19 Burst results for "Sam Schechner"
SGGQA Podcast – SomeGadgetGuy
"sam schechner" Discussed on SGGQA Podcast – SomeGadgetGuy
"That's better for everybody. I want this deal to fall through so bad and I want it to cost everybody billions of dollars. I want it to hurt Twitter. I want it to hurt. Musk and it would make me so happy. It would make me so happy if we come out of this and on the other side of it, people are just less interested in what celebrities have to say on Twitter. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be great? I want to go back to MySpace. What I go back to my space so bad. It has to be bandito exactly. I don't understand why he's even complaining about this. Estee writes $1 billion for a breakup fee. I feel this is a good tax deduction to report next January. Do it. Oh, man. It's so ridiculous. The corcoran better for your mental health, right? Michael writes I have deactivated Twitter and Facebook this year. Don't you feel better? Yeah, I'm on Twitter as sort of a work function and I share my videos and articles and I try to participate a little bit with people that I know. And that's about it. The only other thing that I kind of rely on Twitter for is it's kind of become my third place backup for private messaging. So if I can't interact with you on another service or through direct text messaging because I'm an old, then Twitter is kind of become my third ranked conversation place. And I'd be fine walking away from that. I can find other places to slide into DMs. Oh, Simon says hypno Tom is smiling. Tom is out there living his best life. He made his cash, he walked away, he got out before web two got really gross. Just really nice. Just really nice. Oh, Brian billings. Again, I still have a Facebook Assam gadget guy Facebook page. It's on total autopilot. I have not logged into Facebook. I can't remember the last time I logged into Facebook. I think it might be over two years now. I'm telling you, cutting Facebook out of active use has been brilliant, especially over the last two years of the pandemic. Facebook has always been the worst. And if you have any influence at your company, get them to stop using Facebook, it's bad for their company. They're spending way more money, not getting what they really should be. Okay. Oh, I've still got two more news block stories. Let's just cut these out real quick. This one by way of engadget. Rogers restores service following Canada wide Internet outage. So Canada went dark for a while and Rogers, who services a significant amount of the Canadian population for coverage, took them a long time to get service back up and running, we're back up now. So if you're Canadian, hopefully you're able to watch all this. I want to see what was it, yeah. So from July July 9th was when we started seeing service really return. But hold on, I've got it right here. From the engadget article, whatever led to the outage, its effect was easy to see. People crowded into cafes and public libraries so they could use their phones and computers at one point, Toronto police even noted, some people couldn't dial 9-1-1 due to the outage. Across the country, interact the system Canadian banks used to connect their networks was down, leading to debit cards in ATMs, not working. One analysis by Internet monitoring organization net blocks showed that Canada's national connectivity dropped to 75% of its normal levels during the event. So 25% of a country's traffic disappeared. That's insane. So again, if you'll allow me to put on my pinko commie hat, Internet access should not be solely in the hands of private organizations. Internet access needs to be a public utility just like power and water. And again, there are private companies that manage the actual consumer interactions for those, but Internet needs to be a utility. It's literally the backbone of every kind of communication and distribution and entertainment and healthcare and banking in the 21st century, it needs to be made a public infrastructure. 25% of Canada's traffic evaporated. That's nuts. That's so bad. Oh, Steve, I'm so glad to hear that. I wasn't affected by the outage except for the debit system being down and having to use cash today. I'm so glad you had cash, dude. Man, that's rough. All right, and one more, this is just again, I'm gonna prime it another story to keep our eyes on, how about we talk about a completely meaningless gesture to try and avoid regulation? From a huge corporation. This is by way of The Wall Street Journal, Google offers concessions to fend off U.S. antitrust lawsuit, what they want to do, this is from the article who wrote this up from miles krupp as Sam schechner and Brent Kendall over at The Wall Street Journal. Alphabet's Google has offered concessions in an attempt to head off a possible U.S. antitrust lawsuit aimed at its massive ad tech business, according to people familiar with the matter, a sign that legal and regulatory pressures on the tech giant are coming to a head. As part of one offer, Google has proposed splitting parts of its business that auctions and places ads on websites and apps into a separate company under the Alphabet umbrella. That entity could potentially be valued at tens of billions of dollars depending on what assets it contained. So here's what Google wants to do. The ad business is a part of Google. So Google is under alphabet. And so Google says, hey, you know what we'll do. We'll cut off the ad business
WSJ What's News
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ What's News
"The house panel investigating the January 6th ride at the capitol has issued another round of subpoenas. The committee sent summonses to Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to former president Trump, InfoWars host Alex Jones and three others. Jones reportedly helped organize the January 6th rally at the ellipse, while stone spoke at a rally the day before the assault on the capitol. Stone says he had no advanced knowledge of the events that took place at the capitol. Jones could not be immediately reached for comment. Sources say the U.S. government will pay nearly $130 million to the survivors and families of victims in the Parkland school shooting. The settlement resolves the claims made by 40 survivors in the families of 16 people killed, the FBI admitted that it had failed to properly investigate two tips warning the agency of a possible school shooting. Shares in zoom dropped 6% in after hours trading on news of slower growth. Third quarter sales rose just 35% from a year earlier. In 2020, sales in the same period jumped more than 360%. Tech editor Sam schechner says Zoom has been struggling to diversify its business in order to become less reliant on virtual meetings. Zoom hasn't been able to maintain the extreme growth that it experienced when organizations were sending people home and when remote work was pretty widespread. And so the question now is as people return to the office, what do some of these companies what's their future like? What's the normal? And that's a difficult question for investors to size up and for companies to grapple with. In the much anticipated IPO of cloud village has begun as a fairly scaled back offering. The Chinese music streaming arm of NetEase aims to raise more than $450 million, we previously reported that cloud village plan to raise about a $1 billion when listing in Hong Kong. But those plans were scrapped after Beijing increased oversight.
WSJ Tech News Briefing
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ Tech News Briefing
"After these headlines. PayPal is and talks by the social media platform Pinterest according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are still in early stages and may not lead to a deal, but if it does go through, the acquisition would take PayPal in a new direction, potentially giving the digital payments company a bigger role in customer shopping experience. It would also be a large deal. Pinterest has a market value of about $40 billion. Facebook was fined roughly $70 million by the UK. The country's competition and markets authority has been overseeing Facebook's deal to acquire giphy, the provider of animated gifs, which it announced last year. Regulators said Facebook breached reporting requirements for the merger review. Facebook called the allegation a mischaracterization and said it's seeking standard exceptions to some of the rules. WSJ Sam schechner, who covers tech in Europe, says it reflects the tense regulatory environment that Facebook is facing. Already in that EU and in the UK, competition regulators are really zeroing in on big tech companies. There are a number of open investigations into them. In fact, the CMA and the EU's top antitrust authority, the European Commission have opened an official case into Facebook's marketplace and dating services for alleged abuse of dominance, something Facebook denies. And there's cases looking into other companies. But beyond just enforcement of antitrust rules as they are in the books, there's a growing push to update laws both about competition, but also about online content. And those moves have actually gotten a big push lately from the revelations from Francis haugen, the so called Facebook whistleblower. She's testified before U.S. Congress, and she's scheduled to appear Monday before the UK's parliament. And in the U.S., the attorney general in Washington, D.C. filed a motion to add Mark Zuckerberg as a defendant to a 2018 lawsuit stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The lawsuit accuses Facebook of misleading its users about privacy and security of their personal data. The AG's office said it was the first time a U.S. regulator has specifically named Zuckerberg Facebook CEO in a complaint. Facebook spokesman Andy stone called the allegations meritless and said the company will continue to defend itself. And speaking of Facebook, lawmakers in the U.S. have taken a renewed interest in the social media giant following the WSJ's Facebook files investigation. One of them, senator Amy Klobuchar laid out her priorities during our tech live event. We'll have that after the break..
