Technology

Last fall, eBay took on fashion resale sites like TheRealReal with the debut of its own authentication program for luxury goods. Today, that program will now authenticate luxury watches, in addition to the handbags and wallets it was already verifying. At launch, there are nearly 7,000 authenticated watches for sale on eBaysite, including those from brands likeRolex, Patek Philippe, Omega, Audemars Piguet, Breitling and Panerai.

The watches range in price from $500 to over $50,000 for a selection that includes both pre-owned and vintage items.

Similar to the luxury handbag verification service, the new authentication program for watches will utilize third-party experts to verify the watches& authenticity. The authenticators will also list, sell and ship the watch to the buyer, taking a 20% cut of the sale price & which is competitive with if not lowerthan the rest of this market.

When eBay Authenticate first arrived, the company explained it was reacting to increasing consumer demand to buy pre-owned luxury items online, but found that eBay shoppers were hesitant to do so because of the potential for forgeries and knock-offs.

Its delay to address consumer interests here allowed other retailers like TheRealReal,Tradesy, ThredUp to specialize in this type of authentication service and cater to that audience on their own sites. There are also sites that focus specifically on certified pre-owned luxury watches, like Crown - Caliber, Gray - Sons, WatchBox, and others. Even Amazon has a selection of certified pre-owned watches, verified by WatchFacts.

With eBay having recently reported weak growth and a lowered revenue forecast in its latest earnings, it needs to pursue higher-ticket items to bring visitors back to its site.

It believes luxury watches can help boost its sales, as italready a top site where people shop for secondhand watches & a market estimated at $5 billion. In the U.S. alone, a watch is purchased every five seconds on eBay, the company notes,

&eBay has the largest selection of luxury goods & from rare and designer handbags to fine wristwatches & and we know this community wants an added layer of trust and confidence when buying in these categories,& said James Hendy, Senior Director of eBay Authenticate, in a statement about the launch. &We&re adding third-party authentication to this inventory because we know the importance buyers place on trust for high-value purchases.&

eBay Authenticate for watches is available today in the U.S., and several European markets, including the U.K. and Germany.

There is a good chance you&ve never heard of TAPPP, but you probably know some of its customers like Major League Baseball (MLB) and the NFL. And if you&ve ever seen pre-paid cards for access to the NFL Game Pass subscription services or MLBstreaming service in your local supermarket, then you&ve seen its product, too. TAPPP focus is on making access to this premium live sports content available as a pre-paid service for these leagues.

As the company announced today, it has raised a $5 million Series A funding round led by leAD Sports/OurCrowdADvantage Fund, with additional backing from Accomplice, Elysian Park, Go4it, Courtside VC and Sterling.VC.

The ADvantage Fund is backed by leAD Sports, a sports accelerator launched by the grandchildren of Adi Dassler, who you may know as the founder of Adidas.

TAPPP is currently available at over 5,000 retailers, including Walmart and Gamestop. The company notes that it makes access to these sporting events available to both the unbanked who can&t otherwise get a credit cards, as well as consumers who opt out of having one.

&TAPPP is a perfect fit for ADvantagedebut fund. Its approach to serving untapped viewer segments through a combination of traditional payments and an innovative, on demand viewing experience, is unique and creative,& said Jeremy Pressman, a partner at ADvantage. &We at ADvantage are thrilled at the opportunity to leverage our deep connections in the sports market to broaden TAPPPreach even further.& Pressman will join TAPPPboard.

Alphabet decision to decline to send its CEO Larry Page totodaySenate Intelligence Committee hearing — to answer questions about what social media platforms are doing to thwart foreign influence operations intended to sow political division in the U.S. — has earned it a stinging rebuke from the committeevice chair, Sen. Mark Warner.

&I&m deeply disappointed that Google & one of the most influential digital platforms in the world & chose not to send its own top corporate leadership to engage this committee,& said Warner in his opening remarks, after praising Facebook and Twitter for agreeing to send their COO and CEO respectively.

Alphabet offered itsSVP of global affairs and chief legal officer, Kent Walker, to testify in front of lawmakers but declined to send CEO Page or Google CEO Sundar Pichai .

Committee chairman, Richard Burr, was slightly less stinging in his opening remarks but also professed himself &disappointed that Google decided against sending the right senior level executive&.

&If the answer is regulation lethave an honest dialogue about what that looks like. If the key is more resources or legislation that facilitates information sharing and government co-operation letget it out there,& he concluded. &If itnational security policies that punish the kind of information and influence operations that we&re talking about this morning to the point that they aren&t even considered in foreign capitals then letacknowledge that. But whatever the answer is we&ve got to do this collaboratively and we&ve got to do this now. Thatour responsibility to the American people.&

Warner said committee members have &difficult questions about structural vulnerabilities on a number of Googleplatforms that we will need answered&,calling out a number of Google products by name and identifying abuse associated with those services.

&From Google Search, which continues to have problems surfacing absurd conspiracies….To YouTube, where Russian-backed disinformation agents promoted hundreds of divisive videos….To Gmail, where state-sponsored operatives attempt countless hacking attempts, Google has an immense responsibility in this space. Given its size and influence, I would have thought the leadership at Google would want to demonstrate how seriously it takes these challenges and to lead this important public discussion.&

We&ve reached out to Google for a response.

Warner concluded his opening remarks with some policy suggestions for regulating social media platforms, saying he wanted to get the companies& constructive thoughts on issues such as whether platforms should identify bots to their users; whether therea public interest in ensuring more anonymized data is available to researchers and academics to help identify potential problems and misuse; why terms of service are &so difficult to find and nearly impossible to read; why US lawmakers shouldn&t adopt ideas such as data portability, data minimization, or first party consent — which are already baked into EU privacy law — and what further accountability there should be related to platforms& &flawed advertising model&.

Update:A Google spokesperson sent us its earlier statement — in which it writes:

Over the last 18 months we&ve met with dozens of Committee Members and briefed major Congressional Committees numerous times on our work to prevent foreign interference in US elections. Our SVP of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer, who reports directly to our CEO and is responsible forour workin this area, will be in Washington, D.C. on September 5, where he will deliver written testimony, brief Members of Congress on our work, and answer any questions they have. We had informed the Senate Intelligence Committee of this in late July and had understood that he would be an appropriate witness for this hearing.