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Help-to-buy scheme pushes Redrow Homes profits to record high
 Windfall: Steve Morgan, pictured with third wife Sally Toumi

The boss of one of Britain's biggest housebuilders was nearly £50million richer last night as the company cashed in from Help to Buy.

Posting a 26 per cent rise in profits to a record £315million, Redrow chairman Steve Morgan revealed two in five private house sales now come through the Government's mortgage scheme.

The bumper figures sent shares in the company up 4.4 per cent – adding £29million to the value of the 29 per cent stake held by Morgan (pictured, right, with third wife Sally Toumi, 48).

The 64-year-old, who set up Redrow in 1974 and is one of Britain's richest developers, was also promised a dividend payment of £18.3million, taking his gains for the day to £47.3million.

With Help to Buy making up around 40 per cent of sales at Redrow, Morgan called for it to be extended beyond its current deadline of 2021.

'Help to Buy has boosted housing supply and we look forward to working with the Government to consider the future of the scheme beyond 2021,' he said. 'We certainly hope that it doesn't go away.'

But critics said the scheme, through which the Government ploughs taxpayers' money into the housing market, has done little to solve the chronic shortage of homes.

Instead, they argue, it has driven up property prices and lined the pockets of developers.

'Help to Buy is boosting the sales prices of houses that probably would have been built anyway,' said Duncan Stott, director of campaign group Priced Out.

'Look at the share prices, look at the profits. Developers have clearly done very well from the scheme.'

Help to Buy was launched in early 2013 to boost housebuilding in the wake of the financial crisis.

Under the scheme, families can buy new homes worth up to £600,000 with deposits of 5 per cent, with the Government providing a loan of 20 per cent interest-free for five years.

Redrow has sold 5,882 homes through Help to Buy, including a record 1,882 last year when revenues rose 20 per cent to £1.7billion.

Redrow proposed a dividend of 17p a share and the stock rose 27p to an all-time high of 647p, making Morgan's stake worth £695million.

The company is now targeting revenues of £2.2billion in 2020, profits of £430million, and a dividend of 32p a share – enough to earn Morgan more than £34million if his stake remains the same.

Output: Redrow Homes CEO Steve Morgan has called for the government's Help to Buy scheme to be extended beyond 2021 and revealed two in every five private house sales come via the scheme. The housebuilding firm has sold 5,882 homes through Help to Buy so far in 2017 and Redrow's profits rose by more than a quarter to a record £315m ($414m). Critics argue the scheme has done little to ease the housing crisis. "Look at the share prices, look at the profits. Developers have clearly done very well," said Duncan Stott, director of campaign group Priced Out.


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German election forces Merkel to confront smog problem
 With less than three weeks until the German elections, pressure is mounting on Angela Merkel to tackle the deadly smog in a large number of cities or face a court-enforced diesel ban and backlash from millions of motorists faced with plummeting resale values.

More than 90 cities with excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution could potentially outlaw diesel cars from their centres when the country’s federal administrative court rules early next year.

Addressing the Bundestag for the final time in the parliamentary term on Tuesday morning, the chancellor tried to reassure the owners of Germany’s approximately 15m diesel cars by promising to do “everything in our powers to make sure there won’t be such bans”.

The chancellor, who on Monday had also doubled the funds set aside to help cities improve air quality by a further €500m (£460m), said her party would pursue alternatives. “We Christian Democrats don’t work with bans but try to allow a reasonable transition,” she told the chamber.

Despite the potential scale of the damage to the German car industry, the diesel scandal had until this week played a relatively minor role in the election campaign.

Merkel at an election campaign rally in Heidelberg on Tuesday. Photograph: AFP/Getty

But amid looming judicial threats to ban cars from the most polluted city centres, such as Munich and Stuttgart, the government has been forced to demonstrate that it is taking concrete actions to avert a public relations disaster.

But legal experts warned the chancellor will probably be forced into an embarrassing U-turn if, as expected, she is re-elected on 24 September.

“The court cases are already in motion, and Merkel won’t be able to extricate herself from the process unless she takes drastic action,” said lawyer Remo Klinger, who is working with environmental group DUH to introduce the diesel ban.

“Germany only has two options: a hardware update to make sure that diesel cars are fitted with functioning filters, or an outright ban,” he told the Guardian. “All other proposals are not worth taking seriously.”

In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine over the weekend, Merkel ruled out a hardware update, arguing that it would “minimise the car industry’s financial scope for investing in modern technology”.

Green party co-leader Cem Özdemir accused Merkel of “shedding crocodile tears for German carmakers”, saying “it is your own inaction that is about to introduce a diesel ban by force”.

The Greens are pushing for a system of “blue plaques” for diesel cars with engines that meet EU emissions limits, which would amount to a ban on an estimated 30-40% of cars that do not. It could allow exceptions for workers who rely on diesel engines for their business.

Environmental experts have also criticised Merkel for stating that the air pollution affecting a large number of German cities is only indirectly linked to the emission-cheating software installed by companies which displayed false nitrogen dioxide levels.

Quick Guide Germany and the car industry Show Size and reach Germany often feels like a country set up to serve the car industry. Movers and shakers transfer smoothly between top government posts and car company boards while no fewer than one in seven jobs - around 800,000 - are dependent on the industry. Politicians Angela Merkel is often referred to as the Autokanzlerin - or car chancellor - for her efforts to protect the industry. Others are more closely linked: the governor of Lower Saxony, where Volkswagen is based, is a guaranteed board member. Her predecessor as chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was both. VW also allows Lower Saxony to hold 20% of its shares. Government and industry Former VW board members in politics include Sigmar Gabriel, the foreign minister, and Christian Wulff, the former president. The traffic goes the other way: when Eckart von Klaeden, a senior member of Merkel’s office, left to become Daimler’s chief lobbyist for Daimler, the move was so swift it prompted an investigation by Berlin prosecutors. In one illustration of the close linksStephan Weil, the current Lower Saxony governor, last month admitted sending a 2015 speech on the diesel emissions scandal to VW, on whose board he sits. He said he submitted it for fact checking but denied softening at the company’s request. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

Merkel was accused of playing down the emissions scandal by saying that cities would still suffer from excessive pollution levels, even if the cars were not producing such high amounts of poisonous gas.

“Even if these cars pumped out emissions at approved levels, even if this break down of trust hadn’t taken place, we would still have the environmental problems we have,” Merkel said on Sunday during her televised duel against her Social Democrat rival, Martin Schulz.

During the debate, Merkel said she was “really angry” with the car industry, describing the scandal as “quite a shambles” – but experts accused her of trying to lessen the blame on the car industry.

“I have hardly ever heard such nonsense,” Axel Friedrich, an emissions expert at German Environment Aid, who previously worked for the government. He said Merkel was “out of touch” with the situation on German roads, saying he had tested cars that were pumping out up to 18 times the legal limit of nitrogen dioxide.

Friedrich told the Süddeutsche Zeitung he was convinced air pollution levels would fall by more than 60% to acceptable levels if action was taken. “Seventy per cent of air pollution problems in cities are down to diesel emissions,” he said.

The EU allows a maximum of 40 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic metre. In Stuttgart and Munich the figure is at least double that and in a further 51 cities the levels are above 40.

Merkel’s pledge to set up the sustainability fund to allow local authorities to take measures to reduce diesel-related air pollution is her most decisive move so far. With immediate effect she has announced the establishment of a coordination team of government ministries, states and municipalities to advise on projects that can be put in place.

Warning sign for particulate pollution on a busy road in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. Photograph: Getty/Westend61

But environmental groups and a number of mayors have been quick to criticise the plans as too little, too late and, apart from the sustainability fund, too vague.

Fritz Kuhn, mayor of Stuttgart, the worst-affected German city with emission levels double the limit set by the EU, said the industry – which had been due to contribute €250m to the fund – should be obliged to work with municipalities to solve the problems.

He said his city was keen to purchase electric buses “but, on the part of the car industry, no one has given us any offers”, he said. His only option was to refit old buses instead, he said.

Mayors have pinpointed buses as a big polluter. Though they make up only 1% of vehicles on the roads, they produce 20% of emissions.

The diesel car market has fallen significantly since the emission scandal erupted, and has been further affected by the threat of driving bans in cities.

Output: As the German elections edge closer, Angela Merkel is facing increasing pressure to deal with the toxic smog problems seen in over 90 cities across the country. Merkel could have to push for a court-enforced diesel ban if she fails to deal with the smog. This could have major repercussions from millions of drivers as there are roughly 15 million diesel cars in Germany. Speaking to the Bundestag this week, Merkel reassured motorists that the government is doing "everything in our powers to make sure there won't be such bans".


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Scotland to introduce can and bottle recycling scheme
 The Scottish government is planning to introduce a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans.

Customers would pay a surcharge when purchasing bottles or cans under the programme, which will be refunded when they return them to a shop.

The Scottish government has been consulting Zero Waste Scotland on the design of the deposit return scheme, which the organisation estimates could save local authorities between £3m and £6m on litter clearance alone.

Zero Waste Scotland reviewed schemes in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as part of the consultation.

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We have already confirmed that we are looking at new ways to ensure we keep as many valuable materials in circulation for as long as possible and deposit return is one of those options. We have asked Zero Waste Scotland to model a deposit return system to help us assess impacts and benefits.”

