COVID-19 made our tech addiction worse: It’s time to do something about it

Stuart Wall Contributor

Stu Wall is a technology executive and entrepreneur who founded Signpost, a cloud-based customer communication platform that helps small businesses scale.

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated America’s addiction to technology, and it’s making us sad, anxious and unproductive.

Companies like Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat earn more advertising revenue the more frequently we use their products. These firms use push notifications and personalized feeds to capture our attention, manipulate our emotions and influence our actions.

Business is good. Americans now spend more than five hours each day on their devices.

So what? As discussed in Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma,” tech firms will continue to follow their profit motive to capture our attention. Governments are no more likely to help manage unhealthy tech consumption than consumption of sugar or illegal drugs. We need to take control.

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated America’s addiction to technology, and it’s making us sad, anxious and unproductive.

My perspective is as a former tech CEO and technology addict. The marketing platform I founded raised over $100 million, grew to 350 employees and sold to a private equity firm last year. Along the way I picked up some terrible tech habits; I checked email constantly and allowed push notifications to interrupt every in-person interaction.

My tech use hit rock bottom last year on a visit with family. I resolved to put down my phone and garden with my mom, who has advanced Parkinson’s and moves slowly and with intention.

I felt like an addict in withdrawal. My phone was like a magnet pulling me to check for missed work emails or breaking news. Tech overuse had rewired my brain, lowered the quality of everyday consciousness and prevented me from being present.

I stepped down as CEO of my company earlier this year. I’ve spent my time off learning about mindfulness, neuroplasticity and technology addiction. Most importantly, I developed a strategy for managing my tech use that’s made me happier and more productive.

Here’s what I learned.

Tech firms exploit our brains to capture our attention

In their quest for our attention, some tech firms target the oldest parts of our brain, what UCLA psychiatrist Daniel Siegel calls the downstairs brain. The downstairs brain includes your brainstem and limbic regions, which control innate reactions and impulses (fight or flight) and strong emotion (like anger and fear). In contrast, your upstairs brain, including your cerebral cortex, is where intricate mental processes take place, like thinking, imagining and planning.

The downstairs brain is reactive. It’s designed to protect us in emergencies; it can make quick judgements, hijack our consciousness and drive action through strong emotion. The downstairs brain is what is targeted by attention-seeking products. Headlines that make us feel outraged and TikTok notifications that make us feel reactive appeal to our downstairs brain.

Spending time in a reactive state rewires our brains

Our brains change with training. Research has shown that our brains are reprogrammed with the firing patterns of neurons. Our nervous system can be rewired and transformed through repetitive, focused attention or activity in a process called neuroplasticity.

Repetitive device usage is a perfect example of neuroplasticity at work. The more time we spend responding to push notifications, watching videos in infinite scroll or looking for social validation from social media, the more our brains will rewire to want the same.

Our addiction will get worse as firms get better at capturing attention

While many tech firms acknowledge problems from overusing their products, none will make radical changes needed to decrease their share of the attention profit pool. If they did, someone else would eat their lunch.

These firms are selling us sugary drinks. The taste is improving exponentially and the sweetest drinks haven’t been invented yet. The more we drink, the harder it gets to stop. We need to take control of our consumption and habits — we need to follow a technology diet — or we will suffer the mental equivalent of morbid obesity.

We can can rewire our brains to be more productive and happier by changing our habits

If we think of technology consumption as an analog to food consumption, tech products fall into four food groups based on the quality of information and method of delivery. Content quality is important: Some content is valuable (e.g., MIT’s online courseware) or critical (work email), while most is not useful (TikTok).

The delivery model is also important. Healthy platforms give agency to the user and allow us to pull content that’s useful when we need it. Conversely, harmful platforms often rely on push, sending us information that’s often not useful at a time when we’re doing something else. Based on my experience, here are three steps we can take to implement a tech diet:

1. Eliminate products that reinforce your downstairs brain (low-quality content pushed to you)

Willpower is finite. If we don’t want sugary drinks, don’t keep them in the house. We keep the most distracting applications ever developed within arms reach at all times. These applications prey on our downstairs brain, which hijacks our better intentions and delivers negative value for most people. I believe our best defense is abstinence; we shouldn’t use these apps.

