Regulation & Compliance

Five on Friday, Mar. 27, 2020: subscription sharing, consumer privacy compliance extension and ESPN.

While the world battens down the hatches to try to stop the spread of coronavirus, the subscription world marches on.

Happy Friday, everyone! Knee deep in presidential debates and caucuses, we hope you are ready for a productive distraction with our Friday features. In this week's edition, we look at the global OTT market and its projected growth over the next five years. Also, the FTC is reviewing influencer and sponsored content guidelines, the Association of National Advertisers has a mixed reaction to the proposed privacy rules in California, Patreon is lending money to creators for big projects, and Shopify shares five tools for helping you achieve your 2020 goals.

Happy Valentine's Day! In this week's edition of Five on Friday, we share highlights from Blockthrough/PageFair's 2020 adblocking report to see how adblocking is moving to mobile, YouTube's advertising revenue hits a staggering $15 billion in 2019, Content Marketing Institute schools us on what we need to know about vanity metrics, Canada warns brands and influencers to follow the rules, and Flipboard launches a subscription video service.

Happy February, Five on Friday fans! In this week's edition, The New York Times raises its prices for digital subscriptions for the first time since putting up its paywall in 2011, the FTC is blocking Edgewell's acquisition of Harry's, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune hangs onto its print subscribers while growing its digital subscriber base, AdExchanger explains why it thinks publishers' ad and marketing teams need to work together, and LinkedIn shares top subscription jobs.

The FTC knows that third-party review sites and the opinions of other customers carry a great deal of persuasive weight. But watch out: the FTC has filed yet another enforcement action reminding sellers that ratings which are the product of buying and selling between the "independent" review site and companies willing to pay for better play, or from employees acting on instructions to stuff the ballot box with five-star ratings are not objective and violate…

VISA will be releasing FAQs focused on promotional and trial offers in February. Lisa B. Dubrow, Esq. outlines what to expect.

Last week, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that the State of Minnesota had reached a settlement with Comcast/Xfinity to the tune of $1.14 million. The settlement was reached over Comcasts business practices which included adding services and equipment customers had not asked for, for overcharging customers and failing to follow through on promotional promises. Customers who had Comcast service between December 21, 2012 and the present who fit into any three of those categories may be eligible for a refund.

If you are tired of political volleyball, check out this weeks subscription headlines. In this weeks news, YouTube TV announces new channels and new features, Facebook wont stop political adv targeting or false claims under the new rules, and Netflix tests cheaper, mobile-only subscriptions. Also this week, Dwell launches a digital subscription as it names a new CEO, Mastercard launches its first music single, and Apple News reportedly expanded 18%, boasting 100 million daily users.

Subscription companies are starting 2020 strong with acquisitions, ad sales and inquiries into ad blocking companies. We'll explore those topics in this week's edition of Five on Friday: CBS All Access continues to do well with low subscription churn and higher ad sales; travel trends show that subscriptions and memberships are a solid strategy; Meredith will acquire crowdsourced recommendation platform SwearBy; The New York Times reports preliminary results for 2019; and Sen. Ron Wyden wants an investigation into the ad-blocking industry to see if Big Tech is buying them off.