Zero Waste Scotland received 63 responses in its call for evidence on deposit return scheme design, including those from Coca-Cola, major supermarkets and Scottish environment groups.

An opinion poll conducted by the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland revealed that 78% of the Scottish publish are in favour of the scheme, but some major drinks companies disagree.

AG Barr, the maker of Irn Bru, warned that “the cost to the consumer would be in the region of £150m extra per year” in its submission.

It added: “The scope for fraud in a Scottish DRS is huge. On a small scale we could see people scavenging in bins for containers, as is the US experience. On a medium scale there is the potential for local authority amenity centre looting. And on a larger scale there is the very real possibility of cross-border trafficking of deposit-bearing containers. It costs around £400 to move a lorry load of cans from England to Scotland. A single lorry could carry 160,000 crushed cans or £32,000 worth of deposits.”

AG Barr put an end to its own 30p deposit return scheme for glass bottles in August 2015, which had been in operation for more than 100 years.

Output: The Scottish government plans to introduce a scheme for returning bottles and cans to shops to be recycled. Under the scheme, customers will pay a surcharge when purchasing bottles or cans, which will be refunded when they are returned to a shop. The Scottish government has been consulting waste management non-profit Zero Waste Scotland on how the scheme could be introduced. A total 79% of the Scottish public are in favour of the scheme, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland.


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Indian edtech NEST Education gains $600,000 in funding
 The Michael And Susan Dell Foundation And Anand Mahindra Have Made A Follow-on Investment In NEST Education

Edtech company, NEST Education (Naandi Education And Support Training) has raised $600K in follow-on funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra, Chairman and MD of the Mahindra Group.

NEST Education has deployed Alphabyte – The Learning Centre, which are high-quality learning centres for less privileged children. According to an official statement, Alphabyte aims to significantly raise education quality across urban India. With this round of funding, NEST Education aims to grow its outreach to a larger number of students and achieve its goal of educating 10,000 students by FY 2022.

Commenting on the funding, Debasish Mitter, India Country Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation said, “NEST, through its blended learning model, is delivering best-in-class education content and solution to underserved students and preparing them to succeed in modern India. We find the ability of NEST to aggregate content from around the world and to deliver multiple products through their centres very appealing.”

NEST Education: Using Technology Physically To Upskill The Underprivileged

Rahul Ranjan is the founder and CEO of Gurugram-based Naandi Education and Support Training, NEST. The core leadership consists of Richa Hans who handles the academic development side and Harjot Bains who handles business ops.

NEST’s Alphabyte uses technology to fast-track the learning of every student through customised learning modules that are curated from the best knowledge providers. They have programs catering to IIT-JEE modules, English learning to become job smart, a training programme to teach pre-school internationally and ‘Genius learning.’

NEST Education is currently operational in three learning centres, two in Gurugram and one in Delhi. As per the website, the company counts entities such as ConveGenius (another startup backed by The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation) and Avanti as their learning partners.

“We at NEST work towards building an empowered society by creating learning opportunities for different teaching-learning age groups, leveraging best possible EdTech solutions globally. Continued support from our investors and their understanding of social challenges are definitely vital to our motivation and adds value to our operations,” said Rahul Ranjan, founder and CEO.

Queries sent to NEST Education awaited reply at the time of publication.

The Michael And Susan Dell Foundation And Edtech Funding Connect

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has recently expressed an interest in setting up an incubator for startups who are serving the underprivileged and underserved segments of India. Since 2006, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has invested more than $172 Mn (INR 1,100 Cr) in non-profit and social enterprises in India. In May 2016, Foundation earmarked an additional $50 Mn (about INR 333 Cr) towards investments in the country over the next three years.

The foundation has previously backed ConveGenius, an edutainment startup.

Edtech in India has been a relatively slumbering market as compared to fintech and other tech verticals. But, according to the ASER 2016 report, the market for K12 education is significantly higher, with 250 Mn students across 1.4 Mn schools. The next best viable market is vocational training, states a Unitus Seed Fund report on edtech with 16% entrepreneurs preferring the space.

The report states, “As of 2013, a dismal 7 per cent of India’s working population had received some sort of vocational training. Fortunately, the Government of India has acknowledged the need to address this issue, and has set itself on an ambitious target to up skill 500 million Indians by 2022 through the National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship 2015.”

While most investors are averse to taking risks in the vocational training space, with investors such as the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra, companies such as NEST can hope to take on the mammoth task of skilling/upskilling India’s underprivileged population. As of now, NEST competes with heavily funded startups such as BYJU’s, Toppr, Coursera who have a significant online presence and hope to take a share of the edtech market that has a potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from where it stands now i.e. $247 Mn.

Output: Indian edtech firm NEST Education has raised $600,000 in additional funding to increase the number of learning centres it provides to underprivileged children in the country. The funding comes from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group. NEST currently runs three "Alphabyte" learning centres in Gurugram and Delhi, which use technology to deliver customised learning modules covering engineering, the English language, and pre-school teaching skills. The funding will help NEST open additional centres and reach its goal of educating 10,000 students by 2022.


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How I Keep the Topic of Aging Fresh
 Started in 2008 by the former Times reporter Jane Gross, The New Old Age has covered a slew of topics: various kinds of senior care facilities; health decisions from vaccinations (elders don’t get enough) to colonoscopies (elders get too many); and whether it makes sense to move into the same retirement community as your mother.

We look at broader social trends, like why older adults are getting arrested and shacking up more often, and why they’re not seeing dentists often enough.

Of course, aging ends only one way. So we also talk a lot about advance directives, hospice and other kinds of end-of-life care, and the slowly growing number of states with aid-in-dying laws.

Readers chime in via the comments section, sometimes in droves. Though we expected to hear mostly from caregivers, elders themselves — increasingly online — weigh in, too.

Column ideas come from all over. I read medical and gerontology journals and field suggestions from geriatricians and researchers. My physical therapist told me about an anti-vertigo maneuver. I hear directly from elders and caregivers via Facebook and Twitter. And I sometimes wrote about my father and his transitions, until his death in 2012.

Output: In 2009, when I took over as primary writer of a New York Times blog called The New Old Age, I figured I could probably keep it going for three years or so. Then, I’d run out of things to say about aging and caregiving.


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Karen Clarke devises hurricane claims risk model for insurers
 Catastrophe risk modelling specialist Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has launched a new product designed to allow re/insurers to track potential claims and losses from hurricanes in real-time, while allowing them to analyse key exposure metrics.

The live cat (live catastrophe) risk model will help insurance or reinsurance companies and also ILS funds or ILS investors to better understand the potential impacts of approaching hurricanes and developing tropical storm catastrophes.

The new product is being called RiskInsight®-lite, and is essentially a slimmed down version of the KCC RiskInsight catastrophe risk modelling platform, designed to help re/insurers better analyse hurricane exposures in real-time.

As well as providing insights into potential claims and losses from hurricanes in real-time, the RiskInsight-lite platform will also offer re/insurers or ILS users a way to estimate their Exceedence Probability (EP) curves, including probable maximum losses (PMLs) and average annual losses (AALs) at location-level resolution.

KCC said that this product can be made available to users immediately and in time for the approaching major hurricane Irma, which is threatening the Caribbean and U.S. and has recently strengthened into a category 5 storm.

“RiskInsight is an advanced open loss modeling platform that our clients use to build their own scientific models and to customize the Reference Model components such as the damage functions to accurately reflect their actual claims experience,” commented Karen Clark, KCC CEO. “However, some companies haven’t yet licensed RiskInsight because they don’t believe they have the sophistication and/or the resources to fully leverage this powerful new modeling platform. With that in mind, we created RiskInsight-lite to provide only the capabilities of the other cat models plus RiskInsight’s unique real time event tracking capabilities.”

“KCC clients have been pleased and impressed with RiskInsight’s ability to provide accurate real time estimates of how many claims they’re likely to experience and average claim severity by location,” added Christopher Mossey, KCC Vice President of Client Development. “Boards and senior executives expect their modeling experts to quickly provide reliable information, so we’re very pleased to offer RiskInsight’s real time capability to more companies as this highly active hurricane season progresses.”

Having a way to view the potential impact from an approaching hurricane to their underwriting portfolios as early as possible is vital to reinsurance and ILS fund interests.

It can enable decisions to be taken on buying additional protection, such as live cat ILW’s or other products that can hedge a major hurricane impact.

Such insight on approaching storms can also help ILS investors to make trading decisions regarding which catastrophe bonds are most at risk and which they should attempt to sell on the secondary market.

Having access to robust storm analytics can also help re/insurers to make financial decisions, mobilise claims teams and better protect and inform their clients.

Output: Specialist catastrophe risk insurer Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has created a system that allows insurers to track potential claims from hurricanes in real-time. The risk model, branded as RiskInsight-lite, is a slimmed-down version of the company's existing catastrophe-modelling platform, and will be operational in time for the approaching Hurricane Irma, which threatens the Caribbean and southeastern United States. It enables clients to build their own scientific models to predict the potential impact of an approaching hurricane, allowing decisions to be taken on buying additional insurance, and mobilising claims teams.