WSJ What's News
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ What's News
"Markets reporter Jim will height. Thanks for your time. Thanks, Peter. A bipartisan group from the House judiciary committee has asked Amazon to prove its executives did not mislead Congress or face a referral to the Justice Department. A letter signed by 5 members of the antitrust panel names former CEO Jeff Bezos and others, it asks for exculpatory evidence showing that Amazon employees did not lie under oath. The committee had been investigating whether Amazon used third party seller data when creating its own branded products. Last year, the journal reported that Amazon employees regularly used such data to reverse engineer bestsellers under their own brands, Amazon has denied the allegations. Facebook plans to hire as many as 10,000 workers in the European Union to create it so called metaverse. The journals Sam schechner says it's CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for a future realm where users connect using virtual and augmented reality. He describes it as a successor to the mobile Internet. It's actually a term that comes from cyberpunk fiction it imagines the Internet as a world that people can plug into and kind of inhabit physically rather than just via their computer keyboards. In a blog post Sunday, Facebook said hiring specialized engineers to create the metaverse is a priority. Jury selection begins today in the trial of three white men charged with killing Ahmad Arbery, a 25 year old black man who was shot to death while jogging. Arbery was killed in February 2020 and cell phone video shows the three men pursuing him. They suspected him of breaking into homes. The killing was one of several that set off nationwide racial justice protests. And luxury retailer sacked Fifth Avenue has begun preparing the IPO of its ecommerce division. The company aims to raise about $6 billion by taking the unit public, triple what it was valued at earlier this year. Sex is parent company split the physical stores from the faster growing online division earlier this year and initial offering could come in the first half of 2022. And coming up, still no word from The White House whether President Biden.
WSJ What's News
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ What's News
"Among the many disparities laid bare by the pandemic is paid sick days. Frontline workers the people more likely to become infected on. The job are less likely to be able to stay home and get healthy while getting paid if they get sick. Much of the new benefits employers offered to workers early in the pandemic greater flexibility and paid sick leave. Went to people who already got those things reports. The journals catherine dill she covers workplace. Issues joins us now. Welcome back thanks for having me tell us about christa dickson. So chris dickson is an interesting story because she she got her experience gets up things that a lot of workers will probably be familiar with. Krista does have paid sick days but they have to be accrued one month and the previous year she had given birth to twins and so in the experience of being pregnant and then taking a maternity leave on which she had a couple of banked pay day she could use. She exhausted her sick time so she had only occurred a few more days one in january she and her husband and their four year old and her infant twins all tested positive for cova and so she was able to take a the first five days paid took care of her family was quite sick herself. But during the second week She typically works in person in an office. She had to return to work. She was able to telecommute but she was still experiencing severe shortness of breath. Her family was still sick but she just had to go back to work. How typical is her situation in that she has some leave. But not a lot because you have to crew it. I mean if you get sick properly sick one day a month isn't really going to get you through it. Of course and especially at the beginning of the pandemic we were looking at quarantine recommendations often of up to fourteen days and you know workers who have to be physically present at their jobs can't necessarily take fourteen days paid to stay home because of an exposure. Krista is extremely typical. You know three quarters of roughly three quarters of private sector workers in the united states. Do get some sick days but as you some paid sick days but as you noted they often have to be a crude. They're usually not enough to cover a significant illness. Which in this case can be something like covert or the flu. Paint us a picture of somebody who doesn't qualify for any paid sick leave. What kind of jobs are they doing. So there are millions and millions of workers in the united states who fall into this group and they might be an employee of a small business. They might be someone who has an hourly role low-wage hourly role often or they might be someone who has cobbled together. you know quote unquote full employment. From multiple part time jobs. They are unlikely to qualify for paid sick time and so and illness can jeopardize their whole employment. This is an extremely tight. Labor market employers are offering all sorts of incentives to attract new workers in retain current. Ones is paid sick. Leave something that's going to everyone. Or is it just going to a select few well certainly among salaried corporate roles at large employers. This is where we've seen a real proliferation of leave sometimes in amount but often in types of leave so these workers during the pandemic certainly were more likely to be offered much greater flexibility from their employers but things like paid family. Leave caregiver leave to care for a new child whether you are the person who gave birth or a partner or care for a sick family member. Those types of leaves have grown. The availability of those types of leaves have grown such that they were described to me by someone who we spoke to for the story as table stakes at these employers. Now but for everybody else the situation those you know those hourly workers. Those low wage workers. We discussed earlier. Their situation remains less clear. There is a push to include paid family leave within the reconciliation bill which is being negotiated heatedly in congress whether that will come to fruition remains unseen. There are nine states plus washington dc c. Which offer some type of of paid family leave assurance to to everyone there. But it's still. It's still a huge question. Mark for for millions of workers. Catherine dill covers workplace issues for the journal. Thank you for your time my pleasure and finally somewhere in your house. You've likely got a closet or a drawer just filled with cables and cords and chargers. You are unlikely to ever use again. We call the junk drawer in my house and regulators in the european union. Think they have a solution as the journals. Sam schechner tells us the twenty seven nation block. Wants one. just one standard charger from the us. Point of view we have a of digital waste. And they're thinking is that this could reduce the amount of digital waste. We have because any device could be plugged into any cable and that would be good for the environment and be good for consumers on the other hand. Apple says this is way too prescriptive of a change and that it will harm innovation and stop device makers from maybe inventing a better kind of port. Usb sees is the format now what will it be in ten years. Then they say that this would be constraining mean worst devices for people in europe. And that's what's news for tuesday morning. We'll be back tonight with the new show. I'm peter granitz for the wall street journal. Thanks for listening..
