Tag: transparency
Following the money – the need for greater transparency is urgent
Game companies post absurdly broad salary ranges to ‘comply’ with new pay transparency laws
The Transparency Theater of the Twitter Files
Tech’s growth story shifted this year. How has that impacted transparency?
Vijay Chattha, a seasoned startup comms expert, appeared on the Equity podcast to talk with Natasha Mascarenhas about startup storytelling and vulnerability.
Tech’s growth story shifted this year. How has that impacted transparency? by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch
Xbox Transparency Report Reveals Up To 4.78 Million Accounts Were Proactively Suspended In Just Six Months
A further breakdown of the data reveals 199,000 proactive enforcements taken by Xbox involving adult sexual content, 87,000 for fraud, and 54,000 for harassment or bullying. The report also claims that 100 percent of all actions in the last six-month period relating to account tampering, piracy, and phishing were taken proactively by Xbox rather than via reports made by its player base, which suggests that either fewer issues are being reported by players or the issues themselves are being addressed before players are aware of them. As proactive action has increased, the report also reveals that reports made by players have decreased significantly despite a growing player base, noting a 36 percent decline in player reports compared to the same period in 2021. A total of 33.07 million reports were made by players during the last period, with the vast majority relating to either in-game conduct (such as cheating, teamkilling, or intentionally throwing a match) or communications.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The first-ever Xbox transparency report reveals a surge in bot bans
If you’ve had to deal with a rash of fake Xbox Live accounts in recent times, you’re far from alone. Microsoft has published its first-ever Xbox transparency report, and it’s now clear the company is banning or otherwise cracking down on bots. The company says it issued over 4.33 million “proactive enforcements” (that is, taking action without user reports) against fake and compromised accounts in the first half of 2022. That represented 57 percent of the enforcement actions over the six-month span, and a ninefold surge in the amount of proactive efforts versus the same period a year ago.
Microsoft was previously pouring most of its energy into “reactive” enforcement (responses to gamer reports), and taking fewer actions as a whole. The company issued 2.24 million reactive enforcements in the second half of 2021, and just 461,000 proactive measures. Other violations were relatively few and far between. “Adult” content led to just 199,000 proactive enforcements, while fraud, harassment and other abuses each had fewer than 100,000 actions.
It won’t surprise you to hear that most of Microsoft’s 33.08 million user-prompted crackdowns focused on toxic players. Enforcement was equally dominated by reports of cheating and other poor conduct (43 percent) and abusive communication (46 percent). Just 11 percent of enforcements were tied to user-made content like offensive nicknames and screenshots. Thankfully, there appear to be fewer overall incidents — Microsoft received 59.65 million reports in the last half of 2020.
Don’t count on winning an appeal if you think Microsoft made a mistake. Out of more than 151,000 case appeals during the period, just six percent (about 9,250) led to reinstatements.
You can expect a new Xbox transparency report every six months from now onward. There doesn’t appear to be equivalent reports for the equivalent Nintendo and Sony online services. Still, this may be good news if you’ve wondered about Xbox Live’s problem areas, and whether or not Microsoft is taking bots seriously.
Xbox Shares Community Safety Approach in Transparency Report
Airbnb will improve transparency around pricing
Booking a stay through Airbnb can be a chore for a few reasons. Chief among those is the fact it’s not always easy to tell at a glance how much you’ll pay for your vacation rental, since the cleaning fee or security deposit may not appear until after you click on a listing. However, Airbnb is at last set to make pricing a bit more transparent.
CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter that, starting next month, the company will offer the option to see the full price of a stay in search results, and on the map, price filter and listings pages. You’ll still be able to see a breakdown of the full price, including Airbnb’s service fee and any discounts. Moreover, Chesky says Airbnb will prioritize total price rather than nightly price in its ranking algorithm. “The highest quality homes with the best total prices will rank higher in search results,” Chesky said.
I’ve heard you loud and clear—you feel like prices aren’t transparent and checkout tasks are a pain. That’s why we’re making 4 changes:
1. Starting next month, you’ll be able to see the total price you’re paying up front. pic.twitter.com/58zodrzU3g
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 7, 2022
This is by and large a positive move, since the per-night prices shown in search results don’t tell the whole story. Hosts may charge different cleaning fees or even fees for extra guests that aren’t immediately apparent. Showing (almost) the full price upfront should make it easier for folks to compare listings while reducing sticker shock at checkout.
There is one drawback, though. The price that you see in search results and on the map still doesn’t include taxes. It would be helpful to see that at the jump as well, particularly given that many hotel booking sites show the full price with taxes included in search results. “Our thinking was that since prices in the US are typically displayed pre-tax, that we should go with this convention,” Chesky wrote.
Elsewhere, Chesky said that Airbnb will offer hosts more pricing and discount tools. He noted that hosts want a clearer understanding of the full price users pay and what they should charge to help them stay competitive. Chesky added that users shouldn’t have to undertake “unreasonable” checkout tasks like vacuuming or stripping the bedding. He noted that simple actions like turning off lights, chucking food in the trash and locking doors are reasonable, and that hosts should communicate those kinds of checkout requests before a booking is made.