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PlatinumPearl · 08-05-2020, 07:01 AM

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google grilled on Capitol Hill over their market power.

The leaders of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google took a brutal political lashing Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans confronted the executives for wielding their market power to crush competitors and amass data, customers and sky-high profits.

The rare interrogation played out over the course of a nearly six-hour hearing, with lawmakers on the House’s top antitrust subcommittee coming armed with millions of documents, hundreds of hours of interviews and in some cases the once-private messages of Silicon Valley’s elite chiefs. They said it showed some in the tech sector had become too big and powerful, threatening rivals, consumers and, in some cases, even democracy itself.

“Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy,” said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.).

Cicilline, the chairman of the antitrust panel, opened a congressional investigation of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google last year, aiming to explore whether the tech industry’s most influential quartet of companies had attained their status through potentially anti-competitive means. In response, the four chief executives — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai — took the witness stand to fiercely defend their businesses Wednesday as rags-to-riches success stories, made possible only through American ingenuity and the sustained support of their ever-growing customer bases.

But lawmakers repeatedly presented a different vision at their hearing, one in which Silicon Valley’s myriad advancements in commerce, consumer electronics, communication and a vast array of online services had come at an immense cost to the people who use those tools and the companies that seek to compete against the tech giants.

In exchanges likely to have lasting resonance, Democrats repeatedly confronted Facebook’s Zuckerberg with his own past emails. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the top lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, brought up a 2012 message in which Zuckerberg apparently said he sought to acquire Instagram, which at the time was a rival photo-sharing app, out of fear that it could “meaningfully hurt us.” Later, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) pointed to other Facebook communications that described the company’s acquisition strategy generally as “a land grab.”

“Mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws,” Nadler charged. “In your own words, you purchased Instagram to neutralize a competitive threat.”

“We compete hard. We compete fairly. We try to be the best,” Zuckerberg said earlier in the hearing.

Amazon, meanwhile, faced withering scrutiny over allegations it may have misled the committee. The e-commerce giant previously told lawmakers it does not tap data from third-party sellers to boost sales of its own products. But Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) brought up public reports that indicated to the contrary, prompting Bezos — delivering his first-ever testimony to Congress — to offer a striking admission of potential fault.

“What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business,” he said. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.”

For all four executives, the afternoon offered an abundance of additional uncomfortable clashes, laying bare the broad, bipartisan frustrations with the way Silicon Valley puts users’ privacy at risk, polices content online and hurts competitors, including small businesses that have told lawmakers they cannot hope to compete with these tech giants. On several occasions, lawmakers cut off or talked over the tech executives when they offered vague or long answers, seeking to hold them to account for the evidence investigators had gathered from their probe.

PopSockets, Tile and other companies will ask Congress to help stop Big Tech bullying

Republicans, meanwhile, largely used their time during the hearing to attack some tech companies for engaging in perceived political censorship against conservatives, a charge that the industry vehemently denies.

“We all think the free market is great. We think competition is great. We love the fact that these are American companies,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. “But what’s not great is censoring people, censoring conservators and trying to impact elections. And if it doesn’t end, there has to be consequences.”

To read the full article click the link below.

Source: washingtonpost.com
Website: https://wapo.st/2DFWgRC
Date: July 29, 2020

homoe · 08-05-2020, 07:32 AM

Walt Disney Co. posted its first quarterly loss since 2001, as the coronavirus pandemic slammed its theme parks and film productions.

Aug 5th

https://www.wsj.com/video/disney-los...now_video_pos2

Kelt · 08-05-2020, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by homoe

Walt Disney Co. posted its first quarterly loss since 2001, as the coronavirus pandemic slammed its theme parks and film productions.

