Tag: Google

Global – Google has announced that it will begin testing its ‘Tracking Protection,’ a new feature that limits cross-site tracking for Chrome users. This is a step in their ‘Privacy Sandbox’ program, which aims to phase out third-party cookies internationally by the second half of 2024, pending resolution of antitrust concerns from the UK’s antitrust and Markets Authority.

In a blog post by Anthony Chavez, vice president for Privacy Sandbox at Google, he notes that for nearly 30 years, third-party cookies have been necessary for the internet environment. While they can be used to monitor people’s online actions, websites have also made use of them to improve other aspects of the online experience, such making logins easier and showing relevant ads.

The company has also stated that they are taking an orderly approach to gradually removing third-party cookies from Chrome by deploying the Privacy Sandbox. New tools have been developed to aid websites in critical use cases, and developers have been given adequate time to adjust to the transition.

The initial release of Tracking Protection begins with a small fraction of Chrome users, allowing developers to test their readiness for a web environment free of third-party cookies.

Participants in the Tracking Protection program are chosen at random, and upon selection, notifications will be received when accessing Chrome on desktop or Android. As a result, while browsing the web, third-party cookies will be automatically disabled by default, limiting the ability to monitor individuals across several websites. 

“Google is dedicated to providing businesses with the resources they need to succeed online while maintaining the free and open access of high-quality content, such as community sites, videos, educational materials, news articles, and other web content types, for improving online privacy. By means of programs like Privacy Sandbox, Tracking Protection, and other features that Chrome has brought to the table, they continually work to make the internet a more private place that is open to all users,” Chavez stated.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – As the country strives to enhance training opportunities and digital competitiveness, the Malaysian government has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with global technology company Google. 

This collaborative effort offers businesses of varying sizes to further develop their technological capabilities by employing upskilling programmes, digital infrastructure investments, responsible innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud-first policies. 

In particular, this enables an array of digital learning paths such as Google Cloud, CloudMile and Trainocate. Users who successfully complete these learning paths will earn digital skills badges which can be used for their resumes and an extended 30-day access to more learning paths.

Talking about this collaboration, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said, “This latest commitment by Google, aimed at accelerating local innovation and talent development in the field of AI, will certainly boost the nation’s digital competitiveness, in line with the Madani Economy framework and the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 (NIMP 2030).”

“The Madani Economy framework aims to increase the size of Malaysia’s economic pie, as well as ensure that all stakeholders – particularly the Malaysian public and small businesses – will enjoy the ensuing socio-economic benefits,” he added.

Ruth Porat, chief financial officer for Alphabet and Google added, “The partnership we are announcing with the government of Malaysia aligns Google’s local mission of advancing Malaysia together with the government’s goal to create a supportive ecosystem for innovation that includes more meaningful and equitable job opportunities.” 

In 2022, the company’s products and programmes supported over 47,900 jobs and also contributed, directly and indirectly, an estimated US$2.8bil in economic benefits to local businesses.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The 8th edition of the e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company has noted that domestic demand will drive economic growth in Malaysia with household spending, employment and wages on the rise. It also noted that online travel is growing 49% YoY – fastest of all the digital economy sectors – reaching $4b in gross merchandise value (GMV).

According to the report, Malaysia has the fastest-growing transport and food delivery sector in SEA. The sector grew 16%, boosted by Malaysian commuters’ return to offline activities and the continued preference for food delivery. 

It also added that even though foot traffic in malls has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and the food and beverage industry is experiencing an uptick, Malaysian consumers have held onto the digital habits that make their lives easier, such as food delivery and e-commerce. 

Meanwhile, e-commerce growth is flattening after growing 4% between 2021 and 2022 from pandemic-driven growth, but it remains Malaysia’s biggest digital economy sector at $13b, accounting for 57% of the total GMV. E-commerce is seeing high adoption in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. 

However, there is a persistent gap between demand and supply in other areas of Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, which presents an opportunity for e-commerce players to expand in those areas.

In terms of digital financial services (DFS) adoption, the irreversible offline-to-online behavior shift continues to drive growth in DFS adoption, and cash is no longer king with QR codes and other forms of digital payments becoming ubiquitous. Digital payments are the biggest value driver within the DFS categories in Malaysia – $165b GTV in 2023 – boosted by the government’s support for digital payments adoption and distributing benefits to lower-income communities through e-wallets. This has placed Malaysia as the 2nd biggest digital payment market in SEA in 2023.

It also noted that digital wealth grew 61% YoY – fastest of all the DFS categories – and is expected to be the second largest DFS sector in Malaysia by 2030. The increasing interest towards digital wealth presents a lucrative opportunity for established financial services institutions to retain high-net-worth customers. 

