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☆ Microsoft’s AI deal under federal investigation
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-06 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Any investigations would focus on whether the companies have used their dominant positions in the AI industry to harm competition. Microsoft, Inflection and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment; Nvidia and OpenAI declined to comment. For years, technology critics and regulators have worried that major tech companies may be monopolizing entire sectors of the economy. One way for tech giants to wield anticompetitive influence in the AI sector, critics say, is through exclusive partnerships with AI startups. Those types of deals, including Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, is the subject of an ongoing study by the FTC announced in January.

Persons: OpenAI, Inflection’s, Google didn’t Organizations: Washington CNN, Federal Trade Commission, FTC, Justice Department, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, CNN, of Justice, ’, European Union, Apple, Meta Locations: United States

☆ Premarket stocks trading: ESG has lost its meaning. One advocate says let's throw it in the trash
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-03 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Dedicated ESG funds have also lost popularity with investors. Total assets under management in ESG funds fell by about $163.2 billion globally during the first quarter of 2023 from the year before, according to data provider Lipper. According to the latest Fed projections, officials forecast just one more interest rate hike this year — and rate cuts next year. When members of his board ask him whether interest rates could really go that high, his answer is always “yes,” he told Bloomberg. There are a lot of “potential bad outcomes,” Dimon said, but the worst-case economic scenario would be stagflation, with low growth and high interest rates.

Persons: “ ESG, ESG, What’s, Lipper, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, ESG “, ”, Rothschild, King Charles II, Bill Clinton, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, ’, Stephen Hall, Philip Morris, “, Robert Jenkins, Jenkins, Jamie Dimon, Dimon, It’s, ” Dimon, “ you’re, Satya Nadella, Brian Fung, Nadella, ” Nadella, else’s Organizations: CNN Business, Bell, New York CNN, Fox News, Republican, Biden, Council, Inclusive Capitalism, “ Investment, Better, CNN, Jamie Dimon JPMorgan, Federal, Bloomberg, Times, Microsoft, Google Locations: New York, Times of India, United States

☆ Antitrust Trial: Microsoft CEO warns of impact of Google's search monopoly on AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-02 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Nadella testified on Monday as part of the US government’s sweeping antitrust trial against Google, now into its 14th day. His testimony reflected the frustrations of a long-running rivalry between Microsoft and Google whose tensions have permeated the weeks-long trial. Central to Google’s strategy has been its agreements with companies such as Apple that have made Google the default search engine for millions of internet users. “You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you search on Google,” Nadella said. Google’s dominance in search is reinforced when websites and publishers optimize for Google’s search algorithm and not Bing’s, when advertisers flock to Google and when users stick to what’s familiar, Nadella argued.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Nadella, ” Nadella, Eddy Cue, else’s, Microsoft’s Bing, Bing, “, ”, … Organizations: CNN, Google, Microsoft, Apple

☆ The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The absurd hat-phone, a particularly uncool version of the future, contained a secret tool known only to a small group of employees. The room went silent; the demo was underway. Mr. Leyvand turned toward a man across the table from him. Two seconds later, a robotic female voice declared, “Zach Howard.”“That’s me,” confirmed Mr. Howard, a mechanical engineer. But when the phone started correctly calling out names, he found it creepy, like something out of a dystopian movie.

Persons: Tommer Leyvand, Leyvand, —, “ Zach Howard, ”, Howard Organizations: Mr Locations: Menlo Park, Calif

☆ Google News Blocked in Russia as Feud With Mercenary Leader Intensifies
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Several Russian internet service providers are preventing users inside the country from accessing Google News after Russian generals accused a mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, of attempting a coup. At least five telecommunications companies — including Rostelecom, U-LAN and Telplus — have blocked Google News, which aggregates news from various sources, according to an analysis from NetBlocks, an internet observatory. Several other internet service providers have begun reducing access as well, according to the analysis. Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment. Late Friday, Russian officials accused Mr. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, a mercenary organization, of trying to mount a coup against President Vladimir V. Putin, with Russian authorities opening an investigation into Mr. Prigozhin for “organizing an armed rebellion.”Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in March 2022 that it would block Google News from the country’s internet users after the company paused advertising in Russia and took steps to block online content that spread false information to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Google didn’t, Mr, Prigozhin, Vladimir V, Putin Organizations: Google, Wagner Locations: Russian, Russia, Ukraine

☆ Senate Judiciary advances journalism bargaining bill targeting Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington CNN —The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced legislation on Thursday that would give news organizations the power to jointly bargain against Meta, Google and other online platforms for a greater share of online advertising revenue. One member of the committee, California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, voted against the bill Thursday and vowed to block any future floor vote on the legislation until lawmakers make several changes. Padilla said the legislation doesn’t do enough to ensure that actual journalists in local newsrooms will benefit from the bargaining, as opposed to hedge funds and publication owners. “This bill is not about whether or not you like social media,” Kennedy said. “This bill is not about whether or not you like what is happening in American news media today.