Tip: I use Apple’s Content Restrictions on the iPhone and MacBook. I added the obvious offenders: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and some specific to me, which includes Zillow, StreetEasy and NYPost. My spouse has the override code. I can break it if needed, but the process is hard enough that it doesn’t enter everyday consciousness.

2. Consume more products that reinforce your upstairs brain (high-quality content that’s available when we need it)

Good content expands our knowledge and skills and may contribute to rewiring our upstairs brain in a way that adds to our empathy, imagination and mindfulness.

Consuming good content is rewarding but effortful. It requires uninterrupted focus. Unlike sugary beverages, which we’re wired to consume subconsciously, leafy greens have to be consumed intentionally.

Tip: Make a list of your favorite leafy greens. For me, this includes Kindle, Feedly, tech periodicals and my favorite curation platforms: HackerNews and Product Hunt. Calm, one of several booming mindfulness apps, also makes the list. These are the only apps on my home screen, which encourages me to use them more often. Like a food diet, I set attainable goals for “good” consumption and monitor my progress.

I recommend fasting on technology periodically; I leave my phone at home for walks with my son and dinner with friends. I also recommend nontech activities that promote upstairs brain rewiring like an outdoor hike or learning to play an instrument.

3. Redesign consumption patterns for productivity tools

Email is required for most people. It has the potential to make us productive. But the average message quality is low, and the always-on, high frequency, push-by-default design prevents us from doing our best work.

Tip: I’ve turned off notifications on everything that’s not meant for urgent or timely messages (e.g., texts, Lyft, Tovala oven). Boomerang’s Chrome Extension can be set up to deliver all of your emails every hour on the hour. Batch processing email every hour dramatically reduces the volume of interruption without impacting my responsiveness.

We live in relative abundance, with food, goods and security that would make even our recent ancestors envious. But abundance doesn’t make us happy; we’re the least happy on record. We seem to be living in a collective state of downstairs brain, a continuous adult temper tantrum focused on strong feelings, emotion and impulsiveness.

But there’s hope.

As individuals, I found that even a few months of technology dieting helped me become less impulsive and more mindful. As employees, we can stop working for companies that profit from the attention economy. As managers, we can insist that our teams turn off their devices at night, turn off their Slack notifications and take real vacations. As parents, we can help our children develop healthy consumption patterns.

Collective action — and rewiring of our brains — could change the course of our politics and our ability to collaborate and solve the most important challenges of the 21st century.

American innovation dominates the attention economy. It’s time for American innovation to dominate the way we use technology.

Ignore the social media echo chambers

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Snap launches a native Twitter integration

Twitter is partnering with Snap to bring tweets into Snapchat with a native integration that both companies hope will push users away from screenshots and towards more interactive embeds.

Twitter users who are also logged into the Snapchat app on their phone will be able to access the functionality by tapping share on a particular tweet and navigating to the Snapchat icon where they’ll be able to share and react or comment on a Twitter post and send it to a friend or share on their story. The functionality will notably only work for tweets from public accounts, not protected ones.

The feature is rolling out on iOS for now, with Android integration “coming soon.”

Given how much content across Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Reddit originates from Twitter, it’s surprising that this functionality is arriving so deep into Twitter’s life as a company. They’ve long had a web embed integration which has allowed reporters to embed tweets into stories, but when it came to sharing on social media, Twitter’s strategy has deferred to the un-trackable and un-monetizable screenshot.

This has been low-hanging product rollout for Twitter which will likely be able to coax some non-Twitter users to enjoy content straight from the source, something the company has been vaguely alluding to in marketing campaigns over the years but is just now approaching with a direct integration into another company’s platform.

With Twitter now starting to roll out its Stories product Fleets to users, the company likely feels as though they have more feature familiarity to bring new users onboard from Snap who might not have experimented with the platform previously.