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Research secrets stolen from UK universities by cyber gangs
 This morning The Times detailed how cyber security breaches at university institutions including Oxford, Warwick and University College London have doubled in the past two years to 1,152 in 2016-17, with cyber criminals targeting scientific, engineering and medical activities; including research into missiles, according to data released after a range of freedom of information requests.

To what end? Experts fear that this increased targeting of universities and the resulting access to sensitive data, like military and medical research, is being sold to foreign powers.

While successful attacks have doubled, thousands more have been thwarted, with one university receiving between 1,000 and 10,000 attempted attacks each month, according to the report in The Times.

>See also: Don’t play the data breach blame game

Data from the FOI requests found that the University of Oxford had experienced 515 cases of unauthorised access to accounts last year, while UCL faced 57 cyber attacks in 2016-17.

Paul Cant, VP EMEA at BMC Software, commenting on this, says: “With the number of cyber attacks on our universities known to have nearly doubled in the past two years, and, in this case, the data that some of them harbour being of critical importance to our national security, watertight digital defences are more essential than ever.”

The targeted files range in subjects, from medical record to military designs for ‘stealth fabrics’, which are thought to help ‘disguise’ military weapons and vehicles.

Carsten Maple, head of computing and director of cyber security at Warwick University, said hackers were targeting intellectual property that had been in development for years.

“If someone can get that very quickly, that’s good for them,’ Maple said. “Certainly somebody might attack a university and then provide that information to a nation state.”

>See also: Swedish Government’s major data leak: lessons for the enterprise

Maple also said he was concerned with the lack of secure defences concerning cyber-physical attacks, which target areas like hospital heating systems.

Henry Seddon, VP EMEA, Duo Security warns that “the challenge is that phishing attacks are increasingly sophisticated – a targeted spear phishing attack can be particularly difficult to spot – but they can ultimately compromise the security of the entire network. They open the doors to hackers, with stolen credentials, to access an organisation’s system virtually undetected, posing as an authorised user. Worryingly, phishing is now the most popular way of delivering ransomware onto an organisation’s network.”

Indeed, these more sophisticated attacks are a growing trend, with the GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre revealing earlier this year that Britain had faced 188 high-level security attacks in three months.

Ciaran Martin, director general of cyber security at GCHQ said many of these attacks “threatened national security” by trying to access foreign policy and defence secrets.

>See also: NHS staff personal data leaked in latest data breach

Commenting on the latest figures of the FOI requests, Shadow Home Office minister, Louise Haigh said that more security investment was needed

“There should be no compromise on cybersecurity but in difficult financial times many public sector organisations are being left with outdated operating systems.”

Cant agrees with Haigh, and says that “Across both the public and private sector, the threat from hackers is constantly on the rise. And, as prime sources of intelligence and information gathering, this data indicates the desperate need for far greater investment to be ploughed into the cyber defences of our educational institutions.”

“SecOps teams must also ensure they do not buckle under the pressure to patch known vulnerabilities, fortify any barriers to sensitive information, identify any threats, and prevent them from reaching crisis point before it’s too late.”

Output: British universities are being successfully targeted by hackers, leading to hundreds of data breaches each year. Freedom of Information requests show cybersecurity failures at several major institutions, including Oxford, have doubled in the past two years. Research into energy and military technologies have been high-priority targets. Hackers are also thought to have sought medical records at university hospitals. Experts say most universities have poor defences, which urgently need tightening, as they enable many attacks to go undetected.


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Hackers hold 26,000 unsecured MongoDB databases to ransom
 Few victims in the latest wave of MongoDB attacks have paid the ransom to regain access to their databases. Image: MongoDB

Three groups of hackers have wiped around 26,000 MongoDB databases over the weekend and demanded victims to pay about $650 to have them restored.

The new wave of MongoDB ransom attacks marks a resurgence of the massive assault on unsecured instances of the open-source NoSQL database earlier this year. The attacks were discovered by security researchers Victor Gevers and Niall Merrigan.

The current attacks are being tracked by Gevers and fellow researcher Dylan Katz. According to the 'MongoDB ransacking' Google Docs spreadsheet that the pair are updating, one group using the address 'cru3lty@safe-mail.net' has ransacked over 22,000 MongoDB instances.

The group left the same generic message for victims. "We have your data. Your database is backed up to our servers. If you want to restore it, then send 0.15 BTC and text me to email, just send your IP-address and payment info. Messages without payment info will be ignored".

At today's rates, 0.15 BTC is worth about $650.

Another group using the email address 'wolsec@secmail.pro' has left its message on 3,500 wiped MongoDB databases.

"If you want to recover your data, then send 0.05 BTC to bitcoin-address and send your IP to our email. You don't want that your users/customers to know that you have a data leak, right?"

Few victims in the latest wave have paid the ransom. Cru3lty has received a total of 0.8 BTC for its efforts and is the only group to have received a payment.

Since the MongoDB attacks started in late December, victims have paid 24 bitcoin to over a dozen different groups that scan the internet for unsecured MongoDB instances and wipe vulnerable databases.

"So these attackers simply scan entire IPv4 internet for a MongoDB running on port 271017," Gevers told ZDNet. "When they detect these, they then simply try to get access it with a script that automatically deletes the database and creates a similar one with only one record holding the ransom note.

"The databases that get hacked were running with default settings and were completely exposed to the internet."

One group, called Kraken, which attacked several hundred victims in January and received 11 bitcoin, then sold their ransomware kit to other hackers, according to Gevers.

Gevers, who heads up Netherlands-based non-profit security group GDI Foundation, has now helped over 100 victims of these attacks. Despite the good work, this is a tiny fraction of more than 75,000 victims in total.

The victims who Gevers has been able to help asked him to log in into their servers remotely and even, in few cases, perform a restore or hardening.

"The most successful case was a database containing three years of leukemia patient data that was being recorded to do research for better treatment plans," he said.

MongoDB in January posted an advisory explaining how users should deploy security protections to prevent the attacks, but it appears many users have ignored this information and are paying the consequences.

According to Gevers, there are about 21,000 MongoDB unsecured instances and he estimates that 99 percent have been ransacked.

Gevers told Bleeping Computer it wasn't clear whether MongoDB users had botched a security setting or whether they were running older versions of MongoDB that don't have secure default settings.

Previous and related content

MongoDB ransacked: Now 27,000 databases hit in mass ransom attacks

Over a quarter of MongoDB databases left open to the internet have been ransacked by online extortionists.

First came mass MongoDB ransacking: Now copycat ransoms hit Elasticsearch

Hundreds of unsecured Elasticsearch servers have been wiped in the past few hours in what could be a repeat of the recent mass ransom attacks on MongoDB databases.

Output: About 26,000 MongoDB databases were wiped in a cyber attack carried out by three groups of hackers recently, who demanded between 0.05BTC and 0.15BTC (around $650) to restore the systems. According to Victor Gevers, who runs Netherlands-based non-profit security group GDI Foundation, an estimated 99% of the 21,000 MongoDB unsecured instances have been hacked, with more than 75,000 victims. The attacks began last December and in January, MongoDB warned users in an advisory to deploy protections, but the message appears to have been ignored.


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AIG chief Duperreault sees insurtech lowering premiums
 NEW YORK -- Big data and artificial intelligence should help insurers assess risk more efficiently, and that should help reduce costs and drive down premiums for clients, the new CEO of American International Group told The Nikkei recently.

Underwriters will need to adapt to the rise of insurance technology, or insurtech, said Brian Duperreault, who was appointed chief executive of the U.S. insurer in May. Edited excerpts from the interview follow.

Output: Greater use of insurtech could help lower premiums for customers, according to the new CEO of American International Group (AIG), Brian Duperreault. He said using data and analytical tools is making insurers better at their jobs, but that buyers of insurance would always need some advice in making their decisions. He also said that underwriters will need to adapt to the challenges posed by insurtech in terms of becoming better at using and understanding data. Duperreault was appointed in May.


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Personal details of 13,000 Perth TAFE students hacked
 The state government has ordered an urgent review of the state's TAFE cyber security systems after hackers accessed the private details of 13,000 students at North Metropolitan TAFE.

Education minister Sue Ellery told Radio 6PR the breaches occurred on August 28 and September 5 when an unauthorised person gained access to the TAFE's IT system via remote access.

A cyber attack on one of Perth's TAFEs has exposed the state's poor cyber safety record.

The breaches come two months after the McGowan government announced a revised digital security policy aimed at addressing weaknesses in the security of public sector IT systems repeatedly identified by the state's Auditor General.

Ms Ellery said the hacker accessed staff and student details including names and addresses, some encrypted password files and internet protocol addresses.

Output: Hackers have accessed the personal details of more than 13,000 students at North Metropolitan Technical and Further Education in Perth, according to education minister Sue Ellery. Ellery described the breach as "unsophisticated", and said there was no evidence that students' financial records had been compromised. Western Australia Auditor General Colin Murphy expressed his frustration at the lack of cybersecurity action taken, despite his repeated warnings.


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Verizon offers rewards to mobile customers in exchange for data
 A new Verizon Communications Inc. rewards program, Verizon Up, provides credits that wireless subscribers can use for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades.

But it comes with a catch: Customers must give the carrier access to their web-browsing history, app usage and location data, which Verizon says it uses to personalize the rewards and deliver targeted advertising as its customers browse the web.

