Time and time again, tech’s most powerful companies have pushed the narrative that any threat to their own trillion-ish dollar businesses will trickle down, hurting the small companies that rely on their products. But counter to the warm and fuzzy anecdotes that big tech has rolled out over the years, some business owners struggle with […]
Facebook agrees to pay French publishers for news reuse
Facebook has reached a multiyear agreement to pay French publishers for resharing their content on its platforms, it announced today. The social media giant said the licensing agreement with the Alliance of national and regional newspapers “means that people on Facebook will be able to continue uploading and sharing news stories freely amongst their communities, […]
Leak shows Facebook’s business model needs regulating, says MEP
The European Parliament’s lead and shadow rapporteur for a major reboot of the bloc’s digital rulebook have called for an investigation following the Facebook whistleblower leaks. One of the MEPs has also called for incoming EU rules to directly tackle business models that favor “disinformation and violence over factual content”. In a joint statement, the […]
UK clears Facebook’s purchase of CRM maker, Kustomer
The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Facebook’s acquisition of Kustomer, a maker of CRM tools. The purchase was announced last November — with a price-tag we reported as $1BN — but is pending closing after facing regulatory scrutiny. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an inquiry on the proposed merger this summer, at […]
Biden’s new FTC nominee is a digital privacy advocate critical of Big Tech
President Biden made his latest nomination to the Federal Trade Commission this week, tapping digital privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to join the agency as it takes a hard look at the tech industry. Bedoya is the founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown’s law school and previously served as chief counsel […]
US giants top tech industry’s $100M+ a year lobbying blitz in EU
The scale of the tech industry’s spending to influence the European Union’s tech policy agenda has been laid out in a report published today by Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobbycontrol — which found hundreds of companies, groups and business associations shelling out a total of €97 million (~$115M) annually lobbying EU institutions. The level of […]
A majority of tech workers support antitrust legislation enforcement
The survey asked professionals: Do you believe antitrust legislation should be used to break up Big Tech companies like Amazon and Google?
EU hits Amazon with record-breaking $887M GDPR fine over data misuse
Luxembourg’s National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) has hit Amazon with a record-breaking €746 million ($887m) GDPR fine over the way it uses customer data for targeted advertising purposes. Amazon disclosed the ruling in an SEC filing on Friday in which it slammed the decision as baseless and added that it intended to defend itself […]
China’s regulatory crackdown is good news for startups aligned with CCP goals
Things are changing in China, and the regulatory landscape of tech work in the country won’t be the same from here on out.