The UpStream

Over the past few years, we've seen a growing discontentment with the policies of the unified application stores for mobile devices. Fortnite publisher Epic Games famously skipped Google Play for their game on Android. Netflix has led a similar campaign but aimed at subscriptions instead of app distribution. Because Apple requires any app offering a subscription to process through the App Store, Netflix does not allow users to subscribe from within the app. YouTube TV seems to be following their lead.

Starting in March 2020, YouTube TV subscriptions that were purchased through the App Store will be canceled. If you have your subscription canceled, the company will direct you to the website to re-up your account. If you have an active subscription through the website, you'll still be able to use the full service on your Apple devices. Current subscribers received an email stating,

You're currently subscribed to YouTube TV through Apple in-app purchases, so we're writing to let you know that, starting March 13th, 2020, YouTube TV will no longer accept payment through Apple in-app purchases. You'll be billed for one final month of service and then your in-app purchase subscription will be canceled automatically on your billing date after March 13th, 2020.

This policy has been growing in support because of Apple's tyrannical control over the App Store and everything that is distributed through it. Because no other stores are possible on the iPhone or iPad, Apple has a monopoly that they are more than happy to exploit.

The 30 percent Apple Tax, or the cut that Apple takes from every transaction in the App Store, has made it difficult to operate subscription services. To make matters worse, it means that the companies have to have more than one payment processing system, making the account management process more expensive, as well. It also means that support representatives have a more difficult time, making the user experience worse.

If you are a .com domain owner, expect the price of your annual domain renewal to almost double over the next decade. This is thanks to the poor structure of the domain name registration process. To understand how domain names work, especially for .com, you'll need to know about a small collection of organizations that are involved. First is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit which is responsible for deciding which top-level domains exist, and who will administer each. Then we have the company Verisign, which is best known for security certificates but also administers all .com domain names. In addition, there is the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the rules that govern .com.

To register your .com, however, you don't directly interact with any of these groups. Instead, you'll go to a company like GoDaddy, who buys the domain wholesale from Verisign. The price they pay for it is governed by the NTIA, who has given ICANN more freedom in setting price increases.

What does all of this mean? Verisign has permission from ICANN to increase the price of a .com registration 7 percent per year for the next decade. As the wholesale price increases, of course, the retail price, which you and I pay, will increase as well. If they take advantage of this ability, Verisign will see a profit increase of $500 million above the expected 2 percent inflation, in 2030.

If you're living entirely in the traditional old-school internet, there is no way around this monopoly. It shows one of the inherent issues with a centralized internet and lends credence to the concept of a decentralized internet. This concept already works and exists in a couple of implementations, including TOR. But, while TOR is known for a lot of illegal activity, other implementations are more straightforward. As ICANN continues to make the internet more expensive to operate, and companies produce easier access to decentralized networks, we may see a rise in its use.

In the last console generation, pricing had a huge impact on initial console sales. During their respective E3 press conferences that year, Microsoft and Sony announced their console launch prices, with the Xbox One premiering at $499 bundled with a Kinect, and the PlayStation 4 premiering at $399 with the PlayStation Eye and Move offered as an optional $100 add-on. But, Sony actually made a change to its business plans following response to Microsoft's announcement, which came first. Originally, the PlayStation 4 was going to be bundled with the Eye and Move for $499. That decision changed the entire generation.

This generation, it appears that pricing could once again have a huge impact on sales, but this time Sony is not in charge. Instead, Sony is having trouble even nailing down the cost of the manufacturing for the PlayStation 5 because of the rising cost of some of its components. Speaking with Bloomberg, unnamed sources close to the situation have said that the current cost of building the console is around $450. That means that, if Sony keeps the same slim profit margin of the launch day PS4, the PlayStation 5 is going to have to sell for at least $470.

That price would put it far above anything Sony has on the market now, with the PlayStation 4 Pro retailing back at the original price of $399, but is often found on sale or in discounted bundles. According to Damian Thong, an analyst for Macquarie Capital,

Consumers will benchmark their expectations based on the PS4 Pro and PS4. If Sony prices above that, it would likely be to balance a need to offset higher materials cost, against risk to demand.

This means that we could see Sony pricing the PlayStation 5 higher than the $470 price point, expecting component prices to continue to rise. On the flip side, Microsoft's poorly named Xbox Series X opted to go with a lot of custom components for the core system, meaning that they have more control over the end price of components. That doesn't mean that the price of the elements won't change, but it does allow the company to have a better grip on their costs than where Sony seems to be today.

Since Amazon's purchase of connected home device company Ring, it has seemed that the brand cannot keep itself out of trouble. First was a series of data breaches, which included people having unwanted conversations with strangers who were connected to their indoor cameras. Then came a revelation that Ring gives access to video captured by cameras to law enforcement without a warrant, and without notifying the owner. The data is so readily available that Ring themselves might not even know when law enforcement is viewing your camera video.