The trade-off is part of Verizon's effort to build a digital advertising business to compete with web giants Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which often already possess much of the same customer information.

Even though Congress earlier this year dismantled tough privacy regulations on telecommunications providers, Verizon still wants customers to opt-in to its most comprehensive advertising program, called Verizon Selects. Data collected under the program is shared with Oath, the digital-media unit Verizon created when it bought AOL and Yahoo.

Since access to data from customers could make it easier to tailor ads to their liking, Verizon hopes the information will help it gain advertising revenue to offset sluggish growth in its cellular business. While it added more than 600,000 wireless subscribers last quarter, the gains came during a period of intense competition that forced it to revive unlimited-data offerings and sacrifice the revenue it generated from pricier plans and overage fees.

Verizon's core wireless business generated $89 billion in revenue in 2016 -- a 2.7% drop from 2015. Meantime, its digital advertising unit brings in roughly $7 billion a year. Verizon has about 4% of the U.S. digital advertising market this year, compared with 41% for Google and 20% for Facebook, according to eMarketer.

Wireless competitor AT&T Inc. faces similar challenges as it also tries building an ad-targeting program around its new video services.

Verizon, the U.S.'s largest carrier with more than 114 million subscribers, has been experimenting with targeted-advertising programs for at least five years. Verizon Up, launched in August, is the latest incarnation of its rewards program. Verizon doesn't say how many people have enrolled in Up or Selects.

For every $300 customers spend on their Verizon bills, they receive one Up credit, which can be used for rewards such as Uber rides, four free months of Apple Music or chances to win tickets to see performers such as Lady Gaga.

Verizon makes it clear during the sign-up process what data consumers are giving up: Information about their demographics and interests, what websites they visit, what apps and features they use, and their location.

The disclaimer quickly drew criticism in the tech world. Adam Levin, a consumer advocate and founder of data-security firm CyberScout, warned in a column on HuffPost that the "hidden cost of Verizon's 'free' rewards program is your data."

In an interview, he asked: "When you think about it, do you really want somebody to know that much about your life?"

Deli Meeks, a 26-year-old forklift operator in Atlanta, said he doesn't mind Verizon accessing his data. A lot of companies track information, and it helps make advertising more useful, he said. Mr. Meeks used his first reward to secure two tickets to a preseason NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills.

"As long as they keep it up, I think I'll stay" a Verizon customer, he said, "regardless of the price."

Google, Facebook and other internet firms possess similar data about their users and disclose it in their privacy policies. But Verizon must walk a more delicate line.

Telecoms are required by federal law to take precautions when it comes to customer data. Verizon doesn't want to risk a consumer and regulatory backlash, as it has in the past, for its data-collection methods.

"Some of our competitors, they have exactly the same thing, it's just buried in the terms and conditions of the service," Diego Scotti, Verizon's chief marketing officer, said of the information tech giants collect. "We are not hiding anything."

Google and Facebook declined to comment.

Verizon's program allows customers to opt out of data-sharing after they have signed up for Verizon Up, but it can keep the data for three years.

Mr. Scotti said he hopes customers will appreciate the up-front disclosures and that the rewards program will make Verizon customers more loyal.

But the extra precaution might stifle Verizon's ability to grow the program, said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC.

"This just highlights how thorny privacy issues can be for telecom operators," he said. "If they are going to be held to a higher standard than Google and Facebook, either by statute or simply by convention, then it will be very hard for them to effectively compete."

Write to Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 05, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)

Output: US telecoms company Verizon has launched a rewards programme that it hopes will give it access to a rich seam of data from its 114 million Wi-Fi and mobile subscribers, and will boost its ad revenue, which fell by 2.7% in 2016 year on year. Verizon Up offers one credit for every $300 spent by customers, who can cash in the credits for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades. However, as a telecoms company, Verizon faces stricter regulatory controls over the data, which includes browsing history, app usage and location data, than rivals Facebook and Google.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Democratic Group Plans Attacks on G.O.P. Efforts to Undermine Obama Health Care Law
 “For the first time, since 2010, we are on offense on health care and we are going to prosecute a campaign on offense to ensure the law never faces the threat of repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, a veteran Democratic operative who is joining the group to oversee the day-to-day operations on behalf of the health care law.

Mr. Woodhouse said the Trump administration underscored the need for the group’s new mission last week, when officials announced that they plan to slash the government’s advertising budget for encouraging people to enroll in the health care marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services said the advertising budget for the open enrollment period that starts in November would be cut to by 90 percent, to just $10 million.

Democrats believe the reduction is an effort to destabilize the already shaky insurance markets by making sure that fewer people sign up for coverage. Officials countered that the spending was not necessary because most Americans already know about that the health insurance options that are available.

President Trump and Republicans have made no secret of their desire to get rid of the health care law. And they have repeatedly said they believe the insurance markets are failing. In March, Mr. Trump tweeted that “Obamacare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far!”

Output: For years, Republicans successfully battered Democrats for supporting the Affordable Care Act. But now, a coalition of Democratic organizations believes public opinion has swung their way, and they plan to spend the fall attacking President Trump and Republican lawmakers for attempting to undermine the success of a law that provides health insurance to millions of Americans.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
The Real Reason the U.S. Has Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance
 The basic structure of the American health care system, in which most people have private insurance through their jobs, might seem historically inevitable, consistent with the capitalistic, individualist ethos of the nation.

In truth, it was hardly preordained. In fact, the system is largely a result of one event, World War II, and the wage freezes and tax policy that emerged because of it. Unfortunately, what made sense then may not make as much right now.

Well into the 20th century, there just wasn’t much need for health insurance. There wasn’t much health care to buy. But as doctors and hospitals learned how to do more, there was real money to be made. In 1929, a bunch of hospitals in Texas joined up and formed an insurance plan called Blue Cross to help people buy their services. Doctors didn’t like the idea of hospitals being in charge, so some in California created their own plan in 1939, which they called Blue Shield. As the plans spread, many would purchase Blue Cross for hospital services, and Blue Shield for physician services, until they merged to form Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 1982.

Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. Things changed during World War II.

Output: The basic structure of the American health care system, in which most people have private insurance through their jobs, might seem historically inevitable, consistent with the capitalistic, individualist ethos of the nation.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Insurtech start-up Finaeo raises $1.85m in seed funding round
 Finaeo, a Toronto, Canada-based insurtech fintech company, closed its $2.25M seed funding round.

The round was led by Impression Ventures with participation from Toronto-based angel investors, 500 Startups, Robo Ventures and iGan Partners. In conjunction with the funding, Christian Lassonde, Founder and Managing Partner, Impression Ventures, will be joining the Finaeo Board.

The company intends to use the funds to hire engineers to continue development of the core platform and marketplace.

Led by Aly Dhalla, CEO, and Donald Chu, COO, Finaeo provides financial advisors with a software as a service based platform to automate their back-office administration via a digital assistant powered by a custom-built CRM engine.

The platform is built for financial advisors, particularly with a focus towards group benefits and individual/voluntary insurance.

FinSMEs

05/09/2017

Output: Toronto-based insurtech firm Finaeo has closed a CAD2.25m ($1.85m) seed funding round led by Impression Ventures and featuring participation from 500 Startups, iGan Partners and Robo Ventures. In addition, Christian Lassonde of Impression Ventures will join Finaeo's board. The company has developed software aimed at financial advisers, which uses a proprietary CRM engine to automate back-office tasks. The new funds will be used to employ engineers to develop the core platform.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
California, Other States To Extend Obamacare Sign-Up Beyond Federal Limit
 California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

In California, lawmakers are contemplating legislation that would circumvent the rule in future years, too.

The Trump administration’s rule gives people shopping for 2018 coverage on the federal exchange 45 days to sign up, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15.

But in California and some of the other states that run their own exchanges — Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Massachusetts, as well as the District of Columbia — consumers purchasing insurance for themselves this year will have extra time to make decisions.

Use Our Content This story can be republished for free ( details ).

In Colorado, for example, the sign-up period is from Nov. 1 to Jan. 12. In Minnesota, it will start Nov. 1 and run through Jan. 14. In Washington state, it is Nov. 1 through Jan. 15.

Consumers shopping for coverage in California’s exchange, Covered California, will still have the full three months they’ve had in recent years, starting on Nov. 1 and ending Jan. 31. Californians shopping for individual market plans outside the exchange will have those same three months to make up their minds.

“We want to make sure our consumers have the time they need to find the best plan that fits their needs,” said James Scullary, a spokesman for Covered California.

The rule that truncated the enrollment period for the federal exchange, published in April by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), gives state-based exchanges the ability to extend the amount of time allowed by tacking a “special” enrollment period onto the 45 days set by the federal government.

Because that flexibility is limited to 2018 coverage, California legislators are taking an extra step to keep the three-month enrollment period for 2019 and beyond. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) introduced legislation last week that would ensure a three-month enrollment window for consumers seeking coverage in 2019 and subsequent years.

“When the Trump administration issued its new … rules cutting the ACA’s open enrollment period in half, we knew we had to act,” Wood said. “Californians have enjoyed a three-month enrollment period for years, and this change could catch people off guard and not allow them to sign up in time. That would be a travesty.”