Twitter rolls out Stories, aka ‘Fleets,’ to all users; will also test a Clubhouse rival

The truth is there aren’t a ton of integrations across social media channels, screen recordings and screen shots tell one platform’s story in an imperfect way on another’s. This integration comes as a result of updates made to Snap’s Snap Kit API and a particular feature called Creative Kit. Snap says that Spotify, Reddit, SoundCloud, Sendit, YOLO and GOAT have also created integrations that allow content from those apps to be shared across Snapchat.

Twitter didn’t rule out the expansion of this feature to other platforms in the future.

“This agreement with Snap was focused on this feature,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We would love to partner with other platforms to enable people to share Tweets more widely. We hope this will be the first of many integrations of its kind.”

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Survey: Americans think Big Tech isn’t so bad after all

Will Johnson Contributor

Will Johnson is CEO of The Harris Poll, one of the world’s leading public opinion research firms.

In government, there’s rare bipartisan consensus on taking down Big Tech.

Capping a 16-month investigation, a Democratic-controlled House committee recently identified Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google as monopolies that snuff out competition and innovation, equating the Big Four to oil barons and railroad tycoons of the late 19th century.

Only days later, the Trump administration sued Google to stop it from “unlawfully maintaining monopolies” by seeking court orders that could include its breakup.

And yesterday, in separate but coordinated lawsuits, the Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys generals from blue and red states alike sued Facebook to undo its “predatory” and “illegal” acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. When President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month, his administration is widely expected to proceed with both federal antitrust cases against Google and Facebook.

Big Tech, both parties agree, has become too big for our good.

The typical American doesn’t always see it the same way. Their assessment changes based on how the issue is framed.

As consumers, Americans generally see technology as a positive, based on our research.

When we at The Harris Poll asked directly whether Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are monopolies that limit competition and innovation, American adults overwhelmingly side with the House Judiciary Committee’s findings. Most also say Google should be broken up, with nearly half saying dismantling Facebook would also encourage innovation and protect consumers. Go get ‘em trust-busters, they seem to cheer.

But when asked broadly about categories of digital services the Big Four lead in — web search, e-commerce, streaming services or social media — Americans just as overwhelmingly tell us their favorite providers are not monopolies at all.

In the view of most Americans, there’s abundant competition and choice throughout the digital marketplace. Lowercase big tech, the majority says, promotes innovation and boosts the nation’s standing around the world. Big, in other words, doesn’t automatically mean bad.

Most Americans, of course, are not antitrust lawyers or macroeconomists expert at detecting monopolies and quantifying their market impact. They view Big Tech primarily as consumers, making judgments based on their own experiences and feelings rather than court-admissible data. As consumers, Americans generally see technology as a positive, based on our research.

In our survey of 2,069 representative adults in the U.S., almost two-thirds say that every day they use a search engine like Google and go to social media like Facebook. At least once a week, almost half shop on Amazon or another online general store and two-thirds stream video through apps such as Google’s YouTube, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased their loyalty. Cooped-up day after day, half of American adults say they’re streaming more video than they did a year ago, for instance, while a third is shopping more online. If consumers are feeling abused by Big Tech — and more than half do say big tech companies fail to always do right by their customers — they’re not riled up enough to click elsewhere.

American consumers also don’t feel like captives without options. Google’s market share in internet search on mobile devices is 94%, which probably fits anyone’s definition of a monopoly. Yet even though 55% of Americans agree that Google has too much power and should be severed from YouTube and Gmail, four of five say there are adequate alternatives.

Nearly twice as many survey respondents, in fact, say there are too many choices for search engines (19%) than too few (11%). Americans judge the markets for social media, video and audio streaming, e-commerce and other digital services like Apple Pay and Google Pay as similarly competitive.

Despite Big Tech’s market dominance, American consumers don’t think these companies are hurting their rivals, either. Though three-quarters of Americans see Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook as monopolies, four of five people say tech giants promote innovation in their industries and two-thirds say these companies promote competition and enhance the nation’s global reputation.