Here & Now
"sam schechner" Discussed on Here & Now
"On getting it and win people should get the flu shot as soon as it's available to them if you are getting a kobe booster. There's no reason to wait as and you can do both of those things at the same time. We know that people are getting together more this winter also. Why not prevent something else that could also cause substantial suffering enormous juliana win emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy at george washington university thanks. Dr is always trove of internal documents from facebook reveals. What the company knew about problematic messages on its platform and how is trying to fix things. We should note. Facebook is a sponsor of npr. The wall street journal is reporting a series called the facebook files. Sam schechner is on the reporting team and he joins us sam. welcome hello simona. Delve into vaccine misinformation. And what you found. But i the whole series reveals facebook's own research revealing damaging effects on teen images and human trafficking and promoting discord in general. I describe the documents obtained. And and and what they tell you. What we have is a collection of internal communications. That give us what we think is an unparalleled picture of how facebook is aware that the products and systems central to its business routinely fail and cause harm the kinds of documents. We're talking about our internal powerpoint style presentations also a sort of version of facebook that they use to actually run the business they have a workplace version of facebook. And so you'll have documents and posts posted there and then their responses from other facebook employees. Yeah so you got this look onto the inside of the company and let me ask you. What the conversation has been about vaccine information and what they know on the inside about it. I mean has it been clear to the executives on the inside of facebook. That vaccine information has been a big problem. Well what we know from the documents is that at least among a group of data scientists who are mostly part of a team called the integrity team. They definitely were aware of a problem. So you know. For instance the same time as mark zuckerberg this spring was out there talking about how the company quote already connected more than two billion people to authoritative in nineteen information. You had data scientists inside who were describing quote cess pools of anti vaccine comments you know posts from unicef or the world health organization would sometimes as the documents say be swarmed by anti vaccine comments. There was one analysis we saw where data scientists internally concluded that. Roughly forty one percent of comments on english. Language vaccine related posts risked discouraging. Vaccinations they were to use facebook. Lingo vaccine hesitant and users were seeing comments on vaccine related posts. Seven hundred and seventy five million times a day. Yeah yeah. I wanna play a little piece of sound last month. Gayle king of cbs asked mark zuckerberg about research from northwestern. University said people. Who were the most reliant on facebook for information were less likely to be vaccinated. Here's part of his answer. If this were primarily a question about social media that. i think you'd see that being the effect in all of these countries where people use it. But i think that there's something that's unique and our ecosystem here whether it's some of the political leaders and or some of the media figures that i think is different than what we're seeing across a lot of europe or across a lot of other countries that are leading to higher levels of this. I don't think pinning this on. Social media primarily is accurate so mark zuckerberg is suggesting that some of this at least is about politics in the us. But how does that square with your reporting well. The political environment in which social media exists seems highly relevant to to what occurs on the platform. That being said there's clearly alarm here. In terms of how widespread this sentiment was far outpacing. the the level of vaccine hesitancy that pulls at the time we're showing and the company scrambled to try and take on this problem by limiting the number of comments. That people could do per hour. Which i think is an indication that they saw this as as a problem and not merely a reflection of what happens on cable news. And and your sense things might be starting to change you're describing there's evidence of disproportionate amplifying of vaccine misinformation on facebook at. They're aware of it that they're trying to change things. And then there's this public outrage on this. Senator richard blumenthal of connecticut compares this big tobacco back in the day targeting people with dangerous information while masking the science In in in public and privately kind of knowing what's really going on here is there any sense that there's going to be fundamental change at facebook it's algorithm and what we're going to see. Well that's a very good question. There certainly is internally from our reporting an awareness that the company is often lead to tackling problems. I mean one document that we read talked about how facebook tends to act late in their point of view. Evolving situation That they take minimal action at first. and then. Once there's an outcry they suddenly rush. And and at times overreact Leading to two further further backlash and they were hoping that kovic would prove a chance for the company to act earlier and perhaps avoid the cycle. But we've spoken to people familiar with a gathering earlier this month in and around menlo park which is facebook is based and some officials were discussing whether facebook has gotten too big with too much data flowing to manage all of its content. The the tone from participants was quote. We created the machine and we can't control the machine and so that does raise the question of whether they are starting to internally think about changing some of the governance or or ways they handle these issues. Sam schechner is senior tech reporter for the wall street journal will link to your investigation on our site here. Now dot org. Sam thanks for the time. Thanks so much for having me a.
WSJ Tech News Briefing
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ Tech News Briefing
"From the start of the pandemic facebook and it's ceo. Mark zuckerberg have talked publicly. About how seriously they take this crisis. Here's what zuckerberg told cnn back. In april twenty twenty. So i think one of the most important functions that facebook and our acts can do right now is help. Connect people with authoritative health information and experts at the same time to limit the spread of misinformation. But despite that goal facebook has struggled to address foles health information on its platforms. That's continued throughout the rollout of cova vaccines and they became so widespread that well. Here's how president biden described the misinformation back in july really look only pandemic you have is among unvaccinated other. Killing people policing unsubstantiated. Health claims has become a key problem for facebook one. The company has struggled to address even after warnings from employees reporters. Sam schechner is part of the investigative team. That's been working on this story. And he joins me now. Hi sam thanks for being here. Thanks for having me so sam. I think a lot of people who've been on facebook in the last year and a half have seen misinformation about the pandemic and about vaccines. Why is it so hard for facebook to take it all down. I think facebook would say this is a tough problem with a tough adversary. It's not like anti vaccine or new to facebook. They've mobilized on social media and in particular on facebook and in our reporting we've seen internal documents that show that this was an issue. This is something that they tackled in the years before the pandemic they were working on ways to identify who were in these antitax groups they develop policies that some you know certain types of content should be removed and when the pandemic hit these policies were in place so if public health authorities said that a certain type of claim wasn't just false but could cause imminent harm than they would remove that but that's a pretty narrow standard
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Facebook Has Struggled to Address COVID-19 Misinformation on It's Platform
"From the start of the pandemic facebook and it's ceo. Mark zuckerberg have talked publicly. About how seriously they take this crisis. Here's what zuckerberg told cnn back. In april twenty twenty. So i think one of the most important functions that facebook and our acts can do right now is help. Connect people with authoritative health information and experts at the same time to limit the spread of misinformation. But despite that goal facebook has struggled to address foles health information on its platforms. That's continued throughout the rollout of cova vaccines and they became so widespread that well. Here's how president biden described the misinformation back in july really look only pandemic you have is among unvaccinated other. Killing people policing unsubstantiated. Health claims has become a key problem for facebook one. The company has struggled to address even after warnings from employees reporters. Sam schechner is part of the investigative team. That's been working on this story. And he joins me now. Hi sam thanks for being here. Thanks for having me so sam. I think a lot of people who've been on facebook in the last year and a half have seen misinformation about the pandemic and about vaccines. Why is it so hard for facebook to take it all down. I think facebook would say this is a tough problem with a tough adversary. It's not like anti vaccine or new to facebook. They've mobilized on social media and in particular on facebook and in our reporting we've seen internal documents that show that this was an issue. This is something that they tackled in the years before the pandemic they were working on ways to identify who were in these antitax groups they develop policies that some you know certain types of content should be removed and when the pandemic hit these policies were in place so if public health authorities said that a certain type of claim wasn't just false but could cause imminent harm than they would remove that but that's a pretty narrow standard
WSJ Tech News Briefing
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ Tech News Briefing
"This is your tech news briefing for monday september twentieth. I'm zoe thomas for the wall street journal. Facebook says tackling misinformation about the corona virus and cove in nineteen. Vaccines is a top priority. But internal documents reviewed by the wall street journal show. The company's efforts were undermined by its own users and that facebook employees have called internally for the company to do more on today's show reporters sam schechner joins us to discuss the latest chapter in the wall street journal's.