Aug 5th

https://www.wsj.com/video/disney-los...now_video_pos2

Disney will be an interesting one to watch, while theme parks and live action films are certainly being hurt right now the difference that Disney has over other film production companies and tourist oriented properties is diversification. Animated film work can continue and with their large archive of films only recently being curated in one place for streaming in my opinion this company will weather this time better than many others who share some of the same spaces.

homoe · 08-05-2020, 08:40 AM

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homoe · 08-05-2020, 04:49 PM

Alaska Airlines filed notice Monday with Washington state of almost 1,600 permanent layoffs starting on Oct. 1, the day after the government’s Payroll Support Program (PSP) ends.

Companywide, 4,200 employees received WARN notices or were laid off, the company said.

The local layoffs represent about 20% of the airline’s employees in Washington state, and includes customer service agents, flight attendants and maintenance technicians, Alaska said. Most of those affected are from the airline’s 6,000 flight attendants.

The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) union told its members in an online post that it has received 60-day layoff notices for approximately 2,089 of the most junior flight attendants company-wide, affecting all the airline’s bases in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Anchorage, Los Angeles and San Diego.

However, the union said the actual number of layoffs come October may be lower. The total of more than 2,000 is “inclusive of a significant buffer” above the expected number of actual layoffs in order to make sure the company complies with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

Alaska management in a statement said it “will continue to refine our staffing modeling over the next several weeks and expect figures to be final closer to October 1.”

Alaska avoided layoffs among its pilots when it offered incentives including half pay to take voluntary leave. More than 1,000 of Alaska’s 3,000 pilots took the incentives.

The flight attendants were offered a voluntary-leave option that included health care but was unpaid.

In late July, Alaska announced a loss of $214 million in the last three months and an outflow of $4 million in cash per day due to the huge drop in air travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...f-fall-layoff/

homoe · 08-05-2020, 05:38 PM

Facebook’s Instagram is officially launching its answer to the hit short video app TikTok — Instagram Reels.

The new Instagram feature will let users record and edit 15-second videos with audio, and will let users add visual effects. Users will be able to share Reels with followers in Instagram in a dedicated section called Reels in Explore, or in the Story feature where posts disappear after 24 hours. The Reels option will be available in the Instagram app. The company has been testing Reels in Brazil since November and in France, Germany and India since earlier this summer. Facebook earlier launched a TikTok knockoff called Lasso in 2018, but closed that down in July. It also tried services similar to Snapchat called Slingshot and Poke before Instagram Stories caught on. But those were separate apps — it might have more success with a feature built into Instagram.

Facebook has a long tradition of cloning competitive services. The Instagram “Story” feature, which lets people share photos and videos that expire in 24 hours, is similar to Snapchat. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questioning about the company’s habit of copying rivals before a congressional hearing on July 29.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...stagram-reels/

PlatinumPearl · 08-06-2020, 07:17 AM

U.S. President Donald Trump originally wanted to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok, saying it posed a national security risk, but on Monday said he would support Microsoft purchasing the app's U.S. operations if a deal was reached by Sept. 15. (Florence Lo/Reuters)

Microsoft CEO spoke to Trump, 'prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok'

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he does not mind if Microsoft Corp. buys the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok, but any purchase by an American company would have to be done by a Sept. 15 deadline.

The Republican president, who last week threatened to ban TikTok over national security concerns, said he had a great conversation with Microsoft's chief executive and that it might be easier if the company buys all of TikTok rather than 30 per cent.

Trump's comments confirmed a Reuters report Sunday that he had agreed to give China's ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of TikTok to Microsoft.

Trump also said the U.S. Treasury would need to get a lot of money out of a TikTok deal, but it's not clear how that would happen.

Microsoft said Sunday that CEO Satya Nadella had spoken to Trump and "is prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok in the United States."

U.S. President Donald Trump originally wanted to ban TikTok from the United States, claiming it was a threat to national security. He is now reportedly giving Microsoft 45 days to buy the app from its Chinese owner, ByteDance.

Reuters reported last week that some investors are valuing TikTok at about $50 billion US, citing people familiar with the matter.

"I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it's China essentially — I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we're making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump said.

Trump later defended his push for a cut, adding "which nobody else would be thinking about but me, but that's the way I think."