College grads and those 45 years old and up are slightly more likely to see Big Tech as a driver of innovation and competition, though all demographic groups share these high opinions.

Because I’m also not an antitrust lawyer or macroeconomist, I’m in no position to say whether the bipartisan legal crusade against Big Tech is warranted. But based on our polling, I can offer insights on how Americans will react to the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google as it goes to trial and other actions Congress or regulators may take to reduce Big Tech’s dominance.

When we separate Americans’ narrow take on individual companies from their perceptions of the digital realms consumers inhabit daily, we see little reason for the federal government to blow up Big Tech. Another cautionary finding: Barely half of the representative American adults in our poll even think regulators and lawmakers are the right groups to determine whether a company is too big.

If these companies eventually are downsized, though, the typical American consumer probably won’t mourn for the Not-Quite-As-Big Tech that results, as long as their trusted apps, search engines, shopping sites, streaming services and social media sites are still freely — and, in their minds, abundantly—available.

Tech in the Biden era

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Apple takes aim at adtech hysteria over iOS app tracking change

Apple has used a speech to European lawmakers and privacy regulators today to come out jabbing at what SVP Craig Federighi described as dramatic, “outlandish” and “false” claims being made by the adtech industry over a forthcoming change to iOS that will give users the ability to decline app tracking. 

The iPhone maker had been due to introduce the major privacy enhancement to the App Store this fall but delayed until early 2021 after the plan drew fire from advertising giants.

Facebook, for example, warned the move could have a major impact on app makers which rely on its in-app advertising network to monetize on iOS, as well as some impact on its own bottom line.

Since then four online advertising lobby groups have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple in France — seeking to derail the privacy changes on competition grounds.

Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

However Apple made it clear today that it’s not backing down.

Federighi described online tracking as privacy’s “biggest” challenge — saying its forthcoming App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature represents “the front line of user privacy” as far as it’s concerned.

“Never before has the right to privacy — the right to keep personal data under your own control — been under assault like it is today. As external threats to privacy continue to evolve, our work to counter them must, too,” he said in the speech to the European Data Protection & Privacy Conference.

The aim of ATT is “to empower our users to decide when or if they want to allow an app to track them in a way that could be shared across other companies’ apps or websites”, according to Federighi.

Civic society’s objection to the adtech industry’s tracking ‘dark art’ is that it sums to hellishly opaque mass surveillance of the mainstream Internet.

While harms attached to the practice include the risk of discrimination; manipulation of vulnerable groups; and election interference, to name a few.

Federighi took clear aim in his own attack — returning to a descriptor that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook used in a speech to an earlier European privacy conference back in 2018.

“The mass centralization of data puts privacy at risk — no matter who’s collecting it and what their intentions might be,” he warned. “So we believe Apple should have as little data about our customers as possible. Now, others take the opposite approach.

“They gather, sell, and hoard as much of your personal information as they can. The result is a data-industrial complex, where shadowy actors work to infiltrate the most intimate parts of your life and exploit whatever they can find — whether to sell you something, to radicalize your views, or worse.”

Since Cook wooed EU lawmakers by denouncing the “data-industrial complex” — and simultaneously lauding Europe’s pro-privacy approach to digital regulation — scores of individual and collective complaints have been lodged against the adtech infrastructure that underpins behavioral advertising under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Yet regional regulators still haven’t taken any enforcement action over these adtech complaints. Turning the cookie-tracking tanker clearly isn’t a cake walk.

And while the adtech lobby may have been heartened by remarks made yesterday by Commission EVP and competition chief, Margrethe Vestager — who told the OECD Global Competition Forum that antitrust enforcers should be “vigilant so that privacy is not used as a shield against competition” — there was a sting in the tail as she expressed support for a ‘superprofiling’ case against Facebook in Germany, which combines the streams of privacy and competition in new and interesting ways, with Vestager dubbing the piece of regulatory innovation “inspiring and interesting”.

Antitrust case against Facebook’s ‘super profiling’ back on track after German federal court ruling

Federighi urged Europe’s lawmakers to screw their courage to the sticking place where privacy is concerned.