WSJ What's News
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ What's News
"What's prompting this effort and will it really make a difference in helping to eliminate carbon footprints for some answers. Let's bring in tech reporter sam schechner. He joins us from paris. Sam thank you for being here. Thanks so much for having me so sam. You look at the tech giants such as amazon. Google and microsoft they have key executives responsible for how they use energy. It's a big part of their corporate strategy talk to us about big tex relationship with their energy usage. What's what's the name of these deals. Well these big tech companies are consumer facing companies in most cases they have investors and they have made pretty ambitious commitments publicly to make themselves carbon neutral to make themselves carbon negative to do whatever they can to reduce their impact on the environment. So you know very quickly i think. Energy became and their use of energy became a top topic. These companies the biggest tech companies operate massive data centers that require electricity not only to power the processors but also to keep the processors from overheating. And so those data centers us an enormous amount of energy one estimate puts it at around one percent of the world's energy consumption. So sam. do these kinds of green energy purchasing deals. Make good business sense. Is this a cheap way for them to get energy. Yes increasingly it does make business sense. I mean what we what we have here is tech companies you know. Investing in new usually wind and solar plants where developer is planning to build one of these plants and they need to secure an anchor tenant some of to agree to buy all that energy. What's called an off taker. In order to get the financing to actually put up the huge wind turbines or to lay out all those solar panels and so the companies are committing basically for ten or fifteen years to buy all or or a large part of the energy from these plants. And that's a good deal because actually wind and solar have become relatively cheap not just out of day-to-day basis. But if you look at it the lifetime of plant and so companies definitely are more able to make these deals than they were in the past and you know it helps the energy producer. Essentially hedge their bets. They have a guaranteed source of income. And it's the big tech company that takes the risk on whether or not prices are going to rise or fall on the open market so with this investment by big tax such as amazon most recently are they changing the way the market works. It's definitely changing the market for renewable electricity In many cases when things were more expensive there were a lot of government. Subsidies in some countries those have dried up and companies have stepped in to become the biggest off takers of that electricity essentially helping guarantee marketplace for it and helping get these things financed so we have investment. But then there's also this question of effectiveness will these investments truly reduce overall emissions and. that's a thorny issue. I actually spoke with a bunch of tech companies. And they're they're wrestling with this show. One executive microsoft told me that just because you put a clean electronic. The grid doesn't necessarily mean. You're displacing carbon-based electron being if you put a ton of wind plants in west texas where it's super windy year. Maybe just adding to the supply at some level not necessarily replacing of fossil fuel based power generation. So you know. Companies are under some pressure to figure out ways to make sure that they're actually reducing overall emissions. Not pushing them to somebody else. One way they do that is you can try to find the places. On power grids that have the dirtiest electricity where there's peak loads or being handled by dirtier power plants and try to focus your investment in a new renewable facility. That's cheaper there. And so those would be methods that they say would help you start to further reduce actual emissions rather than just increasing the supply of renewable energy. And then sam. These are highly visible organizations. How big of an impact will the steps by. The tech. Companies have in making renewable energy even more mainstream. Well only time will tell it's still. It's still early days but you know so far we've see four. Large tech companies represent nearly a third of all of the corporate buying through these kind of purchase agreements of renewable energy. And so they're they're playing a really big role in dragging the rest of the market along after them and that in turn that kind of demand shock is leading to more supply. You have oil majors for instance making bigger commitments to build large renewable energy facilities to satisfy this growing demand. And so over time. You know that that is going to increase supply and perhaps make it easier for people like you and me to see our home electricity coming from grid. That's that much greener. Sam schechner joining us from paris. Sam thanks very much. Thanks for having me..
WSJ What's News
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ What's News
"Podcasts app. Big tech companies have been facing scrutiny. Here in the us but europe has also been cracking down today. The eu opened a formal antitrust investigation into google around allegations of anticompetitive behavior in the advertising technology sector specifically. They're looking into the company's role in brokering ads and sharing user data with advertisers across websites and mobile apps. It's a core piece of google's business and an area of growing concern for antitrust regulators. Twenty now from paris with more on the investigation is wall street. Journal tech reporter sam schechner. Hi sam thanks for being here. Thanks for having me so sam. This has been brewing for some time. Now can you explain today's formal step. And what exactly. The european commission will be looking into here. The eu has actually been investigating google around its ad business and its use of data for the better part of two years. It actually comes on the heels of three other cases that the commission brought against actually finally charged and find google for allegedly anti competitive conduct. Google still appealing those cases in the nine billion dollars of fines. But what this does is it. It makes an official case and lays out the certain areas of interest that the eu is going to be investing going forward when it comes to google so talk about some of the specific aspects of google's business that they're going to be looking into here well. This case really focuses on goo goals role in the internet display advertising business. It's not you know when you search google for a recipe for tonight but when you go to websites across the internet when you go to apps across the internet. Google is one of the main intermediaries that's going to broker those ads. They run some of the biggest tools for doing that at exchange where bids to show you an ad are bought and sold the platforms that serve the add to the webpage the platforms that advertisers used by those ads. And it's becoming a bigger source of interest for antitrust regulators because other players in that business the so-called ad business say that google's conduct has boxed them out in some cases or has lessened competition or google hoarding data about its users and leaving them at a disadvantage as well as website publishers. Who might want to sell ads and say that they're forced to use google or get a bad deal and to. What extent are privacy. Concerns coming into play here well. It's actually a pretty interesting dilemma. That regulators worldwide faces. There's you may have noticed. A growing regulatory backlash against tech companies because one of the main ways to make money on the internet is advertising and one of the main accelerates of advertising is data about individuals. You end up with on one hand privacy. Kind of pushing towards fewer companies keeping tighter. Hold on that data rather than spreading it all over the place verses competition maybe arguing for a freer flow of data about individuals and so some of google's moves in this area have been coming for scrutiny like that under pressure from privacy advocates and regulators. Google actually announced plans. Actually privacy advocates would say their belated plans to remove a tracking technology called third party cookies from chrome that's one of the things that the eu is investigating and they're not the only regulator to be looking into that because are concerns that it will actually just benefit google's advertising business at the expense of other online advertising companies. How does this compare to antitrust investigations into google. That are currently taking place in the. Us there are some similar through lines. Here right yes indeed. The most direct parallel would come from a lawsuit that was filed against google by a group of states led by the state of texas which is also looking at google's ad tech business and alleged self-dealing by google there are some elements that case that have parallels. That's not the only area of interest in the us the doj also has a case against google. That's more of a search focus case and actually it hearkens back to earlier cases from the eu on similar issues such as google's control of the ecosystem than whether it use that to help cement the position of its cash cow search engine on android phones. So how is google responding to all of this. Have you heard from them. Since this case was formally opened today. Google has been in touch with the european commission about this case since they've been investigating it informally for the better part of two years when we reached out to them. Today a spokeswoman said that first of all european businesses choose to use google's advertising tools because they're competitive and effective and she also added that the company's going to continue to what they said engage constructively with the european commission in the case at the same time this is part of a rising tide of cases that you see both in europe and elsewhere not only against google but other tech companies and so at that level were probably gonna see more developments in coming months as other cases are opened on different grounds against different companies and potentially against google in different parts of europe and the world wall street journal tech reporter. Sam schechner said. Thanks so much for your time today. Thanks for having me and finally..
