DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Tech M&A has been thwarted by regulators, but dealmakers skeptical that election will change much
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-17 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Amazon abandoned its $1.7 billion purchase of iRobot in January after the FTC and European regulators raised concerns. Since peaking at $1.5 trillion in 2021, tech transaction volume has plummeted, dropping to $544 billion last year, according to Dealogic. Before the company announced its $27 billion purchase of data analytics software company Splunk last September, he said he viewed the risk as absolutely worth taking. Alphabet's last big deal was its $5.4 billion purchase of cybersecurity company Mandiant in 2022. Microsoft closed its massive $75 billion purchase of Activision in October, but it took 20 months and a protracted fight with U.S. and European regulators.

Persons: Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, Khan, Joe Biden, Drew Angerer, Biden, Permira, Thoma, Sen, JD Vance, Donald Trump's, Barry Diller, Reid Hoffman, Kamala Harris, Andrew Luh, Gunderson Dettmer, Figma, Dana Rao, Rao, We've, they've, Juniper, Salesforce, Antonio Neri, Pau Barrena, Neri, Sergio Letelier, hasn't, Letelier, Marc Benioff, It's Benioff's, Slack, Benioff, Derek Idemoto, who's, Idemoto, that's, Splunk, HPE's Letelier, it's, Harris, Trump Organizations: U.S . Federal Trade Commission, Justice, Brookings Institution, U.S, Senate, Getty, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Federal Trade Commission, iRobot, FTC, BlackRock, Thoma Bravo, KKR, Republican, CNBC, Democratic, Trump, Big Tech, Justice Department, DOJ, Apple, Meta, Adobe, European Commission, UK Competition, Markets Authority, Justice Department's Antitrust, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mobile World Congress, MWC, AFP, Juniper, Markets, DOJ's Antitrust, European Union, EU, Software, Cisco, Activision, Foreign Investment, Regulators, Bloomberg, Tech Locations: Washington, Europe, Barcelona, Pau, Salesforce, United States

☆ Adobe is having a terrible month
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-18 | by ( Shubhangi Goel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

On Monday, the Department of Justice sued, saying Adobe violated consumer protection laws by hiding expensive fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions. Regulators said in the complaint that Adobe entices people to "enroll in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms." Earlier this month, the tech giant asked users to sign new terms with language that some thought implied that their content could be reproduced, displayed, or modified by Adobe — a big concern since Adobe is pushing hard into generative AI. AdvertisementThe news even frustrated Adobe employees, who complained internally about the company's poor communication, Business Insider reported last week. "Pretending that this wasn't intentional only makes Adobe and its employees look even more pathetic," said Sasha Yanshin on X. Yanshin said that he canceled his Adobe subscription after many years as a customer.

Persons: —, Maninder, David Wadhwani, Dana Rao, Adobe's, Sasha Yanshin, Yanshin Organizations: Service, Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Business, Regulators, Adobe, DOJ, Prosecutors

☆ Why OpenAI should fear a Scarlett Johansson lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-22 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

“It doesn’t matter if OpenAI used any of Scarlett Johansson’s actual voice samples,” Li posted on Threads. Here, Johansson could accuse OpenAI of illegally monetizing who she is by essentially fooling users into thinking she had voiced Sky. But there’s substantial case law — and one very inconvenient fact for OpenAI — undercutting that defense, legal experts say. According to Johansson, OpenAI approached her to perform as Sky; Johansson declined. While California’s publicity law protects all individuals, some state statutes only protect famous people, and not all states have such legislation on the books.

Persons: Will Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI, Johansson, OpenAI’s, Sam Altman, OpenAI didn’t, demoed, Tiffany Li, Scarlett Johansson’s, ” Li, monetizing, John Bergmayer, “, ”, —, Bette Midler, Midler, Tom Waits, Waits, …, James Grimmelmann, Scarlett Johansson ”, Altman, Sky’s, Johansson ”, Samantha, ‘, ” Grimmelmann, Joel Saget, ” Bergmayer, Dana Rao, Adobe’s, we’re, Jennifer Rothman, ” Rothman Organizations: Washington CNN, University of San, Public, Ford Motor Company, Appeals, Circuit, Frito, Cornell University, Getty, Adobe, FAIR, University of Pennsylvania Locations: University of San Francisco, California, Midler’s, Paris, AFP

Figurines are seen in front of displayed Adobe logo in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsBRUSSELS, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Adobe (ADBE.O) will aim to counter EU antitrust charges that its proposed $20 billion acquisition of cloud-based designer platform Figma hurts competition at a closed hearing on Dec. 8, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The European Commission two weeks ago warned that the deal may reduce competition in the global market for the supply of interactive product design software where market leader Figma competes with Adobe. It said the acquisition would eliminate Figma as a competitor in the supply of vector editing tools and supply of raster editing tools and reinforce Photoshop maker Adobe's dominance. The EU antitrust enforcer, which is due to decide on the deal by Feb. 5, declined to comment.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Figma, Dana Rao, Foo Yun, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, European Commission, Adobe, Rivals, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Rights BRUSSELS, EU, Britain