“Through GDPR and other policies — many of which have been implemented by Commissioner Jourová, Commissioner Reynders, and others here with us today — Europe has shown the world what a privacy-friendly future could look like,” he said, lathering on the kind of ‘geopolitical influencer’ praise that’s particularly cherished in Brussels.

He also reiterated Apple’s support for a GDPR-style “omnibus privacy law in the U.S.” — something Cook called for two years ago — aka: a law that “empowers consumers to minimize collection of their data; to know when and why it is being collected; to access, correct, or delete that data; and to know that it is truly secure”.

“It’s already clear that some companies are going to do everything they can to stop [ATT] — or any innovation like it — and to maintain their unfettered access to people’s data. Some have already begun to make outlandish claims, like saying that ATT — which helps users control when they’re tracked — will somehow lead to greater privacy invasions,” he went on, taking further sideswipes at Apple’s adtech detractors.

“To say that we’re skeptical of those claims would be an understatement. But that won’t stop these companies from making false arguments to get what they want. We need the world to see those arguments for what they are: a brazen attempt to maintain the privacy-invasive status quo.”

In another direct appeal to EU lawmakers, Federighi suggested ATT “reflects both the spirit and the requirements of both the ePrivacy Directive, and the planned updates in the draft ePrivacy Regulation” — displaying a keen insight into the (oftentimes fraught) process of EU policymaking. (The ePrivacy update has in fact been stalled for years — so the subtle suggestion in Apple’s appeal is its technology levers being flipped to enable greater user privacy could help unblock the EU’s bunged up policy levers.)

“ATT, like ePrivacy, is about giving people the power to make informed choices about what happens to their data. I hope that the lawmakers, regulators, and privacy advocates here today will continue to stand up for strong privacy protections like these,” he added.

Earlier in the speech Federighi also made some plainer points: Likening ATT to the Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature Apple added to its Safari browser back in 2017 — pointing out that despite similar objections from adtech then the industry as a whole has posted revenue increases every year since.

“Just as with ITP, some in the ad industry are lobbying against these efforts — claiming that ATT will dramatically hurt ad-supported businesses. But we expect that the industry will adapt as it did before — providing effective advertising, but this time without invasive tracking,” he said.

“Of course, some advertisers and tech companies would prefer that ATT is never implemented at all. When invasive tracking is your business model, you tend not to welcome transparency and customer choice,” he added, taking another swipe at the industry’s motives for objecting to more choice and privacy for iOS users.

At the same time Federighi did acknowledge that the iOS switch to requiring user permission for app tracking “is a big change from the world we live in now”.

Of course it’s one that will likely bring transitionary pain to iOS developers, too.

But on this his messaging stood firm: He made it clear Apple may wield the stick at developers who don’t get with its user privacy upgrade program, warning: “Early next year, we’ll begin requiring all apps that want to do that to obtain their users’ explicit permission, and developers who fail to meet that standard can have their apps taken down from the App Store.”

It was interesting to note that the speech contained both specific appeals to regional lawmakers to stay the course in regulating to protect data and privacy; and more amorphous appeals to (unnamed) competitors — to follow Apple’s lead and innovate around privacy.

But if you’re a tech giant being accused of anti-competitive behaviour by a self-interested adtech clique, framing your desire for increased competition in the (lucrative) business of enhancing user privacy is a nice rebuttal.

“We don’t define success as standing alone. When it comes to privacy protections, we’re very happy to see our competitors copy our work, or develop innovative privacy features of their own that we can learn from,” said Federighi.

“At Apple, we are passionate advocates for privacy protections for all users. We love to see people buy our products. But we would also love to see robust competition among companies for the best, the strongest, and the most empowering privacy features.”

Of course if more iOS developers have to rely on in-app subscriptions to monetize their wares, because users refuse app tracking, it’ll mean more money passing through the pearly App Store gates and straight into Apple’s coffers. But that’s another story.

