, making it the biggest corporate buyer of renewable power in the US.”
- “The company has secured 3GW of renewable energy, making it the largest corporate buyer of renewable power, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, while Amazon and Apple are in second and third place.”
- “Amazon has pledged that its cloud computing business will be 50% matched by renewables in 2017, while Apple has promised to source four gigawatts of renewable power by 2020, and has been trying to reduce the emission footprint of its supply chain.”
Finance
WSJ – Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Faces Wave of Investor Redemptions – David Benoit 4/5
Cryptocurrency / ICOs
WSJ – Daily Shot: Barchart.com – Bitcoin 4/4
Automotive
WSJ – Car Makers Step Back From Cars – Mike Colias and Christina Rogers 4/4
- “GM to stop production of the Chevrolet Sonic, Ford plans to end U.S. sales of Fiesta and Taurus amid Detroit’s broader exodus from passenger cars.”
China