As the competition between DFS players intensifies, pure-play fintechs have extended their lending services to the underbanked segment, while established financial services institutions have been quick to shift their large existing customer bases to digitalised services. 

Lastly, Malaysia has seen good progress on digital inclusion, making inroads into rural areas to bridge connectivity gaps. The percentage of households with internet access saw an increase from 76% to 97% for urban and 49% to 89% for rural, within the time frame of 2015 – 2022. However, consumers outside of metro areas are at risk of facing a widening digital economic divide when it comes to digital participation – active involvement in the digital economy through consumption of products or services across sectors. 

Samuele Saini, country director at Google Malaysia, said, “Malaysia’s GMV is projected to reach between $45b and $70b by 2030 and we’ve seen how the resurgence of tourism along with Malaysian consumers’ sticky digital behaviours in e-commerce and food delivery can contribute to this economic growth. With Malaysia making good progress in bridging connectivity gaps, addressing the digital participation beyond metro areas can prove to be a key in unlocking the next wave of growth.”

Meanwhile, Willy Chang, partner at Bain & Company, commented, “t is remarkable that both Southeast Asia’s digital economy GMV and revenue continued their double-digit growth momentum, with revenue breaking the $100B mark in 2023. This shows the resilience of the Southeast Asian digital economy and that the key players are making progress towards more healthy unit economics and sustainable business models. Despite external headwinds and some return to in-person dining and shopping, we are optimistic that the overall digital economy will continue to grow in the longer run.”

Singapore – Google has rolled out an enhanced real-time scanning feature for its malware protection and detection service, Play Protect, to detect potentially harmful apps during installs.

In this new update, Google Play Protect will recommend a real-time app scan when installing apps that have never been scanned before to help detect emerging threats.

The real-time scanning at the code level will combat novel malicious apps. Through this new scanning feature, Google will be able to extract important signals from the app and send them to the Play Protect backend infrastructure for a code-level evaluation.

After a real-time analysis, users will get a result prompting them if the app looks safe to install or if it is potentially harmful. This will help better protect users against malicious polymorphic apps that leverage various methods, such as AI, to be altered to avoid detection.

Google’s security protections and machine learning algorithms learn from all apps submitted to the company for review. With this, the company can identify thousands of signals and compare app behaviours.

The enhanced feature adds to the already multi-layered defence approach present in Android, which keeps users safe from mobile malware and unwanted software with its built-in proactive and advanced user protections like Google Play Protect, ongoing security updates, app permission controls, safe browsing, and more. 

Google Play Protect has started to roll out to all Android devices with Google Play services in select countries, starting with India, and will expand to all regions in the coming months.

Manila, Philippines – Google Philippines, in its ongoing commitment to build a ‘Digital Philippines’, has announced the availability of no-cost generative AI skills development courses, the ‘Google for AI Startups Cloud Program’, and three new Google Career Certificates.

Moreover, Google Cloud is also supporting more seed to early stage startups (Series A startups) in the Philippines who use AI as the core technology to develop products or solutions. 

Through the ‘Google for AI Startups Cloud Program’, startups now have the opportunity to access much-needed cloud credits of up to US$350k over two years. The program provides access to AI experts, training, resources and networking opportunities.

In addition, Google has added three additional courses–’Business Intelligence’, ‘Advanced Data Analytics’, and ‘Cybersecurity’–to its Google Career Certificates program. These certificates are professional credentials that help enable people from all backgrounds to earn job-ready skills in high-growth digital fields such as IT Support, UX Design, E-commerce and Digital Marketing.

Bernadette Nacario, country director at Google Philippines, said, “Google is a committed partner of the country in helping build a Digital Philippines. Through our technology, skilling programs, and partnerships, we will continue to help unleash the potential of the digital economy and empower the workforce of the future.”

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Ian Dy, Department of Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary for Connectivity, Cybersecurity, and Upskilling; commented, “Upskilling is so important for realizing career aspirations and improving lives. Programs like the Google Career Certificates and Google’s no-cost AI skilling courses will empower the country’s workforce to thrive in the digital economy. We are grateful to Google for its commitment to helping us build a Digital Philippines.”

Australia – Digital ad verification and fraud prevention platform TrafficGuard, has launched its Performance Max (PMax) Channel Solution to provide robust safeguards for businesses that rely on Google’s Performance Max in their digital marketing strategies.

This solution allows TrafficGuard to detect and categorize invalid traffic, generated by Google’s Performance Max AI wrongly recognising the ‘positive’ signals from illegitimate traffic, and optimizing towards these ‘users’.

Furthermore, It customizes exclusion lists tailored to each customer needs and subsequently guides Google’s Performance Max AI to avoid engaging with these undesirable elements, including low-value clickers and bad actors. 

