Amazon US Customers Have One Week To Opt Out Of Mass Wireless Sharing
By: The Guardian June 1, 2021 Amazon customers have one week to opt out of a plan that would turn every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the US into a shared wireless network, as part of the company’s plan to fix connection problems for its smart home devices. The proposal, called […]
‘Silicon Six’ Tech Giants Accused Of Inflating Tax Payments By Almost $100bn
By: The Guardian May 31, 2021 The giant US tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of inflating their stated tax payments by almost $100bn (£70bn) over the past decade. As Chancellor Rishi Sunak called on world leaders to back a new tech tax ahead of next week’s G7 summit in the […]
Covid Vaccine Crisis May Be The Last Straw For The Postwar Economic Consensus
By: The Guardian May 28, 2021 The proper functioning of any interconnected economic system depends on trust. And a global system that has been designed by advanced economies requires a significant level of buy-in from the developing world. Both become even more important as more developing economies, led by China, gain systemic importance. […]
WeWork Founder Adam Neumann Received $445m Payout In Exit Package
By: The Guardian May 27, 2021 WeWork founder Adam Neumann received $245m in company stock and $200m in cash earlier this year, part of an enormous exit package from the office rental company he led to dizzy heights before its equally dramatic fall. The award comes nearly two years after a disastrous attempt […]
Controversial New Guidelines Would Allow Experiments On More Mature Human Em-bryos
By: NPR May 26, 2021 For decades, scientists have been prohibited from keeping human embryos alive in their labs for more than 14 days. The prohibition was aimed at avoiding a thicket of ethical issues that would be raised by doing experiments on living human embryos as they continue to develop. But on […]
Facebook’s Oversight Board Should Monitor the Whole Industry, Says Leading Member
By: Sifted May 24, 2021 Facebook’s oversight board is a “model of future regulation” that could expand its remit to include other large social media businesses around the world, according to one of its leading members. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark, said that the board — which has just hit the headlines […]
Florida, in a First, Will Fine Social Media Companies That Bar Candidates
By: New York Times May 26, 2021 WASHINGTON — Florida on Monday became the first state to regulate how companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter moderate speech online, by imposing fines on social media companies that permanently bar political candidates in the state. The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is a direct response to […]
How To Thrive in The Shadow of Giants
By: The Economist May 20, 2021 A couple of years ago Snap, the company behind Snapchat, a social-media app, came close to imitating the feature for which it was then famous: digital photos that self-destruct ten seconds after the recipient views them. Shortly after a headline-grabbing initial public offering in 2017, the firm faced […]
Lawmakers Want to Force Big Tech to Give Researchers More Data
By: Protocol May 20, 2021 Facebook’s ad library allows researchers to see the content of ads that run on the platform and information on who those ads reach. But there is one key insight Facebook doesn’t offer: information on how those ads were targeted. A new bill being introduced Thursday by two House Democrats could […]