As consumer confidence began to wane, and competition in the video doorbell space has heated up, the company released a Control Center during CES 2020. The new feature is intended to allow customers to manage their privacy settings, including opting out of police data sharing. However, it may not be quite as useful of a feature, as a study from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveals that Ring shares data with way more than just law enforcement.

It turns out that Ring shares data with Facebook and Google, whether or not you have an account with these companies. The data shared includes "time zone, device model, language preferences, screen resolution, and a unique identifier." It all could have been made innocent, save for that last bit there. Through the unique identifier, the companies could use other telemetry data to determine exactly who you are, adding to their tracking capabilities. Ring told CBS News that customers will eventually be able to opt-out of this data sharing "where applicable," meaning that sometimes, you're in it whether you like it or not.

So, as of today, law enforcement, Facebook, and Google have access, either directly or indirectly, to the location of every Ring doorbell in use, and law enforcement has access to the video produced by those devices. This is a level above the privacy concerns that usually go along with connected home devices, which usually centers on the security of those platforms. Now we have to be concerned about the inappropriate sharing of our most private data, in this case, video of our homes, from the companies we are supposed to be able to trust with that data.

If you read our site often, this will sound familiar to you. A major media company is working to bring a video streaming service to the market that will put a focus on their content. In the past year or so, we've been inundated with new streaming services like Disney+ and CBS All Access. There have also been entries from premium services like Showtime and HBO. We also know of future services like Peacock from NBC. That is in addition to existing services from the likes of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Comedy Central, FX, CNBC, MTV, and more.

Another streaming service?

It makes sense, with the market being so crowded, that yet another streaming service would be pitched. The newly merged ViacomCBS is working on bringing its own streaming service to market.

The new platform will allow the company to have one place to bring all of its content together, whether it be shows form CBS or Showtime, or movies from the vast Viacom and Paramount catalogs. This means that, for the first time ever, all of the Star Trek shows (CBS) and movies (Paramount) will be able to find a single home. But it's a crowded space, with lots of options, and a lot of content.

Where does it fit?

That's a good question. This merged company already operates a ton of streaming services. From CBS All Access, to the network-specific apps for their networks like Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and more. Plus, this behemoth also owns premium channel Showtime, which has its own streaming service.

The most logical move for the company would be to bring an end to the myriad of platforms and offer all of the options under one banner, whatever that might be called, and have tiered subscriptions. The things that were available for free on previous services could remain that way, while things that are hidden behind a paywall, like Star Trek: Picard, could remain that way, as well.

But, good ideas seem to be lost in this era of too many choices. ViacomCBS plans to keep all of the existing platforms operating as-is and introduce the new service as yet another choice. If consumer fatigue hasn't already kicked in, having this many platforms for the same content is likely to get us there.

There's a small, secret startup that you might have heard of recently - Clearview AI. The company has produced what is possibly the most polarizing facial recognition product ever produced. The people it is made for, law enforcement, are in love, but the tech industry wants to hinder its growth and future potential.

Law enforcement loves it

There's no doubt that the use of facial recognition technology is causing problems for those who use it. New York tried it in schools, and that immediately drew criticism. But, the place where the technology, especially that produced by Clearview AI, is being used the most is law enforcement. While publicly recognizing the potential for abuse, law enforcement is using it with perceived success.

According to The New York Times, agencies have been using Clearview AI to identify the victims of child exploitation, both in photo and video. In Indiana, they ran photos of 21 victims through the system and came back with 14 identities. This allowed them to contact the victims and ask if they wanted to provide statements.

Does privacy matter?

According to the company's policies, it would appear that the answer is no. Because of how the company acquires and stores images, privacy advocates argue that it creates new kinds of harm. The company stores the images uploaded by law enforcement, known as probe images, forever. Yes, the internet never forgets, but the accumulation of this kind of imagery by Clearview AI creates a new way for these images to make their way into the public's hands.

Tech companies hate it

Probe images are not enough to produce a viable facial recognition technology. So, how did they get a usable database of images? Exactly where you think - social media. The company has scraped public photos from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more, to produce a database of billions of photos of faces.

These companies, who are against the use of these photos in the Clearview AI platform, have ordered the company to stop scraping data and to stop using data they have already scraped. While the sites' privacy policies may prohibit the behavior, there is a legal precedent against them. LinkedIn lost a battle to prevent similar behavior from a company called hiQ. hiQ had been scraping public data from profiles for years and was granted permission to continue. The court concluded that data made public was just that - public.

As with the discussion around outlawing encryption, the question comes down to whether or not law enforcement can and should regularly violate our privacy to combat child exploitation. There is no way this is the end of the story - it is likely just the beginning.