If you own a small business in South Africa, and have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, you may be eligible for a grant from Facebook of up to R24,482 in cash, and R14,689 in advertising vouchers. As long as you're 18 or older, have between 2 and 50 employees, don't sell alcohol or tobacco [...]
While many, perhaps even most, businesses in South Africa have found themselves struggling under the national lock-down, (one of the harshest in the world), eCommerce in SA has grown by leaps and bounds. Uptake of eCommerce has traditionally lagged behind here for a large number of reasons, including lack of internet penetration, credit issues, and [...]
Although promulgated into law in 2013, the Protection of Personal Information Act, (or POPI Act) has been in only limited effect for the past 7 years, never really going past the point of setting up the office of the Regulator as envisaged in the Act. As a result, although the framework has been there, the [...]
For the first time since eMarketer began estimating ad revenue for Google, the net US digital ad revenue of the search and advertising giant will decline. Combined with continued (although depressed) growth for Facebook and Amazon, this means that their market share has also declined. According to current estimates, which factor in the global pandemic, [...]
Although parts of the POPI (Protection Of Personal Information) Act have technically been in force for some time already, the remaining (and most important) provisions have not yet been adopted. Last week however, the Chairperson of the Information Regulator of South Africa indicated that her office had requested the President adopt the remaining provisions and [...]
According to internal messages leaked from Facebook earlier this month, top-level employees strategised about how they could leverage the vast quantity of user data Facebook controls in order to limit or disadvantage companies which they perceive as threats, including YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. Although Facebook does not sell user data, it does share some of [...]
Heading toward the end of a year which has no doubt proven trying for practically all of the online "giants," Google, perhaps the biggest of all, is facing yet another anti-trust investigation, this time brought against it by a nationwide group of states, including DC and Puerto Rico. The investigation appears to be following a [...]
It's not just Facebook who has been facing the regulators for their business practices. Google property YouTube has been under investigation by the same Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, by collecting data on children under the age of 13. The issue has apparently been resolved by a negotiated [...]
According to data compiled by marketing firm Miniwatts, and sourced from Nielsen Online, the International Telecommunications Union, GfK and local regulators, an estimated 525 million people on the African continent went online last month. More than internet users in North America and the Middle East combined, despite the lowest level of internet penetration. The only [...]
Late last month, following an on-going series of leaks about the project, Facebook officially announced its plans to launch their own, in-platform cryptocurrency, to be known as Libra, scheduled for 2020. According to the Libra Whitepaper released by Facebook, their mission is to "enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of [...]