Nicholas Klein, a lawyer at DLA Piper, said generally "the government doesn't have the authority to take a cut of a private deal through" the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is the interagency committee that reviews some foreign investments in the United States. It was not clear how the U.S. government would receive part of the purchase price.

'This is about privacy'

Many prominent Republicans, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, issued statements in support of a Microsoft acquisition of TikTok's U.S. operations. Some congressional aides are worried about a backlash by younger voters against the party if Trump banned TikTok, which has 100 million American users.

Microsoft and TikTok parent ByteDance gave the U.S. government a notice of intent to explore a preliminary proposal for Microsoft to purchase the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also backed the sale, while a senior White House adviser raised concerns about a sale to Microsoft.

"A U.S. company should buy TikTok so everyone can keep using it and your data is safe," Schumer said on Twitter, adding: "This is about privacy. With TikTok in China, it's subject to Chinese Communist Party laws that may require handing over data to their government."

President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. government should get a 'substantial portion' of the sales price of the U.S. operations of TikTok, but it's not clear how that would happen. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy TikTok.

"So the question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised?" Navarro said in an interview with CNN. "Maybe Microsoft could divest its Chinese holdings?"

Navarro said the Chinese government and military use Microsoft software "to do all the things they do."

Other acquisitions possible: analyst

U.S. officials have said TikTok poses a national security risk because of the personal data it handles.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in a blog post last week that the company was committed to following U.S. laws and was allowing experts to observe its moderation policies and examine the code that drives its algorithms.

Daniel Elman, analyst at Nucleus Research, said a sale "could foreshadow a growing wave of U.S. company acquisition of Chinese internet properties, particularly if the geopolitical tensions continue to mount."

Elman said that could impact Tencent's WeChat.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referenced WeChat on Sunday and said Trump "will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party."

Source: cbc.ca
Website: https://bit.ly/2PwrJZf
Date: Aug 3, 2020

08-05-2020, 07:01 AM	#1
PlatinumPearl Member How Do You Identify?: Femme, Human Preferred Pronoun?: She, Her Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: Canada Posts: 1,150 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 966 Thanked 2,418 Times in 890 Posts Rep Power: 21474846	Tech Giants Testified Before Congress Virtually Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google grilled on Capitol Hill over their market power. The leaders of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google took a brutal political lashing Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans confronted the executives for wielding their market power to crush competitors and amass data, customers and sky-high profits. The rare interrogation played out over the course of a nearly six-hour hearing, with lawmakers on the House’s top antitrust subcommittee coming armed with millions of documents, hundreds of hours of interviews and in some cases the once-private messages of Silicon Valley’s elite chiefs. They said it showed some in the tech sector had become too big and powerful, threatening rivals, consumers and, in some cases, even democracy itself. “Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy,” said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.). Cicilline, the chairman of the antitrust panel, opened a congressional investigation of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google last year, aiming to explore whether the tech industry’s most influential quartet of companies had attained their status through potentially anti-competitive means. In response, the four chief executives — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai — took the witness stand to fiercely defend their businesses Wednesday as rags-to-riches success stories, made possible only through American ingenuity and the sustained support of their ever-growing customer bases. But lawmakers repeatedly presented a different vision at their hearing, one in which Silicon Valley’s myriad advancements in commerce, consumer electronics, communication and a vast array of online services had come at an immense cost to the people who use those tools and the companies that seek to compete against the tech giants. In exchanges likely to have lasting resonance, Democrats repeatedly confronted Facebook’s Zuckerberg with his own past emails. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the top lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, brought up a 2012 message in which Zuckerberg apparently said he sought to acquire Instagram, which at the time was a rival photo-sharing app, out of fear that it could “meaningfully hurt us.” Later, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) pointed to other Facebook communications that described the company’s acquisition strategy generally as “a land grab.” “Mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws,” Nadler charged. “In your own words, you purchased Instagram to neutralize a competitive threat.” “We compete hard. We compete fairly. We try to be the best,” Zuckerberg said earlier in the hearing. Amazon, meanwhile, faced withering scrutiny over allegations it may have misled the committee. The e-commerce giant previously told lawmakers it does not tap data from third-party sellers to boost sales of its own products. But Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) brought up public reports that indicated to the contrary, prompting Bezos — delivering his first-ever testimony to Congress — to offer a striking admission of potential fault. “What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business,” he said. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.” For all four executives, the afternoon offered an abundance of additional uncomfortable clashes, laying bare the broad, bipartisan frustrations with the way Silicon Valley puts users’ privacy at risk, polices content online and hurts competitors, including small businesses that have told lawmakers they cannot hope to compete with these tech giants. On several occasions, lawmakers cut off or talked over the tech executives when they offered vague or long answers, seeking to hold them to account for the evidence investigators had gathered from their probe. PopSockets, Tile and other companies will ask Congress to help stop Big Tech bullying Republicans, meanwhile, largely used their time during the hearing to attack some tech companies for engaging in perceived political censorship against conservatives, a charge that the industry vehemently denies. “We all think the free market is great. We think competition is great. We love the fact that these are American companies,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. “But what’s not great is censoring people, censoring conservators and trying to impact elections. And if it doesn’t end, there has to be consequences.” To read the full article click the link below. Source: washingtonpost.com Website: https://wapo.st/2DFWgRC Date: July 29, 2020