WSJ Tech News Briefing
"sam schechner" Discussed on WSJ Tech News Briefing
"When it comes to regulating big tack europe has been taking an aggressive stance for a while now and as we talked about on the show. We've seen some action from the us as well but lately china has made moves to join in our reporter. Sam schechner joins me from paris. To talk about why china is getting involved now. What it's doing and what impact could be protect companies. Hey sam thanks for being here. Thanks for having me so before we get to china's action. I wanted to start by bringing us up to speed. European regulators have really been leading the charge when it comes to regulating tack. What have they been focusing on your right. That europe has really been at the leading edge. A lot of these these types of new rules europe's new privacy law the gdp our general data protection regulation was one of the first of the of a new class of transversal privacy laws. And that's actually been emulated in a number of parts of the world. Europe has also been among the first to initiate antitrust investigations into big companies including google and apple amazon and actually has issued decisions against google totaling more than nine billion dollars with fines in recent years and now europe is also helping lead the charge when it comes to coming up with new competition regulations. It's something that's been bubbling in academic circles for quite a while whether or not there's a handful of companies that are so big that they need their own special rules to make sure that they treat everyone fairly to make sure that companies have a chance to rise up and challenge them and the he us antitrust are also in charge of new digital regulation. Here margaret avesta your actually describe it with a metaphor to the automobile. She said that when cars were first invented it a new technology and after some period of time people realize that maybe we need traffic lights right and a lot of action clearly stemming from from that sort of mindset. We've also seen some action in the us as well right. There is indeed some momentum in the us four new competition rules you know given the political environment and some of the differences between democrats and republicans. It's not clear that there'll be an agreement that being said last summer. Democrats in the house. Judiciary committee released a report calling for changes to antitrust laws and creation of new types of obligations and republicans in their own report actually endorsed albeit a narrower set of changes but some areas of agreement such as requirements tech. Giant's make their services interoperable so there is the possibility that some types of legislation might see the light of day in the us dot. So that's sort of the lay of the land but china has also recently joined the push with some new proposals. What do they unveil well. That's right in. November china issued its first draft guidelines for how they want to regulate competitive behavior by digital giants and on paper the guidelines are actually very similar to some of the things that have come out in europe. The uk also has a set of regulations for big tech companies that the proposed and china's proposals include things like blocking companies from crunching consumer data in order to set discriminatory prices or at selling prices below cost to help gain market share. Some of the classic things that might be anti competitive more generally but that big companies are accused of doing and in potentially more difficult to identify with this. And i understand. China has a pretty short history with the sort of regulation. Why are they getting involved now. Well on one hand. China has one of the shortest histories of antitrust regulation of major global economies only adopted its anti-monopoly law in two thousand eight but more cynically. Some people have noted that this push began just slightly after an october speech from alibaba founder. Jack ma who publicly lashed out at the chinese government's tight financial regulations and following that there were a series of regulatory actions against elements of his internet empire. And so the question has been raised when you talk to. Experts is this chinese. Push about really trying to rein in big tech companies to preserve competition. Or is it about taking on people. Like mr ma who they think are challenging the power of the central government. And you know when you talk to when you talk to experts. They say that mon- speech may have been the trigger but that there have been longstanding concerns about increasing concentration among the chinese internet giants including including alibaba but also other companies to rate and since alibaba is one of china's biggest most powerful companies. Making jack ma. One of china's most powerful businessmen. This sort of illustrates broader difference between china and some of the other countries that we've talked about you know. China wants to exert a lot more control over attack and the internet then does the west could barrier in terms of getting different governments on the same page. Well that's a very good question you know we. We really don't know what the long term impacts are going to be of these rules. I mean for one thing. They haven't actually been applied yet. These are proposals and you're right that china's internet is largely dominated by its own set of companies not by global giants and chinese internet. Companies are much less present overseas. So you know it's it's a question. How much one regulatory system or the other will end up prevailing. There are certainly more countries in china's orbit that could end up adopting china's approach to internet regulation but in some cases in some senses that there's similar motivations behind what's going on. I mean whether you're trying to preserve state power for its own sake or because you want to make sure that there can be a new set of companies that come up to challenge. I mean those are still it boils down to saying certain companies have gotten too big and something needs to be done about them and so the more that those sorts of rules are being proposed. It certainly would count as momentum for them. And you know it's not a it's not a given that these things will be done so momentum is meaningful. i mean you. You have free market proponents. Who argue that. These types of proposals go too far that they would hobble digital markets and leave some people worse off so while there is a growing number of experts and competition regulators who say we might need rules like this they certainly aren't unopposed. So china's entry into the fray could potentially impact the course of the debate. Yeah and just to take further. What's the outlook for big tech. Now that china's join this push and how are the company is responding. Well i think big tech. Is these big tech. Giants are increasingly aware that they're going to be facing more regulation whether it's about privacy whether it's you know updates to tax rules whether it's about their obligations to other companies in terms of new competition regulations. It's just a fact of life. And so i think at this point. They're they're now down to figuring out how to make sure that these rules are ones that they can live with. You know when you talk to facebook they sort of are perhaps the most acquiescent saying that we acknowledge these types of rules must apply to us. Amazon and google say more that they would hope that rules that would be rules that apply to all companies not trying to focus on a few. But i think it's it's certainly fair to say that these companies are going to find themselves much more regulated and they have at the last couple decades have been a sort of open playing field for them. It seems likely that they're going to find their their field of action more limited. They may have time doing the same kinds of acquisitions that they had done before. Or certainly will face more scrutiny. Before they're able to complete them. Some regulations on the table could in the case of repeated non-compliance go as far as breakup. I think really the us would have to get more into the game for that to to truly be on the table. Indeed the ftc's suit against facebook last year did specifically talk about unwinding some of facebook's acquisitions
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Why China is Joining the Global Push to Regulate Big Tech
