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Kids and younger teens might soon be unable to play Genshin Impact's gachas. The developer behind the game has agreed to block players under 16 years old from making in-game purchases without parental consent in order to settle a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission. It has also agreed to pay a $20 million penalty. Samuel Levine, the director of FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said "Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning." The developer's marketing actively targeted children, the commission said in its complaint, and the company also violated COPPA by collecting personal info from kids under 13. HoYoverse, the developer's US entity, allegedly deceives players "about the odds of winning" its rarer loot box prizes and uses a confusing virtual currency system that's unfair to kids and younger teens. The FTC says this misleads players on how much they actually have to spend to be able to get rarer prizes. Genshin Impact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic, wherein players can "pull" on banners to win a random item or character. Under the FTC's proposed order, it wants to prohibit Genshin Impact from selling loot boxes using virtual currency unless it also provides an option to purchase them directly with real money. It wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box odds and processes, and it wants to require the company to disclose gachas' odds and the virtual currency exchange rate. The commission wants to order HoYoverse to delete personal information collected from kids until 13 unless it was obtained with parental consent, as well. A federal judge still has to approve the proposed order with all these requirements, though, so they won't be enforced immediately. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ftc-orders-genshin-impacts-developer-to-block-young-teens-from-making-in-game-purchases-221532729.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Just one day before TikTok is expected to shut down in the US, startup Perplexity AI has submitted a bid to TikToks parent company ByteDance proposing a merger that would allow it to continue operating, CNBC reports. Citing an anonymous source, CNBC reports that the proposed merger would create a new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US and New Capital Partners. It comes after the Supreme Court on Friday ruled unanimously to uphold a law that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or it will be banned in the US. The company has so far resisted the idea of a sale. According to CNBCs source, Perplexity is hoping a merger rather than a sale will be more appealing to ByteDance. The new structure would allow for most of ByteDances existing investors to retain their equity stakes and would bring more video to Perplexity, CNBC reports. If ByteDance were to accept the proposal, theres a chance the company would be given a 90-day extension by Trump to work out a deal, which he told NBC News' Kristen Welker that he would most likely do when he takes office on Monday. But there is as yet no indication that ByteDance will go this route. Despite rampant speculation about potential buyers, TikTok said it will be forced to go dark on January 19 when the law takes effect unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement. The outgoing administration, however, reportedly says its leaving all that for the Trump team to deal with. Per MSNBC, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikToks claim about shutting down a stunt, and said we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday. We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration, Jean-Pierre said, according to MSNBC. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/perplexity-ai-has-reportedly-submitted-an-11th-hour-bid-to-save-tiktok-in-the-us-215012514.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Instagram is rolling out a bunch of changes this weekend that will conveniently make it look a lot more like TikTok, which could go dark in the US on Sunday now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the law banning the app if parent company ByteDance doesnt sell it. Those changes include extending Reels to three minutes long and changing the longstanding square grid on your profile to a rectangular layout, as Adam Mosseri announced in an Instagram post and on his Story, respectively. Considering how some users have crafted a specific look for their pages around the square grid, the latter isnt likely to go over well with everyone. Nor is the third thing: theres now a tab in your Reels feed that shows you videos your friends have liked or added Notes to, Mosseri shared on Threads. Which means, of course, that your friends can more easily see what youve been liking and interacting with, too. Didnt we already agree this was kind of invasive back when Instagram had and eventually removed a whole feed dedicated to seeing the activity of the people you follow? In any case, the changes have already begun rolling out. You'll now see a button showing your friends' activity at the top right of the Reels tab, which will bring you to the new feed. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) Addressing the switch from the square grid in his Stories, Mosserri chalked it up to aligning with users posting habits. I know some of you really like your squares, and square photos are kind of the heritage of Instagram, but at this point most of whats uploaded both photos and videos are vertical in their orientation, so portrait versus landscape or square, and it just is a bummer to overly crop them, he said. So I know its a change, I know its a bit of a pain, but I think its a transitional pain. He went on to say, I think that people will over the long run be excited not to have their posts appear aggressively cropped. Instagram already had offered a somewhat TikTok-like view of users profiles under the Reels tab, but the latest move gives photos on the main grid the rectangular treatment too (only on the grid though, theyll expand to normal size when you click them individually). On making Reels longer, Mosseri said in a separate post that while Instagram has long focused on short-form video, weve heard the feedback that this is just too short for those who want to share longer stories. Instagram previously only allowed Reels of up to 90-seconds long, though you could work around this by sharing a longer video as a non-Reel post. TikTok, which also began with a focus on short-form, extended its post length to three minutes several years ago, and later upped this to 10 minutes in 2022. If TikTok really does shut down, users are going to be looking for a new home for that type of content.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-swoops-in-with-3-minute-reels-and-rectangular-profile-grids-as-the-tiktok-ban-gets-real-201316339.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
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