Apple’s iOS 14 will give users the option to decline app ad tracking

The Apple SVP also took gentle aim at any EU policymakers who may be imagining it’s a clever idea to crack open the pandora’s box of end-to-end encryption — urging them to strengthen the bloc’s commitment to robust security. Duh.

The backstory here is there’s been some recent chatter around the topic. Last month a draft resolution made by the Council of the European Union triggered press coverage that suggested EU legislators are on the cusp of banning e2e encryption.

Although, to be fair, the only ‘b’ word the Commission has used so far is ‘balanced’ — when it said its new EU security strategy will “explore and support balanced technical, operational and legal solutions, and promote an approach which both maintains the effectiveness of encryption in protecting privacy and security of communications, while providing an effective response to serious crime and terrorism”.

“I also hope that you will strengthen Europe’s support for end-to-end encryption. Apple strongly supported the European Parliament when it EU parliament proposed a requirement that the ePrivacy Regulation support end-to-end encryption, and we will continue to do so,” Federighi added, tone set to ‘don’t disappoint’.

What’s all this about Europe wanting crypto backdoors?

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OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei raises $7 million for his new venture

Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus who left the company two months ago, has raised $7 million from a roster of high-profile investors for his new hardware venture.

The Swedish tech entrepreneur said on Wednesday he had secured $7 million in a seed financing round from friends and private investors, including Tony Fadell (principal at Future Shape and inventor of the iPod), well-known YouTuber Casey Neistat, Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch), Steve Huffman (chief executive of Reddit), Liam Casey (founder and chief executive of PCH), Paddy Cosgrave (founder of Web Summit) Josh Buckley (chief executive of Product Hunt) and a group of former and current Stockholm-headquartered Truecaller employees: Kim Fai Kok, Nick Dahl and Zakaria Hersi.

Pei remains tight-lipped on what this new venture would be about, or what it is even called, but said he would talk more about it early next year. A source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the venture will focus on audio-related hardware — at least to begin with. Pei said he plans to use the fresh capital to set up an office in London, hire talent and fund product research and development.

“I am deeply grateful and tremendously excited to have friends of this caliber supporting us in building what’s next,” said Carl Pei in a statement. “We plan on moving aggressively against our vision, and can’t wait to see how the market will react.”

Pei, who served as the public face of the Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus for years, surprised many when he announced in October that he would be leaving the company. He played an instrumental role in designing the OnePlus smartphone lineup over the years, and also how the company marketed them and itself.

News outlet Android Central reported earlier that Pei, 31, had left the firm because of an “internal power struggle” between him and Pete Lau, the other co-founder of OnePlus. Lau, 45, took an additional role of SVP at Oppo. BBK Group owns OnePlus, Realme, Oppo and Vivo. OnePlus has always avoided questions about its ownership structure. Reached for comment in October, OnePlus has yet to respond.

“Carl spent the last decade making products that millions of people love. He deeply understands what consumers want, and I can’t wait for the world to see what he has in store next,” said Josh Buckley, chief executive of Product Hunt, in a statement.

OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei confirms he has left the company

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App stores to see 130 billion downloads in 2020 and record consumer spend of $112 billion

Consumers will have downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020 across iOS and Google Play, up 10% year-over-year, according to mobile data and analytics firm App Annie’s year-end forecast. Consumer spending across the two app stores will also grow by 25% year-over-year to reach $112 billion by year end, the firm also predicts.

Typically, much of the download growth is led by emerging markets, but this year things were different.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile adoption accelerated by two to three years. As a result, consumers increasingly turned to apps as digital solutions for work, education, entertainment, shopping and more. This resulted in the rise in downloads, time spent on mobile and consumer spending — despite there being more maturity in the mobile market.

Image Credits: App Annie

Google Play downloads in 2020 outnumbered iOS downloads by 160%, but both stores saw 10% growth. Games, meanwhile, increased their share of the downloads to 40%. On Google Play, they accounted for 45% of all downloads, up 5% year-over-year, but they maintained a 30% share on iOS. Games additionally accounted for $0.71 of every dollar spent across both app stores.