"When it comes to regulating big tack europe has been taking an aggressive stance for a while now and as we talked about on the show. We've seen some action from the us as well but lately china has made moves to join in our reporter. Sam schechner joins me from paris. To talk about why china is getting involved now. What it's doing and what impact could be protect companies. Hey sam thanks for being here. Thanks for having me so before we get to china's action. I wanted to start by bringing us up to speed. European regulators have really been leading the charge when it comes to regulating tack. What have they been focusing on your right. That europe has really been at the leading edge. A lot of these these types of new rules europe's new privacy law the gdp our general data protection regulation was one of the first of the of a new class of transversal privacy laws. And that's actually been emulated in a number of parts of the world. Europe has also been among the first to initiate antitrust investigations into big companies including google and apple amazon and actually has issued decisions against google totaling more than nine billion dollars with fines in recent years and now europe is also helping lead the charge when it comes to coming up with new competition regulations. It's something that's been bubbling in academic circles for quite a while whether or not there's a handful of companies that are so big that they need their own special rules to make sure that they treat everyone fairly to make sure that companies have a chance to rise up and challenge them and the he us antitrust are also in charge of new digital regulation. Here margaret avesta your actually describe it with a metaphor to the automobile. She said that when cars were first invented it a new technology and after some period of time people realize that maybe we need traffic lights right and a lot of action clearly stemming from from that sort of mindset. We've also seen some action in the us as well right. There is indeed some momentum in the us four new competition rules you know given the political environment and some of the differences between democrats and republicans. It's not clear that there'll be an agreement that being said last summer. Democrats in the house. Judiciary committee released a report calling for changes to antitrust laws and creation of new types of obligations and republicans in their own report actually endorsed albeit a narrower set of changes but some areas of agreement such as requirements tech. Giant's make their services interoperable so there is the possibility that some types of legislation might see the light of day in the us dot. So that's sort of the lay of the land but china has also recently joined the push with some new proposals. What do they unveil well. That's right in. November china issued its first draft guidelines for how they want to regulate competitive behavior by digital giants and on paper the guidelines are actually very similar to some of the things that have come out in europe. The uk also has a set of regulations for big tech companies that the proposed and china's proposals include things like blocking companies from crunching consumer data in order to set discriminatory prices or at selling prices below cost to help gain market share. Some of the classic things that might be anti competitive more generally but that big companies are accused of doing and in potentially more difficult to identify with this. And i understand. China has a pretty short history with the sort of regulation. Why are they getting involved now. Well on one hand. China has one of the shortest histories of antitrust regulation of major global economies only adopted its anti-monopoly law in two thousand eight but more cynically. Some people have noted that this push began just slightly after an october speech from alibaba founder. Jack ma who publicly lashed out at the chinese government's tight financial regulations and following that there were a series of regulatory actions against elements of his internet empire. And so the question has been raised when you talk to. Experts is this chinese. Push about really trying to rein in big tech companies to preserve competition. Or is it about taking on people. Like mr ma who they think are challenging the power of the central government. And you know when you talk to when you talk to experts. They say that mon- speech may have been the trigger but that there have been longstanding concerns about increasing concentration among the chinese internet giants including including alibaba but also other companies to rate and since alibaba is one of china's biggest most powerful companies. Making jack ma. One of china's most powerful businessmen. This sort of illustrates broader difference between china and some of the other countries that we've talked about you know. China wants to exert a lot more control over attack and the internet then does the west could barrier in terms of getting different governments on the same page. Well that's a very good question you know we. We really don't know what the long term impacts are going to be of these rules. I mean for one thing. They haven't actually been applied yet. These are proposals and you're right that china's internet is largely dominated by its own set of companies not by global giants and chinese internet. Companies are much less present overseas. So you know it's it's a question. How much one regulatory system or the other will end up prevailing. There are certainly more countries in china's orbit that could end up adopting china's approach to internet regulation but in some cases in some senses that there's similar motivations behind what's going on. I mean whether you're trying to preserve state power for its own sake or because you want to make sure that there can be a new set of companies that come up to challenge. I mean those are still it boils down to saying certain companies have gotten too big and something needs to be done about them and so the more that those sorts of rules are being proposed. It certainly would count as momentum for them. And you know it's not a it's not a given that these things will be done so momentum is meaningful. i mean you. You have free market proponents. Who argue that. These types of proposals go too far that they would hobble digital markets and leave some people worse off so while there is a growing number of experts and competition regulators who say we might need rules like this they certainly aren't unopposed. So china's entry into the fray could potentially impact the course of the debate. Yeah and just to take further. What's the outlook for big tech. Now that china's join this push and how are the company is responding. Well i think big tech. Is these big tech. Giants are increasingly aware that they're going to be facing more regulation whether it's about privacy whether it's you know updates to tax rules whether it's about their obligations to other companies in terms of new competition regulations. It's just a fact of life. And so i think at this point. They're they're now down to figuring out how to make sure that these rules are ones that they can live with. You know when you talk to facebook they sort of are perhaps the most acquiescent saying that we acknowledge these types of rules must apply to us. Amazon and google say more that they would hope that rules that would be rules that apply to all companies not trying to focus on a few. But i think it's it's certainly fair to say that these companies are going to find themselves much more regulated and they have at the last couple decades have been a sort of open playing field for them. It seems likely that they're going to find their their field of action more limited. They may have time doing the same kinds of acquisitions that they had done before. Or certainly will face more scrutiny. Before they're able to complete them. Some regulations on the table could in the case of repeated non-compliance go as far as breakup. I think really the us would have to get more into the game for that to to truly be on the table. Indeed the ftc's suit against facebook last year did specifically talk about unwinding some of facebook's acquisitions
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Uber spared from London ban despite 'historical failings'
"Uber can continue to operate in London for now last year regulators there decided not to renew the ride hailing giants licensed to operate but yesterday the company won its court appeal of that decision our reporter Sam Schechner has more. Regulator said that they had found instances in which unauthorized drivers swap their phones with others, allowing them to pick up writers themselves, which is obviously a a safety issue. Uber's been operating this whole time in London but under the threat that they could be shut down if their appeals don't win and so they court found that has implemented new safety protocols and while not perfect, it is fit to hold a license in the UK. For Uber London is one of the company's biggest global markets and the news comes as Uber is working to build trust with regulators there and around the world under former CEO, Travis Kalmyk. The company often pushed the regulatory and legal envelope to try and speed up growth and in doing. So they often clashed with lawmakers Kalmyk departed as CEO in two thousand seventeen and left the board the last year. And you may remember that Amazon had to postpone its annual Prime Day sales event earlier this summer at that point, the company was struggling to keep up with the crush of orders as the pandemic set in. Now, we've got a new date for prime day and actually it'll be two days October thirteenth and fourteenth while the event normally helps pull in sales during the lull of summer shopping this year, it could help the company break its fourth-quarter earnings record retail analysts are expecting a big showing because of the combination of Prime Day holiday shopping and the general consumer shift to ECOMMERCE.
