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Tag: amresearch

  • Google makes its apps safer and more private for teens and pre-teens

    Google makes its apps safer and more private for teens and pre-teens

    Google announced today some changes made to give teens and pre-teens more control over some of Google’s most popular apps. Over the next few weeks, Google will debut a new policy that enables anyone under 18 years old or their parent or guardian to request the removal of the child’s image from Google Image results including Search. As Google itself points out, “Of course, removing an image from Search doesn’t remove it from the web, but we believe this change will help give young people more control of their images online.”

    Over the next few weeks, the following changes are coming to Google apps for those under 18. YouTube will change the default upload settings for those 13-17 to the most private option available. Some useful digital wellbeing features will be promoted by Google and Google will provide safeguards and educate teens about commercial content from the app. Those 13-17 will have autoplay turned off by default while bedtime and break reminders will be enabled by default.

    As the Alphabet subsidiary says, “We regularly engage with kids and teens, parents, governments, industry leaders, and experts in the fields of privacy, child safety, wellbeing, and education to design better, safer products for kids and teens. Having an accurate age for a user can be an important element in providing experiences tailored to their needs.

    Yet, knowing the accurate age of our users across multiple products and surfaces, while at the same time respecting their privacy and ensuring that our services remain accessible, is a complex challenge. It will require input from regulators, lawmakers, industry bodies, technology providers, and others to address it – and to ensure that we all build a safer internet for kids.”

    Teens using Google Search can be protected by SafeSearch which prevents the kids from seeing search results not meant for their eyes when enabled. It is on by default for users under 13 whose accounts are managed by Family Link. With the latter, parents can decide at what time their kid’s device shuts off for the day. Google plans in the coming months to turn SafeSearch on by default for existing users under 18 and make it the default setting for teens setting up new accounts.

    When it comes to teens using Google Assistant, the company says, “We’re always working to prevent mature content from surfacing during a child’s experience with Google Assistant on shared devices, and in the coming months we’ll be introducing new default protections. For example, we will apply our SafeSearch technology to the web browser on smart displays.”

    Children using supervised accounts don’t have the option of turning on Location History which is turned off by default for all accounts. Soon, Google will prevent users under 18 globally from being able to turn on Location History. In addition, a new safety section for the Play Store will allow parents to know which apps meet Google’s Family policies. Apps will also have to disclose how they use the data they collect in greater detail allowing parents to decide whether to allow their kids to install the app.

    Google will also prevent age-sensitive ad campaigns from being shown to teens and those under 18 will not be allowed to be targeted by advertisers based on age, interests, and gender. New digital wellbeing tools will allow parents to “block news, podcasts, and access to webpages on Assistant-enabled smart devices.”

    Anne Collier, executive director of the Net Safety Collaborative stated, “Being mindful about tech use is key to everyone’s wellbeing. These new defaults for teens are protective; they increase safe, mindful tech use by making teens think about what they want to see and who they want seeing their content.”

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  • High public debt can hamper growth: AmBank Research

    High public debt can hamper growth: AmBank Research

    AmBank Research (AmResearch) which projects the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita recede by 0.007% with every 1% gain in public debt and debt service, also foresees a near-term volatility in the local and global equity markets, thanks to noises from the domestic and international front.

    “From our analysis, we found an inverse and significant impact between public debt as well as debt service against the GDP based on per capita. It implies that a 1% gain each in debt and debt service, will lower GDP per capita significantly by 0.007% and 0.22% respectively. We also found that a government consumption presents a negative and significant impact on GDP per capita with a drop of 0.05% for every 1% rise,” it said while noting that the current debt level of RM1.09 trillion to the GDP was in line with its projection of over a trillion ringgit in 2018.

    A high public debt will result in more spending on servicing the interest for the borrowings, thus straining resources. This is reflected in the low ratio of operating and development expenditure to debt at 0.20x and 0.04x respectively in 2017 from a high of 0.50x and 0.14x respectively in 2008 which is also the lowest reading since 1988.

    Noting that public debt levels had been on an upward trend since 2004, the research house said the government’s inability to curb the growth in operational expenditure over development expenditure in its budget especially in Budget 2018, raised concerns on the risk of falling into a debt overhang situation which can potentially hamper the sustainability of growth and transformation measures.

    The inability to reduce the operating expenditure, may lead to the need to improve revenue collection while simultaneously driving GDP, which in turn will help improve the debt-to-GDP ratio and fiscal balance position.

    Meanwhile, the rising government guaranteed loans and Public Private Partnership (PPP) lease repayments that lacks transparency suggests an easy way to shift the debt figures, while holding public debt below the 55% level.

    Since 2004, public debt saw an average rise of 10.2% or equivalent to an average of RM252 billion per annum between 2004 and 2009, while fiscal deficit widened from -4.3% in 2004 to -4.8% in 2008 due to higher spending on development activities amounting to RM27.5 billion in 2004 and RM41.9 billion in 2008.

    Operating expenditure rose from RM91.3 billion in 2004 to RM153.3 billion in 2008.

    The surge in total public debt was even more glaring from 2009 onwards as it jumped from RM362 billion to RM925 billlion, translating to an average growth of 13.4% or equivalent to RM639 billion per year.

    Although the fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP narrowed from -6.7% in 2009 to -3% in 2017 due to lower spending on development activities, which shrank from RM49 billion in 2009 to RM43 billion in 2017, operating expenditure rose from RM157 billion in 2009 to RM218 billion in 2018.

    On lowering the public debt, debt servicing, and government consumption to improve growth, Ambank Research opines the focus areas should be (1) improving the monitoring of the expenditure in each area of the economic activities, especially at the micro level; (2) greater transparency on government-guaranteed loans under public-private partnerships that may not be fiscally responsible; (3) improving and effectively managing government consumption; (5) targeting high-impact and productive businesses to drive growth; (6) boosting investors’ and household confidence by addressing leakages; and (6) an attractive ringgit to support overall business competitiveness.

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