☆ Figma reviewing EU's objections against $20 bln Adobe buyout bid
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Adobe logo is displayed on a smartphone screen in front of a stock graph in this illustration taken, June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsNov 17 (Reuters) - Figma said on Friday it was carefully reviewing the EU competition watchdog's statement of objections related to Photoshop maker Adobe's (ADBE.O) proposed $20 billion bid to buy out the cloud-based designer platform. The transaction could create a dominant player of interactive product design tools by combining Figma, a clear market leader, and one of its largest competitors Adobe, the commission said. Adobe's chief counsel Dana Rao told Reuters on Wednesday that the company is open to proposing remedies to resolve regulatory concerns. Reporting by Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi MajumdarOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Figma, Dana Rao, Bhanvi, Shilpi Majumdar Organizations: REUTERS, EU, Big Tech, European Commission, Adobe, Video Communications, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, Bengaluru

Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsCompanies Adobe Inc FollowBRUSSELS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Photoshop maker Adobe (ADBE.O) expects to get an EU antitrust warning on its $20 billion bid for cloud-based designer platform Figma and is open to proposing remedies to resolve regulatory concerns, its chief counsel told Reuters on Wednesday. The Adobe deal comes amid heightened regulatory scrutiny around the world on Big Tech acquisitions which boost dominant companies' market power or those involving start-ups seen as nascent rivals. "We are expecting a statement of objections from the European Commission," Dana Rao said in an interview, confirming a Reuters story on Tuesday. "We are certainly open to the discussion of remedies.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Dana Rao, Rao, Foo Yun Chee, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: REUTERS, Inc, Adobe, Big Tech, European Commission, Thomson Locations: EU

☆ A New Way to Tell Deepfakes From Real Photos: Can It Work?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Charlotte Gartenberg | Alex Ossola | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Earlier this year, an image of the Pope in a chic white puffer coat went viral, in a striking example of how an AI-generated image can fool the internet. With a flood of this content predicted, we’ll need new ways to tell what’s real and what’s not. “Can we build an AI deepfake detector?” was the initial idea when work started four years ago on one such effort to create a standard for online images, says Dana Rao , general counsel and chief trust officer at Adobe , maker of Photoshop. Adobe is one of the companies spearheading the Content Authenticity Initiative, a global coalition of 2,000 members from tech, policy and media (including The Wall Street Journal).

Persons: Pope, Dana Rao Organizations: Adobe

But he’s hoping that they will give senators some realistic direction as he tries to do what Congress hasn't done for many years — pass meaningful regulation of the tech industry. “It’s going to be a fascinating group because they have different points of view,” Schumer said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the forum. Many members of Congress agree that legislation will probably be needed in response to the quick escalation of artificial intelligence tools in government, business and daily life. In the United States, most major tech companies have expressed support for AI regulations, though they don’t necessarily agree on what that means. Blumenthal’s framework calls for a new “licensing regime” that would require tech companies to seek licenses for high-risk AI systems.

Persons: Chuck Schumer, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Schumer, Republican Sen, Mike Rounds, “ It’s, ” Schumer, ” Rounds, “, ”, Mark Warner, Democratic Sen, Martin Heinrich of, Todd Young, Indiana —, Sam Altman, Forrester, Sen, Young, ” Young, “ We’ve, Dana Rao, We’ve, Richard Blumenthal, Conn, Josh Hawley, ” Blumenthal, ___ O'Brien, Ali Swenson, Kelvin Chan Organizations: WASHINGTON, Capitol, Microsoft, Republican, Associated Press, AP, Democratic, European Union, Adobe Locations: South Dakota, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Indiana, U.S, United States, Europe, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Providence , Rhode Island, New York, London

☆ As the DOJ digs in, Adobe's top lawyer tells employees to be careful talking about the $20 billion Figma acquisition, and asks them not to delete anything related to the deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Adobe's Dana Rao told employees to be careful when discussing the proposed Figma acquisition. Adobe's top lawyer told employees in an internal email to be extra careful when talking about the company's $20 billion proposed Figma acquisition, as antitrust scrutiny of the deal intensifies. In the his Adobe email, Rao said it's normal for a deal of Figma's size to go through lengthy regulatory reviews. During a March earnings call with analysts, Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen shared a similar end-of-year closing date for the Figma deal. In his email this month, Rao added 3 reasons why the company thinks Figma would be a good acquisition for Adobe.

Persons: Adobe's Dana Rao, Dana Rao, Department's, Rao, Shantanu Narayen, Narayen, Adobe's, Andrew Savage, Savage, Slack, Figma, Dana, Eugene Kim Organizations: Adobe, DOJ, European, SEC, CNBC, Federal Trade Commission, Activision Blizzard, Adobe Express, Department of Justice, Markets Authority, General, Competition Locations: ideation, Europe

Search resuls for: "Dana Rao"

9 mentions found