WSJ What's News
Why France Wants to Audit Facebook
"As of this morning. The French government is planning to give regulators sweeping power to audit. And fine, large social media companies like Facebook, this is if they don't adequately remove hateful content from Paris. Sam Schechner broke the story. So Sam walk me through what is being proposed by the French government. Well, the French government want to implement what they call a duty of care kind of broad obligation for social networks. Very large social networks to be more responsible for hate speech that is published on their platforms, and then they wanna be able to go in and audit, then to make sure that they're handling that responsibility. Appropriately it's it's a somewhat different approach than we've seen. In some other other countries where you know, basically companies are responsible for instances, any instance, and they can be held accountable for letting something through the filter. The the French kind of liken it to banking regulation where the banks are required to have really robust systems for detecting in stamping out fraud, but it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, they're responsible for every bit of fraud that might happen to slip through the cracks. And if they don't have a good system the government can come in and find them heavily for that. How did this proposal come about? The proposal stemmed from months of consultations between French officials. Some of them regulators at various independent authorities here in France and Facebook, it was something that Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and French president Emmanuel Macron agreed to last November and the French officials visited. A number of Facebook offices to look at how exactly they handle these questions. And that's what led to then a report proposing certain ways to deal with it. That's coming out today, and the French government is actually going to implement some of these in law, or at least they're going to propose a law that has to go through parliament here seen a lot of regulatory proposals from New Zealand to Singapore. Where does this fall on the spectrum of what various countries are considering when it comes to trying to regulate speech on social media sites? Well, it's I think they are trying to do something a little bit differently instead of being very prescriptive. Like, you know, some of these some of these rules have very prescriptive requirements for everything social media company has to do something as flagged to them. This isn't really like that. It's more of a broader like you have to be a good. You have to be good at this. And we're going to be on your back to make sure you are with. Without being particularly specific about the the details. And you know, the idea there is that there's gonna be some back and forth, and that the companies themselves are going to be responsible for for doing this investment that can in some sense. It's it's almost like saying continued doing what you're doing voluntary basis, but we're gonna make it not voluntary. And get better at it. Is this something that could serve as a model for the US, or is it very grounded, and sort of European ideas of tech regulation, for instance, it definitely does take a European vision of regulating, what gets said online. I mean, you know, it's it's certainly the kind of thing that could provide a model maybe for some other countries in. It's not totally different from what the UK proposed in its online harms proposal last month in the US any kind of restriction on what people say is is something that is much harder. To to regulate. There's a a really strong tradition of free expression free speech in the US. It's a fundamental right in Europe as well. But one that gets balanced sometimes with others. I would think that, you know, the political momentum in the US seems to be more around privacy regulation and possibly things around competition.
WSJ Tech News Briefing
How Popular Apps Shared Data With Facebook
"Popular health and fitness apps are scrambling to stop sending very sensitive and personal information to Facebook. After the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that many were transmitting detailed information about topics including everything from weight to menstrual cycles. Facebook said it is working on new systems to detect and block uploads of such information by apps. Let's check in with none other than Sam Schechner. He joins us from Paris via Skype. Hi Sam for having me. So let's take this back a bit. Now, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday about how so many of these very popular apps as many as eleven were transmitting detailed information about very personal details to say, the least it was a big revelation. And if you wouldn't mind explaining a bit about what went into this testing, and what it did reveal committee. We'll yeah, we we set out to look at this ecosystem of apps that were. Sending data around the around the internet. And you know, we did that by saying, okay, we're going to intercept all the traffic off of some testing phones. So with a lot of very important help from the Wall Street Journal's own data lad, we we set out to to do that testing. You know, I actually did some of the testing myself, and you know, we we found a lot of interesting things the thing that was really striking sort of set off the story was the moment where you know, we were testing one of these acts, and in this case, it was a I was testing a a, you know, a an app for monitoring your menstrual cycles. And I noted said as soon as I made an entry into the app. Few seconds later, boom, there was network traffic to Facebook that was basically explaining what I had done digging a little. Further. I saw that when you loaded that app. It actually sent a message to Facebook saying what type of day, it was are you having your period is an ordinary day. Are you oscillating are you late for your period, or are you pregnant, you know, that that kind of data was like just boom open my eyes. And you know, we started digging in right says since this broke Friday, there's been a lot of cleanup and damage control. That has ensued. A lot of these apps have either addressed or removed this transfer of data to Facebook. How did this play out? How does this continue to play out? Well, I think we're still in in the middle of it. You're right that we found about eleven apps, and we reached out to everybody involved in the story. So all of the apps that we had noticed as well as Facebook, apple and Google before publication. And so actually one of the apps before publication of meditation app named grieve had already. He said are bad. We made a mistake. We're going to stop sending this kind of information Facebook, they had been sending every user's Email address and the name of the meditations. They were completing, you know, which had sort of revealing names like, you know, anxiety meditation that might tell you a little bit about your state of mind. So they turn that off, you know, before we published the the flow app that I just mentioned the the menstrual cycle and pregnancy monitoring at had at least temporarily suspended some of its they said they had reduced their use of third party analytic services, including Facebook. And and so then after we published, you know, I think there was a fair amount of outcry. And also, we know that Facebook as well as probably the the operating systems were reaching out to these apps. You know, there were further announcements made. Flow actually released a new version of its app and said, it was pulling Facebook's SDK the software development kit that allowed these data transfers from its app other apps. Did you know made changes as well? There's a exercise and food logging at called lose it, which is quite popular that is no longer sending your weight, and the caloric content of everything that you log to Facebook, the the heart rate monitoring app that I tested that. You know, would basically the moment after it measured your heart rate using the phone. Your phone's camera send that your heart rate to Facebook stopped stopped doing that. But there's still several apps actually more than half of the apps. We tested for still sending information Facebook as of yesterday when I tested, right? So here we are again with, you know, a breaking story from the press Facebook social media at cetera has this huge issue with personal data on their hands and out has to address. Another huge controversy. And you know, you bring up this topic of ST ks, and it provokes discussion about who is responsible for data shared via these SDK's that are built into all of these mobile apps. What are folks saying about it? You know, I think that's a really good question. Facebook for what it's worth, you know, their their positions that data sharing generally is is industry standard practice that adds share a lot of data with a lot of providers. And to an extent, that's that's definitely true. I mean on on I o s according to apt topiary the average app has nineteen SDK's built into it. And the number's higher on Android something like twenty eight. So there's a lot of players who potentially have access to your data. I, you know, in all cases that doesn't necessarily mean sensitive health data. But I think that this isn't evocative example that that does get at this broader question and Facebook says. Listen, we tell apps not to send a sensitive information and AXA responsible for what they send us. And you know, they're the ones responsible for getting permission from users giving them prominent notice the reality is when you look at these apps, they weren't necessarily doing that. And he didn't have to go very very far down the popularity list of find apps that were in violation of these these rules. So I think you know, there's some people who were saying that that the platforms whether it's Facebook or it's even apple Google have a greater responsibility to keep at compliant. I mean, there's gonna be millions of apps, but there's only a few big platforms. So they're the gatekeepers here on the flip side. There's people who say do we really want them being gatekeepers know blocking what types of apps or are available. And you know, that's a legitimate debate to be had. But it's you know, I think our research shows that even among the most popular apps, it's still a little the wild west when it comes to collecting data. Huge story. Sam Schechner has been covering it. All Sam thank you so much thanks for having
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Facebook Fights Fake News With New Tools