Persons: Minnesota Democratic Sen, Amy Klobuchar, Louisiana Republican Sen, John Kennedy, Google didn’t, California Democratic Sen, Alex Padilla, Padilla, ” Padilla, Padilla’s, Democratic Sens, Jon Ossoff, Peter Welch, Cory Booker, Kennedy, Klobuchar, —, ” Klobuchar, ” Kennedy, ” Organizations: Washington CNN, Committee, Meta, Google, Minnesota Democratic, Louisiana Republican, California Democratic, Democratic Locations: Louisiana, Australia, California

☆ Pornhub asks users, Big Tech for help as states adopt age verification laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Washington CNN —In the two-minute video, adult performer Cherie Deville stares into the camera and intones soberly to viewers, for the second time in a month, that policymakers are coming for their porn. It’s unclear how much Pornhub expects to achieve, as the laws have already been passed and signed. Pornhub’s simultaneous appeals to users and to Big Tech highlight the challenging position the company now finds itself in amid a wave of state legislation. Now, Pornhub’s fight could prove to be a bellwether for the growing push to enforce age verification for social media. Device-based age verification, Tiwari said, could have “very serious privacy connotations, because you now have the largest tech companies in the world having your government ID and all the information present in them linked to individual devices.

Persons: Cherie Deville, soberly, ” Deville, Pornhub, CNN it’s “, Pornhub —, —, ECP, Solomon Friedman, Friedman, ” Friedman, “, Porn, Pornhub’s, Josh Golin, ” Golin, India McKinney, ” McKinney, Udbhav Tiwari, Tiwari, ” Organizations: Washington CNN —, CNN, Ethical Capital Partners, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Big Tech, Android, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, Twitter, Federal Trade Commission Locations: Pornhub, Utah, Arkansas , Mississippi, Virginia, India

☆ Montana Governor Signs Total Ban of TikTok in the State
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Sapna Maheshwari | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

TikTok, which says it has 7,000 employees in the United States, has been fighting back in the state for months. It has run ads featuring Montana small businesses that use TikTok and given prewritten emails to users so they could contact Mr. Gianforte about opposing the bill. The legislation prohibits mobile app stores, like those run by Apple and Google, from offering TikTok within the state. A trade group funded by Apple and Google has said in recent months that it is impossible for the companies to prevent access to TikTok in a single state. The battle in Montana erupted during a period of intense national scrutiny on TikTok, which boasts more than 150 million U.S. users.

Google (GOOGL), which for years ranked as the top company to work for in the United States, laid off thousands of workers by e-mail. During her early years there, she worked in marketing and became known as the “The Bard of Google” for the internal emails she sent celebrating the company’s culture. Google employee affected by January layoffs“The problem was, suddenly, you didn’t work for a company that was sending stuff to space or building autonomous cars,” Rout said. Hundreds of Google employees in Switzerland staged a walkout last week to protest layoffs, partly out of frustration with the lack of transparency. About a month before the January layoffs, one former employee said Google painted “You Belong” on one of the walls in their working area.

☆ Offices are more than 50% filled for the first time since the pandemic started
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Nearly three years after the pandemic began, American offices are finally more than halfway filled again as workers have gradually returned to the office. Office occupancy across 10 major US cities crossed 50.4% of pre-pandemic levels for the first time since early 2020, according to security swipe tracker Kastle Systems. That marks the first time occupancy has crossed the 50% mark since March 2020, when many offices sent workers home because of Covid. Disney is ordering corporate employees to return to offices four days a week beginning March 1. The protest involves more than 40 contractors for YouTube Music, according to the Alphabet Workers Union, which is backing the strike.

☆ Apple and Google’s app stores wield ‘gatekeeper’ power and should be reined in, Commerce Department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington CNN —The Biden administration on Wednesday took its biggest swipe yet at app stores run by Apple and Google, with a new report accusing the two tech giants of exercising “gatekeeper” power that has led to “suboptimal” levels of competition in digital markets. In a statement, Apple said its app store has benefited developers and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. In the past, Apple has argued that its control over iOS app distribution helps promote users’ privacy and security. Many of the report’s recommendations echo provisions in federal legislation that received bipartisan support last Congress, but that failed to become law. The findings had been informed by public comments submitted to the Department in the months leading up to the report.

☆ DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a Big Tech company. Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies.”The suit was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Tuesday’s suit marks the federal government’s second antitrust complaint against Google since 2020, when the Trump administration sued over Google’s alleged anticompetitive harms in search and search advertising. Third-party estimates suggest that Google and Facebook (now known as Meta) accounted for the majority of US digital ad revenues until about 2017, with Google taking about a third of the market.

☆ Google Didn’t Show Bias in Filtering Campaign-Ad Pitches, FEC Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( John D. Mckinnon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An academic article said that nearly 70% of emails from Republican candidates were sent to spam on Gmail between 2019 and 2020 versus fewer than 1 in 10 from Democratic candidates. WASHINGTON—The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint from Republicans that Google’s Gmail app aided Democratic candidates by sending GOP fundraising emails to spam at a far higher rate than Democratic solicitations. The Republican National Committee and others contended that the alleged benefit amounted to unreported campaign contributions to Democrats. But in a letter to Google last week, the FEC said it “found no reason to believe” that Google made prohibited in-kind corporate contributions, and that any skewed results from its spam filter algorithms were inadvertent.

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