Slack’s new privacy rules let your boss download your private chats, YouTube is increasing the number of ads before music videos so you subscribe to its music service, and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is a CEO again.
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First up from Google Trends is a pretty untimely announcement from Slack saying that it’s changing its privacy policy to be a little less transparent. Under the new rules, Slack customers who pay for premium services will be able to download all the data from their workspace without informing members of the community. What’s gotten even more of a rise from the Internet community is the fact that not only is public data available for this feature, it also lets Slack customers download any private messages and channels. This was possible before the new rule change, but it was only available to certain top-paying customers and had to actually be enabled, and when it was, workspace members would be notified. This is not the case anymore. Slack says they made the change so workplaces can more easily gain access to every communication on their platform, but after everything that’s happened with Facebook and its lack of privacy regulations in the last couple days, this doesn’t seem like a great move from Slack.
Next from Reddit, YouTube is trying to frustrate its users by increasing the number of ads that some see between music videos as part of a strategy to convince users to pay for its own forthcoming subscription music service. People who treat the site like a music service by listening passively for long periods of time will see more ads, according to the company’s global head of music. This is a huge culture change for the video site owned by Google, which was built on a platform of free content. It’s trying to compete with the growing influence of Spotify and Apple Music, while also trying to silence the recording industry, which has often criticized YouTube for harming the sector by hosting videos that violate copyrights and not paying artists or recording companies enough. The paid music service is supposed to launch this month so stay tuned.
And last but not least from Reddit again, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has a new executive job at a small real estate startup called City Storage Systems that he acquired through his investment fund for $150 million. The company will focus on buying distressed real estate in the areas of parking, retail, and industrial. Right now, it has 15 employees and is looking to hire, according to a tweet from Kalanick. The ousted leader left Uber in June 2017 after months of scandals involving workplace harassment, discrimination, and intimidation.
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.