This strategic approach not only safeguards businesses from illegitimate traffic but also influences the AI to focus on elevating the presence of higher-value, authentic users, resulting to an increased return on ad spend as budget is optimized to target more genuine people, valuable insights so users can spot trends and optimize digital media channels accordingly, and time and resources saved with automated invalid traffic and fraud protections.

TrafficGuard’s Pmax channel solution also provides a Data Collection Filter, which enables businesses to mitigate their exposure to unwanted data collection, which is critical in the prevention of the inadvertent collection of children’s data by businesses utilizing PMax and ensures businesses comply with local data privacy and child protection legislation.

Mathew Ratty, CEO of TrafficGuard, said, “We launched our Pmax Channel solution to give marketers greater visibility and control over their Performance Max campaigns. It provides in- depth reporting analysis, audience targeting solutions, and invalid traffic filters that enables marketers to maximize ROI, safeguard their campaigns and make informed decisions.”

“At the same time, they can influence the PMax algorithm to ensure the data it optimizes towards is as close to your target audience as possible. This enables businesses to prevent the negative effects of the black box algorithm, as they can influence it to their advantage,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Elie Shuggi, chief product officer at TrafficGuard, mentioned, “This solution addresses a crucial need within our marketing community. Trusting black box algorithms has become increasingly challenging, and we believe TrafficGuard’s PMax solution offers the protection they seek.” 

Singapore – Integral Ad Science (IAS) has introduced brand safety and suitability measurement to its total media quality for Google Video Partners (GVP) offering.

This development allows advertisers to confidently display their video ads on publisher websites and mobile apps outside of YouTube.

IAS will provide transparency at the app and URL levels, delivering valuable third-party affirmation that video ads running on GVP are displayed alongside brand-safe and suitable content.

In a statement, IAS Chief Commercial Officer Yannis Dosios emphasised the importance of brand safety and suitability measurement in helping marketers protect their brands and optimize their campaign investments.

Meanwhile, Marvin Renaud, director of global video solutions at Google, expressed his excitement about expanding their partnership with IAS which will offer advertisers additional reassurance regarding the placement of google video partners’ ads on content that aligns with their brand safety standards.

The integration of IAS’s brand safety and suitability measurement with GVP will give advertisers greater control and confidence in video ad placements, leading to more effective campaigns across diverse publisher websites and mobile apps.

New York, USA – Social media advertising software Smartly.io has announced that it is expanding its campaign management solutions to also include Google’s Performance Marketing Ads Suite.

As a certified Google Ads Partner, Smartly.io helps marketers streamline their processes and assets effectively with tools that build cohesive creative and deliver content that fits the experience of the formats your audiences are engaging with.

Some of those features include creative scale and automation from developing custom templates to scaling your social creative on new Google ads formats, to campaign management and automation as well as single management interface.

Moreover, its automated tools are designed to help ease the challenges with successfully addressing that scale, across the wide span of creative formats, which include Gmail, Youtube, Search, Display, Maps, and the Play Store.

“Today, Google supports a range of ad experiences that perfectly lend themselves to social creative, known for driving better engagement and performance. AI has taken center stage, with creative and writing tools pushing boundaries and shifting paradigms in many industries, and digital advertising is no different. Platforms like Google understand that there is opportunity to leverage new technologies to empower marketers to connect with audiences,” Smartly.io said in a press statement.

Singapore – Tech giant Google has teamed up with the statutory board Enterprise Singapore and tech trade association SGTech to offer 15,000 Google Career Certificate (GCC) scholarships to 300 local small and medium enterprises in the country.

The GCC scholarships will provide SMEs with free access to flexible online training programmes to upskill in areas such as digital marketing, e-commerce, data analytics, IT support, and more. No prior experience is needed, and learners will earn an industry-recognised credential in three to six months of part-time studies.

Said scholarships were given out at the first Grow with Google for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) event, which was graced by Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

Google will also expand its GCC and scholarship offerings to include advanced Certificates in these areas. Designed and taught by Google experts, the Certificates provide participants with hands-on experience with tools such as BigQuery, Python, and Tableau.

Ben King, country managing director at Google Singapore, said, “To fully unlock the potential of Singapore’s economy, we must ensure that SMEs and their employees have a chance to pick up new skills and knowledge to stay relevant in a fast-changing landscape. A recent Google study found that workplace training and online learning are major sources of skills attainment among Singapore employees, and 6 in 10 rely on government awareness programmes as their primary source of information.” 

He added, “Strategic public-private initiatives can help cultivate greater awareness and provide more learning opportunities for SMEs to pursue their growth ambitions locally, regionally and globally.”

Google has helped over 9,400 local SMEs since 2020 advance their business with digital tools and training, including through the Digital Practitioner Programme (DPP), developed in partnership with EnterpriseSG. This helps SMEs and heartland enterprises deepen their in-house capabilities in digital marketing and basic data analytics, through a two-month training programme and a three-to-six-month practicum with dedicated Google Specialists.