Health policy experts say the federal rule is a political attempt to undermine the viability of the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

“It’s no big secret that the Trump administration isn’t a big fan of the Affordable Care Act or the individual market that it created,” said Dylan Roby, associate professor of Health Services Administration at the University of Maryland. “There’s just this general intent of the administration to reduce enrollment, reduce … subsidies and make it a little bit harder for people to enroll.”

The shortened enrollment window was part of a so-called market stabilization rule rolled out by the Trump administration that also offers insurance companies concessions, including the flexibility to sell some health plans that cover less of the enrollees’ cost of care than currently required by the ACA.

California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, expressed concern about the impact of a shortened enrollment period in a letter to the federal government in March, before the rule was finalized.

Jones’ letter cited research that shows younger people tend to sign up for health insurance toward the end of open enrollment, and that putting up barriers to their enrollment could reduce the number of healthy people in the insurance pool.

That would “needlessly destabilize the market” and would “result in increased premiums for those who do enroll in coverage,” the insurance commissioner said.

Shana Alex Charles, an assistant professor of health sciences at California State University-Fullerton, said the pushback by California lawmakers against federal attempts to shorten the enrollment period underscores the state’s commitment to having a marketplace that “actually makes sense.”

“If you want to maximize enrollment, you need to make sure people can get their paperwork together, and have the mindset and the time for people to complete the application,” she said.

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Output: California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
To Insure More Poor Children It Helps If Their Parents Are On Medicaid
 Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests.

The study focuses on the impact of Medicaid’s “welcome-mat” effect — a term used to describe the spillover benefits kids get when Medicaid eligibility is extended to their parents.

Children were more likely to be enrolled in public health insurance programs — specifically Medicaid, which in some states is administered as an expansion of the federal-state Children’s Health Insurance Program — if their parents were also able to enroll, explained Julie Hudson, a senior economist at the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the paper’s lead author.

Use Our Content This KHN story can be republished for free ( details ).

The findings highlight an underlying tension and a key relationship — parents’ insurance status and that of their kids — as Congress moves in coming weeks to reauthorize CHIP, before its funding expires at month’s end.

“Children’s health policy doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said Benjamin Sommers, an associate professor of health policy and economics at Harvard University’s public health school. Sommers was not an author on the paper, but he did provide feedback on a preliminary draft. “We can’t discuss covering kids without considering what other policies are affecting parents.”

Among the most controversial aspects of the stalled Republican efforts to revamp the Affordable Care Act were provisions to limit Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for low-income people. But even if that effort is not revived, congressional Republicans have said they will continue their push to cut back the program.

In addition, many states are seeking waivers that would let them add other requirements to Medicaid — demanding beneficiaries undergo drug-testing or meet work requirements, for instance. Those, many analysts say, would likely reduce enrollment.

Such efforts could affect children who are eligible for Medicaid coverage.

The paper examines data collected from 2013 to 2015 by the Census Bureau’s nationally representative American Community Survey. It tracked kids up to age 18 who, based on family income, should qualify for Medicaid.

Researchers concluded that the children who benefited most from the welcome-mat effect lived in states that opted to pursue the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, where an estimated 700,000 kids who would have previously been eligible for Medicaid but were not enrolled gained coverage because their parents did, too.

“There’s no doubt that it’s the combination effect; when parents find out they’re eligible, it brings in the kids,” said Tricia Brooks, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, who was unaffiliated with the study. “I don’t think parents intentionally choose not to enroll their children. … It’s going back to that lack of awareness, of understanding that children would be eligible on their own.”

To be fair, the study did not account for all CHIP programs or attempt to differentiate the various ways children could gain access to health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP.

Rather, noted Sommers, it highlights a broader pattern: “Public coverage for children … increased as the Affordable Care Act took effect.”

That gets at a more fundamental issue, many analysts suggested. The end goal of insuring kids — generally popular across the aisle — is difficult. The more controversial policy choices around adult coverage matter a great deal, too.

For instance, the Health Affairs study suggests that, had every state expanded Medicaid, 200,000 more kids would likely have gained coverage during the two-year period examined. And previous research has suggested that parents and children often have similar insurance statuses.

Brooks also pointed to simplified insurance applications, enhanced outreach and a larger push to enroll parents in health insurance, associated with the ACA broadly and the Medicaid expansion specifically. Those efforts, she said, all could have helped raise awareness about children’s eligibility for insurance as well.

“Children still are missed, and therefore direct outreach to families may be a really good thing, especially in those situations where parents are also eligible,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a health policy and law professor at George Washington University, who was not involved with the study. “It’s like added value. It’s a booster.”

Meanwhile, the White House has cut its budget for promoting private marketplace insurance, which some say would add to declines in adult coverage.

If those changes hit parents, the research suggests, the implications don’t stop there.

“The authors make a good case here that policies that are helping parents under the Affordable Care Act improve kids’ access — and moving the opposite way would affect their children negatively,” Sommers said.

KHN’s coverage of children’s health care issues is supported in part by a grant from The Heising-Simons Foundation.

Output: Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ACS launches cybersecurity accreditation program
 The Australian Computer Society (ACS) -- the association for the country's IT sector -- has launched a new cybersecurity accreditation program, allowing specialists in the security field to obtain two new certifications.

The new accreditations are an extension to the ACS Certified Professional and Certified Technologist schemes, and will see cybersecurity experts in Australia able to achieve Certified Professional (Cyber Security) and Certified Technologist (Cyber Security) accreditation.

The cybersecurity specialisation status will require applicants to demonstrate in-depth capability in a range of areas identified in the globally recognised Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), ACS president Anthony Wong explained.

"A key element of cybersecurity is trust. We trust business and government to protect our private and personal data. Establishing a professional certification where applicants must commit to a code of ethics, code of professional practice, and undertake continuing professional development helps provide a level of certainty and trustworthiness," Wong said, speaking at the ACS Cybersecurity event in Canberra on Wednesday.

The ACS expects the two new certifications to provide employers with a guarantee that the cybersecurity individuals they are hiring have the right skills for the role.

"By employing professionals with a [cybersecurity] certification, businesses and government are demonstrating to consumers that their cybersecurity professionals have undergone a rigorous assessment process, demonstrated a commitment to the highest principles, and are well placed to lift the cyber resilience of their organisation," Wong said.

Existing Certified Professionals and Certified Technologists are able to apply to have their certification upgraded through the ACS.

According to Australia's Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security Alastair MacGibbon, the accreditation program from the ACS will help remove the current seagull-like approach to hiring cybersecurity professionals, where government, the enterprise, and big business are all "fighting over the same chip".

Addressing the ACS in Sydney on Tuesday, MacGibbon said it makes sense that as Australia grows its cybersecurity skills and capabilities, it has the right people involved.

"It's widely recognised that there's a skills deficit in ICT broadly, but particularly when it comes to cybersecurity," he said, noting that the country is missing the point if only tertiary institutions are focused on.

"We also need to focus on vocational training, and indeed those that are self-taught."

He said Australia needs to create avenues for self-taught individuals to "come to the side of goodness and light" to actually protect the communities they operate in.

"Which is why initiatives like this one are so important for us, because it tries to make sense of the skills that we have and help to standardise those somewhat," he explained.

"A casual observer would say that there has been an awful lot of conflict, an awful lot of overlap, and often some confusion as to what certifications are best to have.

"Until we actually have the supply right of staff, the supply right of skilled people, we're always seagulls fighting after the same chip that government will sit there and say that it will grow some skills, the private sector might come and offer more money and steal the chip from us, big business will fight over that same person next, and we have this game of inflationary wages -- good for the individual, but bad for business generally -- and of course we have the deficit, we just don't have enough people to be doing the work that's there."

Speaking with ZDNet earlier this year, MacGibbon said he wants the understanding of cybersecurity to be a life skill children of today grow up with, which means taking the conversation to primary school classrooms.

While PhD, university, and even high school students should still be gaining powerful knowledge on the threat landscape, MacGibbon would argue that this kind of structure isn't enough to ensure the success of Australia when it comes to cybersecurity.

"For me, being a successful person in my generation was being able to read and write and do basic maths," he told ZDNet. "What is going to get our kids to be successful in this world is the concept of computation, coding, and communication.

"If we're going to win when it comes to protecting the Australian way of life, in terms of cybersecurity, then it indeed starts in primary schools."

He also wants those in IT to look at furthering their skills in the cybersecurity sector.

Output: The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has unveiled its Certified Professional and Certified Technologist cyber security accreditations. The qualifications offer employers a guarantee of certain skills, and can boost cyber defences, said ACS President Anthony Wong. ACS's programme would help end the "seagull-like approach" to employing cyber security professionals, said Alastair MacGibbon, special adviser to the Prime Minister on cyber security.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
The Perils of the Mid-Sized ED
 This post originally appeared on

I know, I know, I spend way too much time ranting about work in the emergency department. But after some recent shifts, my box of rants is full once more. And what I want to point out is the enormous struggle of the mid-sized emergency departments in America today.

I know this is a problem; I work in them, and I know and talk with people who work in them. It's getting harder all the time. So what is a mid-sized ED? For purposes of my discussion, I'd say (depending on coverage) somewhere from 16,000 to 40,000 visits per year. Now that's not scientific, that's just for the sake of discussion, and based on personal experience.

