Global Marketing News – 25th September 2015
Google running out of lives in France
The French privacy watchdog the CNIL has said it will impose fines of up to 300,000 Euros, equivalent to around 335,000 US dollars, against Google unless the search engine immediately complies with the CNIL’s demands regarding the “right to be forgotten”, after it rejected Google’s appeal against the demands.
In July, the CNIL ordered Google to remove links from all of its domains under the “EU right to be forgotten” law.
The “right to be forgotten” law means that EU citizens can ask Google to remove links to webpages containing incorrect or outdated information about them if these results appear when the person’s name is typed into the search engine.
Google has been complying with these requests, but has only been removing links concerning French individuals from its google.fr search results. The links still appear if you search for the person’s name using any other Google domain, including google.com.
In mid-June, the French data watchdog ruled that this practice was unlawful. Following the CNIL’s rejection of Google’s appeal, the search giant must now either comply or be hit with the fines.
Facebook legal battle begins in Belgium
A legal case against Facebook has begun in Belgium.
The Belgian Privacy Protection Commission has accused the social network of tracking users without their consent.
The Commission said that Facebook’s practices amounted to them “trampling” on European privacy laws. They also accused the social network of being evasive when it came to answering questions and of not providing clear answers about what it was using the tracking data for.
Facebook has hit back against the Belgian Commission, throwing doubt on their authority and claiming that the social network complies with Irish privacy laws, where the company’s European headquarters is based.
A spokesperson from the Belgian Privacy Protection Commission has urged prosecutors in the case not to be “intimidated” by Facebook.
Facebook is confident it will not be found guilty of any wrongdoing and has described the legal proceedings as “unnecessary”.
British online shoppers to spend £60 billion in 2016
Research by RetailMeNot predicts that British online shoppers will spend £60 billion next year, almost £9 billion more than this year.
Increased online shopping on smartphones and tablets is expected to be responsible for most of this growth.
The average online shopper is predicted to spend almost £1,400 over the course of the year, with multi-channel shoppers set to spend more than PC-only shoppers.
“Multi-channel shoppers” are those who engage in ecommerce on both a PC and a mobile device.
The gap between multi-channel shoppers and PC-only shoppers’ spending is growing wider. Multi-channel shoppers spent 59% more than PC-only shoppers in 2014, but this is expected to rise to 90% more by the end of 2016.
The increase shows how important it is for ecommerce companies to ensure their sites are optimised for mobile devices if they are targeting the UK.
Chinese shoppers buy from foreign sites for better quality
Chinese cross-border online shoppers are buying from foreign sites as they are perceived to have better quality products, according to research by the China Internet Network and Information Centre.
The research asked cross-border online shoppers, who account for around 5% of online shoppers, why they bought from foreign sites.
Around two-thirds cited quality assurance, with 60% also saying that too many counterfeit goods are produced in China.
US, South Korean and Japanese sites were the most popular destinations for Chinese cross-border shoppers.
Clothes, accessories, cosmetics and electronics were the most popular product categories.
Russian broadcaster Ren TV partners up with VK
And finally, the Russian broadcaster Ren TV has partnered up with the popular Russian social network VK.
Content from Ren TV will now be available free-of-charge to VK users, with the revenues being generated from ads embedded in the videos.
Previously, Ren TV content had only been available online on Google and YouTube.
VK, previously known as VKontakte, is the most popular social network in Russia, with 85 million users, equivalent to 73% of the online population.
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Cal O'Connell
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