 |
|
|
|||||
Be warned, online merchants who see no issue in publishing phony reviews from made-up customers: that practice is no longer allowed. A federal ban on fake online reviews has taken effect. The Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule on the purchase and sale of online reviews back in August and it came into force 60 days after it was published in the Federal Register. The agency's commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the regulation. The rule bans businesses from creating, buying or selling reviews and testimonials attributed to people who don't exist, including those that are AI generated. False celebrity endorsements aren't allowed and companies can't pay or otherwise incentivize genuine customers to leave positive or negative reviews. Certain reviews and testimonials written by people who have close ties with a company without a disclaimer is a no-no. There are restrictions on soliciting reviews from close relatives of employees too. The rule includes limitations on the suppression of negative reviews from customers. It also prohibits people from knowingly selling or buying fake followers and views to inflate the influence or importance of social media accounts for commercial purposes. Fines for violating these measures could prove extremely costly. The maximum civil penalty for each infraction is currently $51,744. Fake reviews not only waste peoples time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors, FTC Chair Lina Khan said when the rule was finalized. By strengthening the FTCs toolkit to fight deceptive advertising, the final rule will protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice, and promote markets that are fair, honest and competitive. The rule is a positive move for consumers, with the idea that reviews should be more trustworthy in the future. In a separate victory for consumer rights, the FTC recently issued a final rule to make it as easy for people to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/a-federal-ban-on-fake-online-reviews-is-now-in-effect-191746690.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Google just announced a spate of safety features coming to Messages. Theres enhanced scam detection centered around texts that could lead to fraud. The company says the update provides improved analysis of scammy texts. For now, this tool will prioritize scams involving package deliveries and job offers. When Google Messages suspects a scam, itll move the message to the spam folder or issue a warning. The app uses on-device machine learning models to detect these scams, meaning that conversations will remain private. This enhancement is rolling out now to beta users who have spam protection enabled. Googles also set to broadly roll out intelligent warnings, a feature thats been in the pilot stage for a while. This tool warns users when they get a link from an unknown sender and automatically blocks messages with links from suspicious senders. The updated safety tools also include new sensitive content warnings that automatically blurs images that may contain nudity. This is an opt-in feature and also keeps everything on the device. Itll show up in the next few months. Finally, theres a forthcoming tool thatll let people turn off messages from unknown international senders, thus cutting the scam spigot off at the source. This will automatically hide messages from international senders who arent already in the contacts list. This feature is entering a pilot program in Singapore later this year before expanding to more countries. In addition to the above tools, Google says its currently working on a contact verifying feature for Android. This should help put the kibosh on scammers trying to impersonate one of your contacts. The company has stated that this feature will be available sometime next year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/google-messages-adds-enhanced-scam-detection-tools-190009890.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Stable Diffusion, an open-source alternative to AI image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E, has been updated to version 3.5. The new model tries to right some of the wrongs (which may be an understatement) of the widely panned Stable Diffusion 3 Medium. Stability AI says the 3.5 model adheres to prompts better than other image generators and competes with much larger models in output quality. In addition, its tuned for a greater diversity of styles, skin tones and features without needing to be prompted to do so explicitly. The new model comes in three flavors. Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large is the most powerful of the trio, with the highest quality of the bunch, while leading the industry in prompt adherence. Stability AI says the model is suitable for professional uses at 1 MP resolution. Meanwhile, Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large Turbo is a distilled version of the larger model, focusing more on efficiency than maximum quality. Stability AI says the Turbo variant still produces high-quality images with exceptional prompt adherence in four steps. Finally, Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium (2.5 billion parameters) is designed to run on consumer hardware, balancing quality with simplicity. With its greater ease of customization, the model can generate images between 0.25 and 2 megapixel resolution. However, unlike the first two models, which are available now, Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium doesnt arrive until October 29. The new trio follows the botched Stable Diffusion 3 Medium in June. The company admitted that the release didnt fully meet our standards or our communities expectations, as it produced some laughably grotesque body horror in response to prompts that asked for no such thing. Stability AIs repeated mentions of exceptional prompt adherence in todays announcement are likely no coincidence. Although Stability AI only briefly mentioned it in its announcement blog post, the 3.5 series has new filters to better reflect human diversity. The company describes the new models human outputs as representative of the world, not just one type of person, with different skin tones and features, without the need for extensive prompting. Lets hope its sophisticated enough to account for subtleties and historical sensitivities, unlike Googles debacle from earlier this year. Unprompted to do so, Gemini produced collections of egregiously inaccurate historical photos, like ethnically diverse Nazis and US Founding Fathers. The backlash was so intense that Google didnt reincorporate human generations until six months later.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/stable-diffusion-35-follows-your-prompts-more-closely-and-generates-more-diverse-people-184022965.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||