I'd love to hear commentary from readers because I'm trying to figure it all out. But let me start with a story. When I was fresh out of residency, I worked at dear old Oconee Memorial Hospital in Seneca, S.C. Our volume, as I recall, was around 23,000 to 25,000 per year. We had pretty good coverage at first, with three 12-hour physician shifts a day. Patients were sick, but we moved them through. And when I worked nights, I remember that it wasn't unusual for me to lie down about 3 a.m. and sleep until 7 a.m.

Fast forward. Even at my current job where I see 19,000 per year, there's barely a night when patients don't come in all night long. So is volume spread out more? Maybe. Are patients sicker? Possibly. I think some of this may be that patients have no primary care, and so they don't even have an option to "wait 'till morning."

In addition, a large number of patients (in all EDs) are jobless. So in their defense, 3 a.m. is as good as 3 p.m. when you don't have to go to a job in the morning. (I'm not disparaging, but I do think this is true. Think about your teenagers who sit up all night in the summer if they don't have jobs!)

I also wonder if our patients are sicker. I mean, medicine is pretty amazing nowadays, and people who would certainly have died when I was in medical school now repeatedly survive significant heart failure, MI, stroke, pulmonary embolism, respiratory failure, various infections, and all sorts of problems. And when they do, they have to come back to the ED frequently.

For those with docs in the community, I'm sure the offices are crazy busy all the time. Even those docs have patients they just can't squeeze into appointments. They use the ED. And maybe, just maybe, our patients are much more "medicalized" than before.

So much of what emergency departments see is really psychosocial. Anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance abuse. The numbers of these conditions seem to be exploding, and they can seldom afford primary care, much less mental healthcare. The all-night ED is the place they go.

And there is a subset of patients who use the emergency department for entertainment or convenience; rides, snacks, a way to avoid arrest. "Officer, I ... have ... chest pain!" These also take time and space.

So what happens is all of this descends on departments with limited resources and staff. And all day, and all night, one physician or two, maybe a PA or NP, struggle to sift through five or six chest pains alongside two stroke alerts, a suicidal overdose, two septic senior citizens, a dialysis patient who missed two appointments and has a potassium of 10 and a femur fracture. Add to that the family of five with head colds.

Sure, this is what we do. We are emergency physicians and nurses and mid-levels. But into this mix, in the mid-sized department, recall that there is: no cardiologist, no neurologist, no psychiatrist or counselor, sometimes no available ICU beds, possibly no pediatrician and definitely no dialysis in the hospital.

The day is spent sorting, stabilizing, making phone calls, transferring and waiting for ambulance or helicopter to become available. All the while? Sifting through very cumbersome and inefficient computer documentation systems designed for billing, not for flow. And being scrutinized for throughput, time stamps, protocols, national standards, Medicare rules, re-admissions, and all that mess.

I really don't want to sound like a complainer. What I'm concerned about is 1) the safety of the patients and 2) the physical and emotional health of the caregivers. At the end of the day, we're all exhausted. And so much is going on that we can barely find the obvious stuff, much less the subtle things that can also kill.

It sometimes seems as if departments are intentionally understaffed to save money. I understand that it's expensive to have doctors, nurses, etc. But administrators get mad at folks "standing around," without realizing that in the chaos and suffering of the ED, sometimes it's really important to "stand around." To breathe, to think, to rest, to gather oneself, to look up a condition or problem, to debrief. To eat. To pee.

I think that the world of medicine has descended on the emergency department. I know that we handle it valiantly. But I don't think it's safe, and it's nowhere as unsafe as in the relatively under-staffed and under-equipped mid-sized community hospitals of the world.

I'm proud of what we do. But some days, most days, I wonder how we do it.

Edwin Leap is an emergency physician who blogs at edwinleap.com and is the author of The Practice Test and Life in Emergistan. This post appeared on KevinMD.com.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Output: So much of what emergency departments see is really psychosocial. Anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance abuse. The numbers of these conditions seem to be exploding, and they can seldom afford primary care, much less mental healthcare. The all-night ED is the place they go.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
LTC Nurse Residency Results in 86% Retention Rate
 Post-acute care has become an essential component of value-based care. By preparing new nurses through a long-term care residency program, facilities can improve nurse retention, confidence, and competency.

Accountable care organizations, value-based care, and new reimbursement models are changing the healthcare landscape, and with that the role of the post-acute care nurse is evolving as well.

"It's important that [patients] don't go back to the hospital. So these nurses have to have a different skill level than, maybe, what people perceived long-term care as previously," says Edna Cadmus, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, clinical professor at Rutgers University School of Nursing.

There are few structured programs, however, to help newly licensed RNs develop the expertise needed to successfully transition to practice in post-acute care.

To address this issue, the New Jersey Action Coalition, is focused on implementing the Institute of Medicine's (now the National Academy of Medicine) Future of Nursing recommendations. It is one of 51 groups doing this work across the country.

Cadmus is co-lead of the coalition, which falls under the umbrella of Campaign for Action partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the AARP.

"We felt there were acute care nurse residency programs in many hospitals, but for post-acute settings and, specifically, long-term care, there had been no evidence of any residency programs out there," she says.

"And we knew that there was a high turnover rate of nurses in long-term care facilities."

Turnover among RNs in long-term care facilities nationally was 50% and retention was almost 67%. After the New Jersey LTC residency program, the retention rate of participants was 86%.

Long-Term Care Competencies

The program launched in 2013 with funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and continued until 2016 with additional funding from the New Jersey Department of Health.

Though it wasn't a walk in the park, the coalition recruited thirty-six facilities to participate in the program.

"Knowing the financial situation of how long-term care is reimbursed, it really was a challenge for us to recruit, but once we explained the return on investment, that helped," Cadmus says.

The participating organizations sent 39 preceptors and 37 new nurses through the program.

Preceptors took five days away from their facilities for training to learn new skills to help them mentor new nurse residents. The new nurse residents were away from the facilities once a week to learn key competencies in geriatric care such as:

Fall prevention

Nutrition

Hydration

Managing pain

Pressure injuries

They also covered components of the Massachusetts Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competencies like:

Communication

How to use technology to leverage care

Leadership development

Patient-centered care concepts

Quality improvement

Both residents and preceptors obtained dementia care certification and all residents did a quality improvement project for their organization. "They were giving back but also contributing as a new nurse leader into the organization as a new nurse," Cadmus says.

The Residency Blueprint

The improvement in turnover was an obvious bonus. "If you have such a high turnover and you can [start to] keep people you're obviously saving money," Cadmus says.

But the residency had other benefits as well.

"We surveyed the nurses and found that their confidence as well as their competence increased," she says.

"Usually somewhere around six months is when a new grad is looking to leave their first level of employment. We felt we got them over that hurdle to really kind of get them stable for that first year."

Still there are challenges in developing residencies in post-acute care. Unlike acute care organizations which can hire a group of new nurses to go through a residency as a cohort, post-acute care organizations usually hire just one or two nurses at a time.

And the setting does not always have a robust career ladder for nurses to climb.

"When you're in a hospital situation there's a lot of opportunities to move up, to go into a clinical ladder, to try different departments to work in. It's not the same environment in long-term care," Cadmus says.

"So when you think about the new graduate, especially this new generation, they're looking to be able to not only make a difference, but also to have opportunities to change into different roles or to be promoted into different things. If you don't have those opportunities they're out the door."

Cadmus and her co-authors share their experience with developing and implementing the residency program in the book Developing a Residency in Post-Acute Care. They hope it can serve as a blueprint for others wishing to launch their own residency programs.

"We've gotten a lot of calls from people asking about how you do it. We're giving you everything you need to know about how to make this work," she says. "That was why we felt it was important to document how to do this. There's no reason why anybody should have to reinvent the wheel."

Output: Post-acute care has become an essential component of value-based care. By preparing new nurses through a long-term care residency program, facilities can improve nurse retention, confidence, and competency.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Axel Springer pan-European news app grows to 13 million users
 One key plank in Axel Springer’s resistance to the duopoly: Upday, an 18-month-old pan-European news app that comes installed on Samsung phones.

In total, Upday claims it has 13 million monthly users, up from 8.5 million in February, according to its internal analytics platform Localytics. In Germany, Upday’s figures are verified by third-party organizations such as IVW, the German Audit Bureau of Circulation, and research firm AGOF, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Online Forschung.

This growth is partly because Upday is available in 16 European countries, where it now has eight editorial hubs, twice the number of hubs it launched with in March 2016. Upday has roughly 50 editorial staffers, double the amount in February, split across its eight European editorial hubs, who verify news and add a local editorial focus to the top global trending stories. Its Berlin headquarters employs around 25 developers and 25 sales and marketing workers.

The number of publishers it has worked with has nearly doubled to 3,500, too, according to the company. Collectively, Upday drives 4 million visits a day to its publishers, twice as many as it did in February; for some publishers, this amounts to between 5 and 20 percent of referral traffic, the company said. The Android-only app has also grown the number of handsets it’s available on from just the Samsung Galaxy S series to Samsung’s Galaxy A and lower-cost Galaxy J series.