Also due to COVID-19, consumers spent more time on devices — a metric that saw a significant 25% jump from 2019 to top 3.3 trillion hours on Android. (App Annie cannot measure the figure on iOS.)

Image Credits: App Annie

This increased time spent helped contribute to the growth in consumer spending, which hit a new annual record ($112 billion) in 2020. In 2020, 65 cents of every dollar of that spend went to iOS, but spend on Google Play continues to grow. This year, it will reach close to 30%, the firm predicts.

Top markets for consumer spend on iOS included the U.S., Japan and the U.K., which is a different list than in 2018 and 2019, when the list included the U.S., China and Japan. Top markets for Google Play were the U.S., South Korea and Germany — with South Korea and Germany bumping out Japan and the U.K.’s place in terms of growth, compared with the past two years.

The report also looked at the top apps of the year, which saw TikTok No.1 by downloads and No. 2 by consumer spend, but still beat out by Facebook on monthly active users. Despite a lockdown, dating app Tinder made it to No. 2 in terms of consumer spend.

Apple releases its ‘Best of 2020’ App Store winners and most downloaded apps of the year

Other Facebook apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, maintained top positions across download and active users charts. Thanks to COVID, Zoom made it on 2020’s list of top downloads, in the No. 4 position. On iOS, it had been No. 1 by downloads, Apple recently reported, followed by TikTok. Google Meet made a showing as well, at No. 7.

Image Credits: App Annie

We should note today’s numbers don’t paint a full picture of the mobile market, as they exclude third-party app stores in China. Those figures are wrapped into App Annie’s more extensive “State of Mobile” report that tends to arrive early in the year for the year prior.

 

 

 

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Tripadvisor shares drop following China app ban

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced it has banned 105 mobile apps for violating Chinese internet regulations. While almost all of the apps are made by Chinese developers, American travel booking and review site Tripadvisor is also on the list.

Tripadvisor shares dipped on Nasdaq after the CAC’s announcement, but began recovering in after-hours trading.

While Tripadvisor is based in the United States, like other foreign tech companies, it struck a partnership with a local tech company for its Chinese operations. In Tripadvisor’s case, it entered into an agreement with Trip.com — the Nasdaq-listed Chinese travel titan formerly known as Ctrip — in November 2019 to operate a joint venture called TripAdvisor China. The deal made Trip.com subsidiary Ctrip Investment a majority shareholder in the JV, with Tripadvisor owning 40%.

As part of the deal, Tripadvisor agreed to share content with Trip.com brands, including Chinese travel platforms Ctrip and Qunar, which gained access to the American firm’s abundant overseas travel reviews. That put TripAdvisor in a race with regional players, including Alibaba-backed Qyer and Hong Kong-based Klook, to capture China’s increasingly affluent and savvy outbound tourists.

The CAC is the government agency in charge of overseeing internet regulations and censorship. In a brief statement, the bureau said it began taking action on November 5 to “clean up” China’s internet by removing apps that broke regulations. The 105 apps constituted the first group to be banned, and were targeted after users reported illegal activity or content, the agency said.

Though the CAC did not specify exactly what each app was banned for, the list of illegal activities included spreading pornography, incitements to violence or terrorism, fraud or gambling and prostitution.

In addition, eight app stores were taken down for not complying with review regulations or allowing the download of illegal content.

Such “app cleansing” takes place periodically in China where the government has a stranglehold on information flows. Internet services in China, especially those involving user-generated content, normally rely on armies of censors or filtering software to ensure their content is in line with government guidelines.

The Chinese internet is evolving so rapidly that regulations sometimes fall behind the development of industry players, so the authorities are constantly closing gaps. Apps and services could be pulled because regulators realize they are lacking essential government permits, or they might have published illegal or politically sensitive information.

Foreign tech firms operating in China often find themselves walking a fine line between the “internet freedom” celebrated in the West and adherence to Beijing’s requirements. The likes of Bing.com, LinkedIn and Apple — the few remaining Western tech giants in China — have all drawn criticism for caving to China’s censorship pressure in the past.

Apple removes two RSS feed readers from China App Store

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