08-05-2020, 07:32 AM	#2
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	Disney Loses Nearly $5 Billion Amid Pandemic... Walt Disney Co. posted its first quarterly loss since 2001, as the coronavirus pandemic slammed its theme parks and film productions. Aug 5th https://www.wsj.com/video/disney-los...now_video_pos2

08-05-2020, 08:40 AM	#4
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	...........

08-05-2020, 04:49 PM	#5
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	Alaska Airlines... Alaska Airlines filed notice Monday with Washington state of almost 1,600 permanent layoffs starting on Oct. 1, the day after the government’s Payroll Support Program (PSP) ends. Companywide, 4,200 employees received WARN notices or were laid off, the company said. The local layoffs represent about 20% of the airline’s employees in Washington state, and includes customer service agents, flight attendants and maintenance technicians, Alaska said. Most of those affected are from the airline’s 6,000 flight attendants. The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) union told its members in an online post that it has received 60-day layoff notices for approximately 2,089 of the most junior flight attendants company-wide, affecting all the airline’s bases in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Anchorage, Los Angeles and San Diego. However, the union said the actual number of layoffs come October may be lower. The total of more than 2,000 is “inclusive of a significant buffer” above the expected number of actual layoffs in order to make sure the company complies with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Alaska management in a statement said it “will continue to refine our staffing modeling over the next several weeks and expect figures to be final closer to October 1.” Alaska avoided layoffs among its pilots when it offered incentives including half pay to take voluntary leave. More than 1,000 of Alaska’s 3,000 pilots took the incentives. The flight attendants were offered a voluntary-leave option that included health care but was unpaid. In late July, Alaska announced a loss of $214 million in the last three months and an outflow of $4 million in cash per day due to the huge drop in air travel during the coronavirus pandemic. https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...f-fall-layoff/

08-05-2020, 05:38 PM	#6
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	Facebook launches its new TikTok clone, Instagram Reels.. Facebook’s Instagram is officially launching its answer to the hit short video app TikTok — Instagram Reels. The new Instagram feature will let users record and edit 15-second videos with audio, and will let users add visual effects. Users will be able to share Reels with followers in Instagram in a dedicated section called Reels in Explore, or in the Story feature where posts disappear after 24 hours. The Reels option will be available in the Instagram app. The company has been testing Reels in Brazil since November and in France, Germany and India since earlier this summer. Facebook earlier launched a TikTok knockoff called Lasso in 2018, but closed that down in July. It also tried services similar to Snapchat called Slingshot and Poke before Instagram Stories caught on. But those were separate apps — it might have more success with a feature built into Instagram. Facebook has a long tradition of cloning competitive services. The Instagram “Story” feature, which lets people share photos and videos that expire in 24 hours, is similar to Snapchat. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questioning about the company’s habit of copying rivals before a congressional hearing on July 29. https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...stagram-reels/