Australia – Google’s APAC Creative Head Tara McKenty has joined BMF in the newly created dual role of chief innovation officer and executive creative director, as the agency bolsters its creative department with a series of senior promotions. This includes David Fraser being promoted to co-ECD.

McKenty has spent the past 16 years working in the creative industry across the APAC region, most recently as the Creative Head at Google for nine years. At Google, McKenty was responsible for driving brand love and trust for the Google brand through creativity and working directly with global brands to use Google’s products and platforms in innovative ways.

In addition to her successful tenure at Google, McKenty has created globally renowned work which has been awarded at every major award show across the globe, including OPSM’s ‘Penny the Pirate’, a book and app that tests the eyesight of children; Spark’s ‘Kupu’, an app that translates any image into Te Reo Māori; and Google’s Project Skate, a machine learning tool that can measure the speed, height, and rotation of a skateboarder, and identify tricks in real-time. 

In addition, McKenty has taken home more than 200 awards including a highly sought-after gold Lion for Innovation, WARC’s Most Effective Campaign in the World, D&AD pencils, One Show Awards, Effie Awards, CLIO’s, New York Festival Awards, and many, many more.

As well as winning awards, McKenty has also sat on Innovation Juries at every key award show including Cannes, D&AD, Spikes, AWARD, and more.

In addition to her impressive resume, McKenty is a powerful advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and a founder of Rare with Google, an initiative that provides equitable opportunities for underrepresented creatives to thrive at every stage of their career.

Speaking of her appointment, McKenty said, “BMF has an incredibly strong creative reputation, over the past 26-years it has been lauded for its consistent creative output, effective brand building, and high-profile behaviour change campaigns for some of Australia’s most loved brands. But it’s not just the agency’s strong creative reputation that excites me, it’s also the culture. Not only can they make world-famous campaigns for brands big and small, but they do it with humility and kindness.” 

“I have valued my time and learnt a lot working in tech, but I have missed agency life and the people our industry attracts. I am excited to be returning, it feels like a homecoming of sorts, and I can’t wait to start this next chapter of my career with my new BMF family!”

McKenty is set to join the creative agency in July.

In conjunction with McKenty’s appointment as chief innovation officer and executive creative director, BMF has made a series of internal creative promotions including the promotion of David Fraser to the role of joint-executive creative director.

Fraser joined BMF in 2014 and has been leading the globally awarded ALDI Australia and highly acclaimed Tourism Tasmania accounts for the past nine and four years respectively. In his new role, Fraser will work closely with McKenty and BMF’s Chief Creative Officer Alex Derwin to lead both BMF’s creative department and creative output. 

Alongside his creative partner Dantie Van Der Merwe, Fraser has helped ALDI win over 200 awards for both creativity and effectiveness, with the pair being pivotal to the continued success of ALDI Australia’s renowned ‘Good Different’ platform and helping ALDI to achieve the title of Australia’s Most Trusted Brand in 2018. 

In addition to his work on ALDI Australia, Fraser has launched some of Tourism Tasmania’s most famous campaigns, including the Come Down for Air brand platform and most recently, The Off Season campaign.

“BMF has always felt like home. It’s a caring family full of smart, talented, and ambitious people. And I’ve loved growing into a weird uncle here. To be asked to help build on the BMF legacy and take it to new places with Tara is a fantastic opportunity,” said Fraser.

Whilst leading Tourism Tasmania’s creative output, Fraser has worked closely with Associate Creative Directors Rees Steel and Casey Schweikert, who have also been promoted to Creative Directors. 

Alex Derwin, chief creative officer of BMF, added, “Tara has made an enviable amount of incredible work both in her time at Google, and at her previous agencies. The skillsets she brings, her knowledge of tech and culture, her entrepreneurial spirit, and her boundless creative energy makes her the perfect person to take BMFs output to the next level.” 

“Dave has been leading our two most creatively awarded accounts, he knows the agency inside out, and leads with compassion and intelligence. With Casey and Rees also taking a big, well-deserved step up, we’re well set up for the future.”

Stephen McArdle, CEO at BMF, also said: “Tara is a truly rare talent. As one of the first brilliant creative minds to be lured into the world of big tech, she’s got enviable experience in both creatively led innovation and tech enabled CX. When you couple everything Tara’s learned at Google over the past 10-years with a creative agency that has momentum, belief, and ambition, great things are bound to happen.” 

“We’re also incredibly fortunate to have more than our fair share of world-class talent already in the BMF building. With Tara’s arrival, we’ve taken the opportunity to recognise and elevate some of that outstanding talent and set ourselves up for our next phase of creative exploration and growth.”