Groupon is in talks with Chinese Internet giant Tencent to form a partnership to accelerate its effort in the critical Asian arena, said several sources with knowledge of the situation.
Terms of the deal are unclear, but sources said that it is likely to involve some sort of co-branded joint venture effort between the two–a key strategic move for Groupon given the hard-to-penetrate-if-you’re-not-Chinese Chinese market.
More typical for Groupon has been to buy a top local player abroad and rebrand it, such as its launch of Groupon Hong Kong, Groupon Singapore and Groupon Philippines and Groupon Taiwan through the early December acquisition of daily deal sites uBuyiBuy, Beeconomic and Atlaspost, respectively.
Moving into the lucrative international arena, where there are innumerable clones of the dominant social buying service, is one of big strategic reasons for Groupon’s recent $1 billion funding and also last week’s very noisy IPO toe-dipping.
In China, cloning popular U.S. Internet brands has become an art form. That includes one particularly appalling ripoff in China that looks exactly like Groupon and is actually called Groupon.cn.
Of course, global expansion–especially in the famously difficult Chinese market, where the government favors native companies to an unprecedented degree–has stymied many other U.S. Internet phenoms, from eBay to Google to Facebook.
But for Groupon, especially with its public offering plans and need to distance itself from close rivals such as LivingSocial, it is a must-do to reach the deal-crazy and huge audience in China.
Thus, having Tencent as its partner is an obvious plus, given it is one of the biggest Internet services in the country, including its huge QQ instant messaging offering.
In addition, there is a strong link between Tencent and one of Groupon’s key investors, Mail.ru Group.
Mail.ru owns 5% of Groupon, said numerous sources, and Tencent is an investor in Mail.ru, which recently had an IPO.
And DST Global, an investment vehicle that is now separate from Mail.ru–although it shares Russian exec Yuri Milner, who is Mail.ru Chairman and also DST CEO–is also a Groupon investor.
– By Kara Swisher Of WSJ’s, ALL THINGS DIGITAL
MMA to Create Mobile Privacy Guidelines
Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the MMA, said the group recognizes the importance of consumer privacy. "In order for marketers and publishers to responsibly and sustainably engage consumers through and with the mobile channel, we need to continuously update how we address the collection, management and use of personal data or related consumer information," he explained earlier this month.
To create the new guidelines, the MMA is asking members of the mobile community, including carriers, marketers, agencies, media companies and media technologies, to join its Privacy Committee. The issue will also be addressed at its upcoming Consumer Best Practices Meeting, January 25-26 in Boca Raton, Florida.
Compared with the $25 billion online ad industry, the mobile marketing industry is still in its infancy. It won't reach $1 billion until 2012, reported AdWeek, citing data from eMarketer. "If we'd seen how fast mobile Internet and apps were going to grow, maybe we would have stepped in sooner," Stuart told AdWeek.
[Author's Note: if they had seen how fast it would grow? Were they not watching?]
There's no timeline for the completion of the new policy, Stuart said. "It's more important that we get it done right. This release was a call to arms."
A Need to Address Mobile Privacy Concerns
This issue was recently in the forefront of people's minds, thanks to a Wall St. Journal series called "What They Know," that highlighted the growing lack of privacy in today's digital world. One piece in particular ("Your Apps are Watching You") dealt with mobile privacy.
The Journal found that, after an examination of 101 popular smartphone applications on iPhone and Android devices, 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without the user's awareness or consent. 47 also transmitted location and 5 sent age, gender and other personal details.
Counterpoint: Tracking is GOOD
The somewhat overly paranoid reporting from The WSJ was met with some backlash online, especially from the tech blogging community. In a post entitled "Hello, My Name is: 9649e796e8b23900dc9629a18f2d47306430e62f," BGR blogger Andrew Munchbach made a convincing argument that mobile tracking isn't really all that bad. (The headline referred to his UDID, the unique device identifier that's used to build an online profile of a device, and therefore, the user).
"I’m not all that concerned with third parties, even advertisers, knowing the age, gender, UDID, and/or the general (or even specific) location of my device’s end-user (that’s me)," Munchbach wrote. "So Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, knows that the dude using my mobile device is, um, a dude, was stuck on level 5-13 for six straight hours, and was in Newport, RI when this all occurred. So the game looked through my address book to see if there were contacts that were also playing Angry Birds with whom I could connect. I kind of like these features," he said.
He also said that even when that data is passed to an analytics company, it's used - anonymously - to provide useful usage statistics and intelligence. "Rovio can use this information to improve its product, which would seem like a benefit to me, the player. Heck, Flurry may even go one step further and use this information in its own reporting and assessment of the mobile industry or publish a report about it...still doesn’t trouble me all that much. Why should it? It’s an age, gender, and ever-changing location that is linked to a number that represents a mobile device."
...But Some Want to Opt-Out & Today You Can't
While in Munchbach's case, the tracking is seen in a positive light, there are some who would prefer the option to opt-out, as you can in most of today's modern desktop-based Web browsers, through the use of built-in tools like privacy/"incognito" modes, browser add-ons and extensions and even alternative search portals that promise no tracking.
WSJ polled its readers on the matter, and a majority (67.7%), said they want apps to tell them every time they collect and send info about their mobile device. Clearly, these voters were worked about about the idea, having just read the article. Apps that constantly nagged you if and when they could share information would be worse than Windows Vista's User Account Control security feature which seemed to ask you every single time you tried to make the simplest change on your PC.
Still, the mobile world, as of yet, does not have any such opt-out options. It's all or nothing - use the app, or don't. But if you do, you're agreeing to certain conditions. The MMA's influence may help to create new scenarios here that will better serve mobile users, not just with regard to apps, but for all sorts of mobile ads, including SMS text messages, in-app banner advertising and ads on the mobile Web itself.
Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/
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