“The unexpected figure was that retention rate and loyalty was high,” said Upday CEO Peter Würtenberger, adding that users are spending five minutes with the app per day. At launch, Upday claimed users spent two hours with the platform a month. This is respectable for a general news app, although not close to the 35 minutes per day users spend on both Facebook and YouTube, according to influencer agency Mediakix. Elsewhere, sports publisher Bleacher Report manages to get people to spend five minutes daily on its app, while women’s lifestyle publisher Bustle manages six minutes a day.

According to comScore, Apple News has 10.4 million unique monthly users in the U.K. (although it reported 70 million users via internal figures in November 2016). Upday has recently implemented comScore rankings, and its first full month of figures aren’t available yet, so it’s too early to accurately compare the Axel Springer platform directly to other news apps.

In the last four months, the platform has shifted focus from growing reach to increasing the time spent within the platform, achieving this by learning more about its users’ interests and tailoring content to them. When readers first use Upday, they are asked to select a number of topic categories. Now, a reader who chose to receive, say, lifestyle content on the platform is then asked whether she’s interested in topics like wellness or nutrition.

“On top of the explicit choice of categories, we have the implicit ways of understanding what the user is interested in through user behavior because the algorithm is learning,” said Würtenberger.

This also adds more value for marketers.

In the last two months, Upday has offered pan-European campaigns booked out of its local offices, which Würtenberger, who wouldn’t disclose revenue figures for Upday, said is a competitive advantage: Advertisers usually find local partners for each country. “Upday is small in comparison,” he said, “but it’s a great alternative as an active, European-wide platform for advertising, so it doesn’t all end up going to Google and Facebook.”

Spanish car manufacturer Seat recently ran a campaign in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain, booked through Upday’s office in Berlin, Germany. The centralized Berlin team tailored the creative to local markets and delivered it programmatically via mobile ad exchange Inneractive. Although, most of Upday’s other campaigns are delivered via independent ad tech firm AppNexus as part of the first implementation of Axel Springer’s global partnership announced in May.

The campaign, which included display and native formats in every 10 or so cards users swipe through, also drove above industry average on display ad click-through rates. The native ads, which included a number of articles like “5 ways the Seat Ibiza gets you moving,” performed the best, driving a 1 percent CTR, according to Upday. The company also said users spent one minute with the brand story — the landing page users clicked through from the native ad — 70 percent of users read 75 percent of the landing page brand story and 11 percent clicked on the call-to-action within it.

In the U.K., a campaign for Penguin Random House designed to encourage more reading among young children was targeted to parents. Two months ago, cross-country campaigns and these targeting capabilities were unavailable.

Upday campaigns typically run between a week and 10 days. So far, clients like Vodafone, Volkswagen and Seat have booked consecutive campaigns. The platform is popular with carmakers, with six out of the top 10 European car manufacturers booking campaigns, Würtenberger said.

“For me, the real value is having effective campaigns with good results,” he said. “It’s an effective way of combining central teams with local know-how.”

Images courtesy of Upday

Output: Publisher Alex Springer has reported significant growth for its mobile news app UpDay, whose user numbers have increased to 13 million, up from 8.5 million in February. Launched in March last year under an exclusive partnership with Samsung, the Android service is now available in 16 European countries and employs about 50 editorial staff. The company said it works with 3,500 publishers and sends about 4 million visitors a day to their sites. Alex Springer is now focusing on increasing users' time on the app above the current five minutes a day.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Content creators impacted by YouTube brand safety mission
 This past May in New York City, YouTube held a summit for its top 100 or so video personalities, individuals and networks. It was a chance for these creators to get face time with senior YouTube executives and discuss what was happening on the video platform. One issue that some attendees felt YouTube needed to address: declining ad revenue.

A month earlier, YouTube had started using more of its artificial intelligence tools to flag offensive videos on the platform — a move driven by the so-called “YouTube adpocalypse,” during which many advertisers threatened to curb ad spending on the platform after discovering ads were being shown next to offensive, hateful and violent content.

Four months later, eight creators Digiday spoke with said they’re still feeling the impact of “demonetized” videos to this day. Some of these creators’ videos might have colorful language, but nothing unsavory, and yet with YouTube’s new ad policies their videos are being swept up with the real muck.

Creators are still hurting

When YouTube’s disabling of ads started in March, some top creators saw a significant hit to their ad revenue. Phil DeFranco, who has about 5.6 million subscribers on YouTube, saw ad revenue drop by 30 percent within the first month. H3h3Productions, which has about 4.7 million subscribers, said it was only making 15 percent of what it typically makes month to month on YouTube. (Tubefilter has a breakdown on how widespread and significant the issue was early on in YouTube’s crackdown.)

“We expect the third quarter to generally start lower due to seasonal trends, but this year, the drop was larger than in past years,” said Evan Bregman, director of programming at Rooster Teeth, which operates a network of owned and partner channels on YouTube including Rooster Teeth and Slo Mo Guys. Collectively, the network reaches 38 million subscribers.

By May, revenue for most top creators were getting back to pre-apocalypse levels. Of the 100 or so attendees of the creator summit, only four raised their hands when a YouTube exec asked if anyone’s revenue numbers were still taking noticeable hit, according to a YouTube spokesperson.

But that doesn’t mean the issue has gone away for all creators, especially those that don’t have several-million subscribers and invitations to private summits with top YouTube brass.

Take Hannah Rutherford, a gaming creator within the Yogscast network. Rutherford consistently gets 1 million views per month on her YouTube channel, which has 1.3 million subscribers, according to Tubular Labs. In a tweet, she said she’s now making twice the revenue on Twitch than she does on YouTube, primarily because her YouTube ad revenues have been “tanking” even though viewership has remained flat.

The issue is even more troublesome for news and social issues creators on YouTube. Real Women Real Stories, for instance, is a small YouTube channel that promotes women’s rights by producing testimonials in which women share stories of trauma. The charity project relies entirely on YouTube advertising to fund its productions. But since its content focuses on sensitive issues such as rape, sexual abuse and sex trafficking, the Real Women Real Stories channel made $10 in YouTube ad revenue in June, down from $2,000 the previous June, according to channel owner Matan Uziel.

“We want to make sure we bring as much women’s stories forward as we can, but our charitable project is nearly dead because we can no longer pay for productions,” Uziel said.

Flagging sensitive content

The situation has exposed flaws in how YouTube’s AI disables ads on videos. The general understanding among creators is that YouTube will automatically flag videos, titles and thumbnails that feature graphic, edgy or sensitive imagery and text. This is problematic for gaming creators, who frequently play games with graphic visuals and strong language. It’s also problematic for creators who want to talk about news and social issues. Just because a video covers topics such as terrorism, white supremacy or rape doesn’t mean it’s endorsing those ideas.

“When I reached out to YouTube to see why our videos were being demonetized, they said it’s because the videos are not advertiser friendly,” said Uziel. “They came to the conclusion that videos that cover topics such as sexual abuse, rape and women’s issues, in general, could not be monetized.”

This is a reality of platforms, which try to use technology to police matters that often need a human hand. YouTube’s not alone in this area: Facebook faced criticism when it removed an iconic Vietnam War photo that depicted a naked child running away from napalm bombs. Artificial intelligence doesn’t understand nuance yet, which means videos that cover sensitive topics are going to be swept up with the muck advertisers want to avoid.

The problem with YouTube is that the AI it’s using is also inconsistent. Rutherford has published 12 gameplay videos of the game “Hellblade,” and YouTube cleared 11 videos while disabling ads on one, with no clear explanation as to why. Uziel, meanwhile, found that while YouTube disabled ads on a Real Women Real Stories video titled “The Harmful Consequences of Objectifying Women,” a video from The Young Turks titled “Kidnapped and Sold: One Houseless Woman’s Tale” featured ads.

Uziel also found a workaround by reposting videos with the title and subtitles in different languages. For instance, YouTube disabled ads on a video titled “I Was a Sex Slave to Europe’s Elite at Age 6,” but the same exact video with the same title in French, “J’étais une esclave sexuelle pour l’élite mondiale à partir de l’âge de 6 ans” has ads running.

“I’m struggling to understand because they say they can’t monetize topics which relate to women’s issues, but there are videos of those topics that are being monetized,” Uziel said.

One YouTube rep proposed softening titles and language as a potential solution, Uziel added.

“Since some of the wording could be an automatic trigger for our system which is primarily text-driven, so you might like to try maneuvering the algorithm a little bit. However, we can’t guarantee that your videos will monetize with this change since the content within the videos are still of a sensitive nature. We also recommend that you use caution when describing assault situations in your videos,” said a YouTube channel rep in an email to Uziel.

YouTube’s appeals process is lacking

With 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, according to YouTube, it’s easy to see why most of the vetting is left to algorithms. But creators complain that YouTube has set up a slow and inefficient appeals system.

A recent 58-minute gameplay video Rutherford scheduled to post was flagged by YouTube before it even published. “There’s not going to be some guy [at YouTube] who goes, ‘Oh, I’ll watch it now and scan a 58-minute video and get back to you; it’s going to take a while,” Rutherford said in a video.

Though Rutherford has appealed more than 200 videos flagged by YouTube, only two of the videos have been approved by the system so far.

