Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been called on by UK lawmakers to give evidence on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Google is investing 300 million dollars in news subscriptions, and a small Canadian town is saving millions by replacing public transit with Uber.
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From Linkedin – Mark Zuckerberg has yet to comment on the enormous scandal surrounding Facebook, and now he is being summoned by UK lawmakers to give an account of what British MP Damian Collins is calling a ‘catastrophic failure of process’. Over the last week media reports from the Observer and The New York Times outlined how 50 million Facebook profiles were data mined by a firm called Cambridge Analytica. Facebook continues to deny the breach, and Zuckerberg has drawn criticism from investors over his handling of the situation. Now he’ll have to answer to UK officials. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will also be probing Facebook on whether or not the company violated terms of a 2011 consent decree over its handling of personal user data.
From Linkedin – Google wants to help ‘strengthen quality journalism’ by investing 300 million over the next three years in new tools and partnerships with newsrooms. All of these initiatives will be placed under the new ‘Google News Initiative’ umbrella. The biggest piece of this news so far is a feature called Subscribe with Google where people will be able to sign up for news subscriptions like the Washington Post with the existing billing info Google already has on file in order to eliminate some of the mess that comes with web subscriptions. This hypothetically will help news publications build subscribers as more and more publications put less of a focus on ad revenue and more on subscription revenue.
And from Reddit – You probably have never heard of Innisfil, Ontario, but this small Canadian town is completely changing its transit system with ride-hailing services. The town, which is about an hour and change north of Toronto, has been using Uber as an alternative to public transit, and is saving an estimated 8 million dollars a year in the process. Innisfil has a population of just 24,000 people, and signed a deal with Uber where the town pays for part of the fee, so that users can pay just a flat rate of about 3 dollars. While this idea may not be feasible in congested cities like Toronto and its immediate suburbs, this could be a great alternative for smaller towns all across the world.
That’s what’s trending this week. Hashtag Trending is produced by IT World Canada. Today’s episode is sponsored by Cogeco Peer 1, the company that enables businesses to unlock their IT potential. Learn more at CP1.com
