For the Record

Google Delays Chrome Cookie-Blocking Plan:

Google "has delayed a major privacy change to its Chrome browser, pushing back a plan to block third-party cookies until late 2023 as it determines how to protect users while providing web publishers a way to make money," Stephen Shankland of CNET reported Thursday. Last year, the technology company "said it would prevent the world's most widely used browser from accepting the snippets of text called third-party cookies that help advertisers, publishers and data brokers profile you" to help advertisers target personalized ads. "We need to move at a responsible pace, allowing sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions and for publishers and the advertising industry to migrate their services," said Chrome Engineering Director Vinay Goel. "This is important to avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content." The delay has manifested as "laws like Europe's GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) target the data collection that Google and other companies want" for tailoring ads to user demographics. "All Chrome's top rivals, including Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Edge and Brave Software's Brave, take more aggressive measures at stopping tracking than Google," added Shankland. "If you want to stick with Chrome, browser extensions like Ghostery, DuckDuckGo, Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin, are designed to block trackers."

BuzzFeed Goes Public via SPAC:

BuzzFeed announced Thursday that it "plans to go public via a merger with a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company," according to Jessica Bursztynsky of CNBC. The 15-year-old media company, is targeting a $1.5 billion valuation as part of the agreement with 890 Fifth Avenue Partners. The merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter. BuzzFeed also will acquire Complex Networks, "a digital publisher that specializes in streetwear, music and culture, for $300 million," including $200 million in cash. "With today's announcement, we're taking the next step in BuzzFeed’s evolution, bringing capital and additional experience to our business," founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said in a statement. Peretti and CFO Felicia DellaFortuna will retain their roles in the combined company.

International Coalition Calls for End to 'Surveillance Advertising':

An international coalition of consumer advocates, civil rights organizations and data protection experts "has added its voice to growing calls for a ban on what’s been billed as 'surveillance-based advertising,'" Natasha Lomas of TechCrunch reported Tuesday. in an open letter, the coalition (which encompasses representatives from Privacy International, the Open Rights Group, the Center for Digital Democracy, the New Economics Foundation, Beuc, Edri and Fairplay) "urges legislative action, calling for a ban on ads that rely on 'systematic commercial surveillance' of Internet users in order to serve what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg likes, euphemistically, to refer to as 'relevant ads.'" The coalition also "points to a report examining consumer attitudes to surveillance-based advertising, prepared by one of the letter's signatories (the Norwegian Consumer Council), which found that only one in ten people are positive about commercial actors collecting information about them online — and only one in five think ads based on personal information are okay." Negotiations to shape a final European Union proposal on the matter "remain ongoing." 

Potential Irregularities Surface in Alden Deal:

In a December 14 confidential letter to Tribune Publishing's board, hedge fund-backed publisher Alden Global Capital promised it would "fully finance" its acquisition of the former company "with cash on hand" and affirmed that its financing conditions "[would] not require third party debt or equity to finance the Transaction" despite ultimately crafting a debt-financed deal in the agreement's "fine print," Julie Reynolds of NiemanLab reported Tuesday. Additionally, there is no record demonstrating that details of competing negotiations between Alden founder and Tribune board member Randall Smith and Choice Hotels International Chairman Stewart Bainum Jr. (who sought to return the Tribune newspapers to local control in a "higher-paying bid") were "ever presented to Tribune's board" until they concluded. "Directors have an obligation to all shareholders, not just the largest one," said Cornish F. Hitchcock, a Washington lawyer who has advised The NewsGuild. "When an offer comes in over the transom, individual directors have an obligation to present it to the board for mutual consideration." Reynolds added that "more than 80 employees accepted [...] buyouts offered immediately after Alden took control, further draining Tribune's diminished newsrooms and permanently eliminating those positions."

Canadian House of Commons Passes Social Media, Streaming Regulations:

Canadian lawmakers have passed a bill "that aims to regulate programming distributed by media streaming services and social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, a measure that critics warn could infringe on individual speech," Kait Bolongaro of Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The legislation, known as Bill C-10 and drafted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party, "is meant to subject tech giants to the same requirements as traditional broadcasters -- effectively compelling companies like Netflix and TikTok to finance and promote Canadian content." However, the legislation needs to win passage through the Canadian Senate before becoming law, "a process that could be pre-empted by an election later this year that would effectively kill the bill," Bolongaro added. "There are other issues we have to address when it comes to broadcasting and creation, and we will," said Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, who played an integral role in shepherding the bill. "C-10 is a first step in that direction." Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, has cautioned that the bill's current mechanisms are ambiguous and potentially unenforceable, as "some of it can be interpreted as saying that user activity won't be regulated, while other parts suggest" that user-driven content will be regulated: "Would Canadians be required to disclose that they're Canadian to meet these requirements? It's hard enough frankly to identify what constitutes Canadian content for conventional broadcast."