08-06-2020, 07:17 AM	#7
PlatinumPearl Member How Do You Identify?: Femme, Human Preferred Pronoun?: She, Her Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: Canada Posts: 1,150 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 966 Thanked 2,418 Times in 890 Posts Rep Power: 21474846	Microsoft Has 45 days to Land TikTok Deal U.S. President Donald Trump originally wanted to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok, saying it posed a national security risk, but on Monday said he would support Microsoft purchasing the app's U.S. operations if a deal was reached by Sept. 15. (Florence Lo/Reuters) Microsoft CEO spoke to Trump, 'prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok' U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he does not mind if Microsoft Corp. buys the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok, but any purchase by an American company would have to be done by a Sept. 15 deadline. The Republican president, who last week threatened to ban TikTok over national security concerns, said he had a great conversation with Microsoft's chief executive and that it might be easier if the company buys all of TikTok rather than 30 per cent. Trump's comments confirmed a Reuters report Sunday that he had agreed to give China's ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of TikTok to Microsoft. Trump also said the U.S. Treasury would need to get a lot of money out of a TikTok deal, but it's not clear how that would happen. Microsoft said Sunday that CEO Satya Nadella had spoken to Trump and "is prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok in the United States." U.S. President Donald Trump originally wanted to ban TikTok from the United States, claiming it was a threat to national security. He is now reportedly giving Microsoft 45 days to buy the app from its Chinese owner, ByteDance. Reuters reported last week that some investors are valuing TikTok at about $50 billion US, citing people familiar with the matter. "I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it's China essentially — I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we're making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump said. Trump later defended his push for a cut, adding "which nobody else would be thinking about but me, but that's the way I think." Nicholas Klein, a lawyer at DLA Piper, said generally "the government doesn't have the authority to take a cut of a private deal through" the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is the interagency committee that reviews some foreign investments in the United States. It was not clear how the U.S. government would receive part of the purchase price. 'This is about privacy' Many prominent Republicans, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, issued statements in support of a Microsoft acquisition of TikTok's U.S. operations. Some congressional aides are worried about a backlash by younger voters against the party if Trump banned TikTok, which has 100 million American users. Microsoft and TikTok parent ByteDance gave the U.S. government a notice of intent to explore a preliminary proposal for Microsoft to purchase the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. What would a U.S. ban on Chinese-owned app TikTok mean? Microsoft vows to continue efforts to buy TikTok from ByteDance U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also backed the sale, while a senior White House adviser raised concerns about a sale to Microsoft. "A U.S. company should buy TikTok so everyone can keep using it and your data is safe," Schumer said on Twitter, adding: "This is about privacy. With TikTok in China, it's subject to Chinese Communist Party laws that may require handing over data to their government." President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. government should get a 'substantial portion' of the sales price of the U.S. operations of TikTok, but it's not clear how that would happen. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press) White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy TikTok. "So the question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised?" Navarro said in an interview with CNN. "Maybe Microsoft could divest its Chinese holdings?" Navarro said the Chinese government and military use Microsoft software "to do all the things they do." Other acquisitions possible: analyst U.S. officials have said TikTok poses a national security risk because of the personal data it handles. TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in a blog post last week that the company was committed to following U.S. laws and was allowing experts to observe its moderation policies and examine the code that drives its algorithms. TikTok teens, K-pop fans appear to have punked Trump's Tulsa comeback rally TikTok under scrutiny in Australia over security, data concerns Daniel Elman, analyst at Nucleus Research, said a sale "could foreshadow a growing wave of U.S. company acquisition of Chinese internet properties, particularly if the geopolitical tensions continue to mount." Elman said that could impact Tencent's WeChat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referenced WeChat on Sunday and said Trump "will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party." Source: cbc.ca Website: https://bit.ly/2PwrJZf Date: Aug 3, 2020