“Back in March we rolled out new controls for advertisers to help them better choose where their ads are placed, and we rely on machine learning to evaluate the millions of videos on our platform to implement those choices,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “But no system is perfect, so we encourage creators to appeal for a human review when they feel we got it wrong, and every appeal helps our advertising systems get smarter over time.”

Ad-disabled videos on YouTube must get 1,000 views in the span of seven days to qualify for a review, which YouTube says is done so the AI is not slowed down by videos with only a handful of views. This approach hurts smaller YouTube channels, because it removes the ability for creators to make money on the most important stage of a YouTube video’s life cycle: the first seven days. Typically, videos receive 70 percent or more of their views in the first seven days, according to multiple creators.

Unfortunately, there isn’t one easy fix to this problem. YouTube could update its algorithm to factor in a video’s like-to-dislike ratio, which may improve the YouTube API’s ability to make a distinction between an offensive video and a piece that explores sensitive topics, said Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, CEO of WatchMojo. (Facebook, meanwhile, is hiring up to 3,000 human curators this year to scan for and eliminate extremist content.)

Ultimately, the creators’ situation points to the risk of publishing on someone else’s platform, whose own business goals may not be aligned with those who supply the content. YouTube’s goal is to get every advertiser comfortable with advertising on the platform, said a YouTube source. That would certainly benefit most creators on the platform, but not all — at least within the platform’s current ad guidelines.

“YouTube is trying to balance the needs of advertisers with the needs of creators. Do they always get it right? Of course not,” said Steven Oh, COO of The Young Turks Network. “It’s a very tough balance to strike, and just as advertisers push for their interests to be protected, creators should do the same.”

Output: YouTube creators have suffered a severe cut in their advertising revenue as a result of the platform's action to address concerns over offensive and inappropriate content. The company began disabling ads in March, and some content-producers saw falls of 30% in the first month. By May, revenue for the top creators was recovering, but some with fewer subscribers still report significant reductions. The crude and inconsistent nature of YouTube's procedures for flagging inappropriate content and demonetising them have been blamed for the problems.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
BBC Worldwide puts sales staff on programmatic training scheme
 BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is trying to increase its global salesforce’s knowledge on all things programmatic. Starting from last March, the media organization rolled out a rigorous programmatic training program to 100 of its sales staff across 12 markets. The goal: to boost programmatic know-how enough to spot new ways to drive deeper relationships with advertisers across its U.S., Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific markets.

The training program included a 45-minute online overview of programmatic trading, from its inception to current challenges around transparency and viewability. Staff then learned how BBC Worldwide’s centralized ad tech stack is structured and how the programmatic team uncovers new opportunities for clients, then packages and communicates them to clients. Details on how various programmatic deals are set up — either for private or open marketplace trading and across its audience extension network — were included. Staff were also educated on why BBC Worldwide hasn’t adopted the popular header-bidding technique predominantly linked to page-latency concerns. The media organization has held out for server-side bidding and began testing Google’s exchange bidding in Dynamic Allocation tool last week.

The global leadership team received the training first. The bulk of BBC Worldwide revenue comes from selling popular shows like “Doctor Who” and “Planet Earth” to international markets. Last year, the commercial arm made over £1 million ($1.3 million) in sales, of which advertising is a portion, though the company doesn’t break out specifics. The company also won’t break out what percentage of advertising revenue comes from programmatic, but by instilling the importance of programmatic trading’s role within its overall commercial business, signoffs on future strategy changes can occur more speedily. That’s the theory, at least.

“We’re constantly developing our ad stack, and that means leadership signoff is vital to enable the way we roll programmatic out across the board,” said David Goddard, global head of programmatic trading for BBC Worldwide. India is the final market due to receive the training.

Since the training’s rollout, programmatic revenues have increased, as have specific deal IDs in multiple markets, and the number of clients has increased, though Goddard wouldn’t provide specifics.

One of the benefits of having a centralized ad tech stack is that programmatic campaigns run in international markets with skinny local sales teams, and any blockages that can arise from fragmented, local ad tech technologies are reduced. The media organization already had eight dedicated programmatic specialists across 12 markets: three (soon to be four) in the U.K., two in the U.S., one in Canada, one in Singapore and one in Australia. But to scale its programmatic revenue beyond the double-digit growth it’s had so far, it needed to educate the rest of its international sales force and get everyone taking the same approach. That’s something that’s not always easy with products spanning 40 languages.

“Salespeople are our inventory discovery tool,” said Goddard. “Most [ad buyers] buy off data points and decide where media should go from that. But how do you whitelist for English-language BBC sites as well as our BBC Arabic site in the Middle Eastern markets? It comes from a BBC salesperson or expert identifying the right people in local offices and meeting with them to talk through how we’re right for their business.”

The role of the programmatic specialists will now be to ensure the training that the wider sales staff received is executed fully with clients.

“We need to ensure everyone who is client-facing has that ability to use the language correctly and understand our clients’ needs in the programmatic space,” Goddard said. “Our direct clients are now our programmatic clients, too; we want to give them that one-stop shop.”

Having lean but skilled teams in different markets has gone over well with agencies. Matt McIntyre, activation director at Essence, said despite the small size of the London programmatic team, it’s “skilled and knowledgeable in the workings of programmatic and [understands] how to use the opportunities the technology gives them to work with us in a collaborative fashion.”

McIntyre added that because BBC Worldwide is a well-known brand in nearly every market, pricing is often higher than local publishers, which is a consideration for buyers. “This may put some buyers off as it looks less efficient on a media plan,” he said, “but we believe it is important to properly measure your campaigns and understand the net value which BBC Worldwide is driving against your key performance indicators.”

Image courtesy of International Global Communications

Output: BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the UK's public service broadcaster, is investing in training its worldwide sales force on programmatic advertising. The training will be offered to the corporation's 100-strong sales team across the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific markets. It will include a 45-minute overview of programmatic trading and education on how WorldWide's centralised ad tech stack is structured. Last year the trading arm made just over £1bn ($1.3bn) in sales, of which advertising forms a part, although it does not break down the figures. The majority of this comes from sales of popular programmes overseas.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Next outperforms rivals with higher spend on paid search
 Learning from missing out on the online dash for uniforms in the back-to-school rush last year, U.K. retailer Next.co.uk spent more on paid search this year to outperform its larger rivals Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer.

Research from Adthena, an intelligence platform for search, revealed Next rose from the ninth-most-clicked retailer on Google and Bing for back-to-school terms during August 2016 to first in August 2017. It was top of the class for paid search on desktop, winning 25 percent of clicks for back-to-school search terms relating to stationery, school uniforms and school accessories.

Between July 26 and Aug. 22, Next consistently topped its rivals, though it suffered short-term dips every few days, according to Adthena. However, sharp rises followed each low in the period, which suggests the retailer’s marketers were constantly tweaking the keyword search terms the brand appeared alongside.

Next’s strategy worked because it spent highly on a wide range of keywords and phrases related to the back-to-school theme, said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena. “This, combined with quality ad copy, helped to compel users to click through, making them the dominant force,” he added.

The majority of Next’s paid search activity for back to school was on desktop, with the retailer averaging fifth for the number of mobile clicks, according to Adthena. The focus on desktop was likely driven in part by the retailer’s limited experience on mobile, an issue it is trying to address. It plans to launch 12 international versions of its mobile site in markets such as the U.S. and Australia, which account for 70 percent of its revenue.

Interestingly, Next seemingly opted against building a strategy for organic search results in favor of one that took it to the top of the search-results page as quickly as possible. As a result, it secured less than 7 percent of organic clicks on desktop and mobile, per Adthena. Fletcher said the decision was motivated by the pressure Next would have felt leading up to the start of school to react to the shifting search habits of parents. “Organic search is a long-term gain where you really need to focus on broader searches to get the volumes, and I don’t think the retailers are nimble enough to prepare for something like that,” he said.

M&S was the dominant back-to-school retailer on desktop last year, yet its spend dropped from 21 percent in August 2016 to 9 percent in 2017, according to Adthena. Like Sainsbury’s, it appears the retailer has opted to push more budget into TV and outdoor ads to drive people to stores. Last month, M&S launched its bid for back-to-school sales with ads across TV, Facebook and YouTube. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s has pushed its own Tu clothing line with special offers.

Analysts took Next’s investments earlier this year as a sign that it struggles to respond to growth of online shopping. Its share price has halved since reaching a high in 2015, as the likes of Asos and Topman have harmed its sales.

The contrast in Next’s approach to the back-to-school seasons in 2016 and 2017 is emblematic of the investments it has made to build an online strategy that stands up to its brick-and-mortar one. The online retailer proactively manages its stores through a combination of profitable openings, extensions and closures. Since the turn of the year, it has introduced several major updates to its virtual store, including a homepage redesign, faster registration times and intelligent recommendations. Before year-end, it plans to quicken checkout times, reducing its checkout process from three pages to two, and further update its homepage and search strategy.

Next did not reply to requests for comment by the time this article was published.

Image courtesy of Next.co.uk

Output: UK retailer Next won 25% of clicks for back-to-school search terms relating to stationary, school uniforms and school accessories from desktop computers, according to a report from research firm Adthena. The company outperformed its larger rivals Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Tesco thanks to extensive ad spending on a range of keywords and phrases related to the back-to-school theme, said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena. Next still lags behind rivals for mobile and organic searches, according to the report.