Allure's Lee Joins Netflix:

Allure Editor in Chief Michelle Lee has announced that she will leave the Condé Nast publication to join Netflix as vice president of editorial and publishing in late July, David Griner of Adweek reported Monday. In the role, Lee will be "focused on platforms such as Netflix's social media channels, podcasts and [the] print publication Queue," which launched in 2019. "I've spent the last few days thinking about my time at Allure and I’m really blown away by how much we accomplished," Lee said. "I've gotten the chance to work with such wildly talented people and on so many different platforms. And I'm proud that we made an impact. But I’m so honored to have the opportunity to join Netflix—a truly visionary company that I’ve always had a huge amount of respect for—in this incredibly exciting role. I'm looking forward to meeting the team and building some cool stuff together." Lee previously was editor in chief and chief marketing officer of Nylon Media and a senior editor at Glamour.

Lai Advisor: Apple Daily to Close:

Hong Kong-based pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily "will be forced to shut 'in a matter of days' after authorities froze the company's assets under a national security law," an adviser to jailed owner Jimmy Lai told Anne Marie Roantree of Reuters Monday. The planned closure "would undermine the former British colony's reputation as an open and free society and send a warning to other companies that could be accused of colluding with a foreign country," media advocacy groups said. "We thought we'd be able to make it to the end of the month," said Mark Smith, the U.S.-based adviser. "It's just getting harder and harder. It's essentially a matter of days." Chief Editor Ryan Law and Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung "were denied bail on Saturday after being charged with collusion with a foreign country" as the newspaper's assets were frozen by the government, eliciting widespread condemnation from "Western countries, global rights groups and the U.N. spokesperson for human rights." The office of Hong Kong's chief executive, Beijing's Liaison Office and the city's Security Bureau "did not immediately respond to requests for comment" from Roantree.

Facebook Launches Live Audio Rooms in the U.S.:

Facebook has launched its Clubhouse-competing Live Audio Rooms in the U.S. on iOS, "starting with public figures and select Facebook Groups," alongside the debut of "an initial set of U.S. podcast partners" stemming from new investments in audio products, Sarah Perez of TechCrunch reported Monday. The Rooms feature "will become available to any verified public figure or creator in the U.S. who's in good standing with Facebook and is using either a profile or the new Facebook Pages experience on iOS," with every Facebook user in the United States set to have listening access to the product by the end of the week. In contrast to other apps, "hosts are able to invite people to join them as a speaker in advance of the session, or they can choose listeners during the stream to join them," Perez added. Adopters include "Grammy-nominated electronic music artist TOKiMONSTA; American football quarterback Russell Wilson; organizer, producer and independent journalist Rosa Clemente; streamer and digital entertainer Omareloff; and social entrepreneur Amanda Nguyen." 

Vance Trimble (1913–2021):

1960 National Reporting winner and two-time Pulitzer juror Vance Trimble died Wednesday in Wewoka, Okla. He was 107. A native of Harrison, Ark., Trimble was primarily raised in Oklahoma and began his journalistic career at the Okemah Daily Leader as a "cub reporter" in his teens. Graduating from Wewoka High School at the nadir of the Great Depression in 1931, he and his wife, Elzene Miller, traveled around the country for more than a year pursuing itinerant jobs, ultimately settling in Texas; after brief stints in Beaumont and Port Arthur, he secured a permanent position with the Houston Press. Following World War II-era service in California as a news editor for the Army Signal Corps and a return to the Press (culminating in his appointment as managing editor in 1950), Trimble accepted an editorship at the Scripps Howard National Bureau in Washington, D.C. in 1955. There, he completed his Pulitzer-winning series on nepotism in Congress, taking his cue from "Racketeering in Washington," an obscure 1933 book on the subject by journalist Raymond Clapper. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Trimble "found that at least 20% of the members of Congress had relatives or close friends on their payroll, which was very suspect," prompting then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson "to open the Congress’s secret payroll records to the public for the first time in over three decades." From 1963 to 1979, Trimble served as editor of The Kentucky Post, a local edition of The Cincinnati Post; while there, he played a decisive role in the 1968 establishment of Northern Kentucky University, today the third largest university in the tri-state Cincinnati metropolitan area. Beginning in 1970 and continuing well into his nominal retirement, Trimble wrote several books, including a history of hyperbaric medicine and a biography of Sam Walton. When asked about his longevity by Tanya Finchum and Alex Bishop of Oklahoma State University in 2013, he responded, "First of all, stay in love, eat light, not too much whiskey, no cigarettes, don’t walk under any ladders, and watch out for black cats."

Hong Kong Journalists Arrested Under National Security Law:

Hong Kong police "used a sweeping national security law Thursday to arrest five editors and executives" of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper, "on charges of colluding with foreign powers — the first time the legislation has been used against the press in yet another sign of an intensifying crackdown by Chinese authorities in the city long known for its freedoms," according to Zen Soo of the Associated Press. Police maintain that more than 30 articles published by the newspaper "played a 'crucial part' in what they called a conspiracy with foreign countries to impose sanctions against China and Hong Kong." Publisher Jimmy Lai is currently serving a 20-month prison sentence following his conviction for participating in unauthorized protests in 2019. The editors and executives include Chief Editor Ryan Law; Cheung Kim-hung, the chief executive of parent company Next Digital; Next Digital's chief operating officer; and two other top editors. Hong Kong Security Minister John Lee said that anyone working with the "perpetrators" would "pay a hefty price," adding: "Distance yourself from them, otherwise all you will be left with are regrets."