"On its services. Its latest bid to fight off politically motivated interference in elections from India to the European Union. Let's head over to Europe for more joining us from Paris via Skype is Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Schechner Sam how you doing good. So the twenty sixteen US election seem like eons ago, we know that the handling of Russian interference did not go well political warfare wreaking havoc on social media. It's clearly a global issue. And it seems like Europe is the next big test. How would you describe the heightened level of concern? They're fast forwarding to January twenty nineteen. Where are we right now? We're just a few months out from a big parliamentary election for the us parliament and in the U. There are definitely concerns that Russia or other foreign actors are gonna try to sway the the national votes. In each country. They vote for the parliament, and they're certainly expectations that you know, eurosceptics or other anti-establishment or extremist candidates could could win significant support. So against that backdrop that you is been pushing companies to do more to try to contain in authentic, actively disinformation big news. And that's something that Facebook actually has been doing itself it's been under a lot of pressure in the US and elsewhere. And so it's been sort of its plan has been to roll out. Some of these features new features that they call add transparency and election integrity as elections come up. So there was you know, they did some before the Irish election last year and then before the US midterm election last year. And so then there's the next country is going to be India. And then following that they're doing some stuff in the EU and gonna roll these things out globally, but the EU is definitely a really complicated sphere. And I think it'd be one of the bigger tests simply because it involves dozens of countries and languages at the same time tall order, but it's got a game plan. You mentioned some of the tools that it's got on its belt right now. So how is it going to prevent this foreign interference? I imagine a lot of the focus will go into political advertising and making it more transparent. Yes. And I think that you know, I think a lot of people might say that that response is only part of the issue. You know, a lot of what people are seeing online is in this fairly paid ads, but his other what Facebook would call coordinated in authentic activity from fake accounts and things like that and Facebook has been removing accounts. Not all of his accounts are buying ads. You know, are purporting to be normal people spreading stories, and and things that aren't true. So this is tackling one element that problem people can debate how active it is. But with Facebook is doing. As they are rolling out a system whereby all political ads and ads that are issue ads on certain specific hot button issues that they are going to determine with outside. Entities. Have to have a disclaimer about who paid for the ad, and then you can click on that and see who's behind it. So that's that's one thing. And when can also debate whether or not the disclosure is is really deep enough. It's the there you need to enter the name of a group to buy the ad does that mean in the ads need to be approved. But does that mean necessarily that? There's enough information there to really determine who's behind it. You know that that's something that's been been debated. The second thing that this book is rolling out is what you know, essentially, a searchable database of ads because base book ads are by definition targeted at individual people based on their web, browsing habits, and that includes political ads they somebody decides that they want to target tiny because they know that she's really really interested in, you know, I don't know more pizza on Thursdays and. That's your political issue. I surprised it's political issue. But that's the thing you really activists about. And so they can target newly glad based just on that. So, you know, but that means I won't see those ads if I'm trying to see if there's an influence operation targeting people who like pizza on Thursdays. I wouldn't know about it. So the searchable database is supposed to solve that problem. All political ads are available there, and you can see who they were targeted at and why. And so they're rolling that out progressively and by June. It's supposed to be supposed to be global for all the elections that they're that. They're covering can't be stated enough how complicated. This is clearly and Facebook has been accused of not acting quickly enough not doing enough to get on the ball here. Where are its critic standing with its current efforts? What sentiment are you getting from them? Critics would say that they want more information that they want more data about who is buying the political ads that the transparency. Doesn't go far enough. Facebook says that they're making steps in that direction that it's a work in progress. And they know they have more to do. So it is possible that this pressure could could lead to two more action currently doing this sort of voluntarily in many cases, there's not, you know, something like the federal elections commission requirements for for donations. You know to to say who is buying which ads on Facebook election committees have to disclose where they spend money. So you can see all these campaigns spent money on Facebook, but you can't necessarily see which groups bought which adds. So this is adding some transparency provided and then on top of that, you know, I think people who are critics of Facebook would say that you know, beyond paid ads. They have more work to do on on the transparency for which kind of content is being shown to whom because it's the organic content. That's not always paid for that can lead to some of this very viral spreading of false information. So, you know. And that's something that Facebook has tackled to some extent recently. They've put restrictions in certain parts of the world on how many people you can share information with the what's at to help reduce the virology of some of some of the content, which is, you know, been seen to been accused of inciting violence, for instance. It's something that we're just clearly in the thick of. And again Europe is obviously going to be the next big test. Thank you for the latest on that front. Sam we always appreciate it. Thanks for having me that doesn't for the tech news briefing reporting from the newsroom in New York, I'm tiny boost us. Thanks for
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Google Fined $57 Million Under New European Law
"The. This is news briefing on Tanya. Bruce does reporting from the newsroom in New York. Google has been fined fifty seven million dollars in the biggest penalty yet under a new European law. In question is Google not going far enough in getting valid user consent to gather data for targeted advertising, were sorting. It all out and figuring out what it means down the road for Google globally after these Ted lines. Facebook's. What's at messaging service is limiting users ability to forward content is an effort to rein in the ways the popular platform allows the spread of misinformation the move which follows months of criticism over the company's response to such incidence is one of the bigger challenges. Facebook has made to one of its core services in response to political pressure. What's apps more than one billion global users can now only foreword material to five individual users or groups at once that's down from twenty likely change won't be significant for most casual users, but could be a major one for the hundreds of millions of people in the developing world who use it as a primary source of sharing news. What's up said in a release that it has been testing the forwarding limit for six months and would continue to listen to feedback. Opening the door for more changes or rollback should users revolt. The disappointing performance of Apple's iphone X are is rippling through the global supply chain. We land in Japan where a leading major Japanese. Supplier for the model is seeking a bailout from an investor group from China and Taiwan Japan display Inc is an advanced talks with Taiwan's teepee holdings and Chinese state owned silk road fund about an investment that would include a stake of thirty percent with the possibility of greater control later in the latest lineup of iphones only. The ex- are uses liquid crystal displays the type in which Japan display specializes in and that model has fallen far short of apples expectations. Nonetheless, Japan display may still have some value to an Asian buyer given its experience in mass production and close ties to apple Japan display plans to use the invested money for day to day operations and hopes to announce a deal as soon as mid February and the latest trend in mobile gaming stock trading ups, apps such as Robin Hood, and we bowl are drawing in young and often inexperienced investors. And the journal says it's bringing the ability to make foolish decisions to an ever broader swath of people. The ability of robinhood another apps to draw customers is reflective of. Individual investors. Leaps into the stock market journal goes on to say the ability of robinhood and other apps to draw customers is reflective of individual investors. Leaps into the stock market after sitting out most of a decade long bull run this past year since launching in twenty thirteen Robin Hood in particular has amassed about six million clients is gained one million alone. Since last July and has more users than trade coming up. What fifty seven million dollar fine means for Google and data privacy protection? A French regulator. Find alphabets Google fifty six point eight million dollars the biggest penalty yet under a new European privacy law. We note as the European Union wide general data protection regulation GDP are which went into effect. Last year doesn't unprecedented penalty make new advances in the fight for privacy protection. Let's get more from Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Schechner, he is on the scene at Davos at the moment, actually and is chiming in in a pinch. Thanks as always fence. We got here because privacy activists say there really isn't a question about this debate where they coming from they use a term, but Google obviously rejects enforced consents, where they say that it's so complicated. Defined the ways to turn off the consent. If people just quick the blue box that says, okay, I agree and that that is valid consent. And in this case Francis privacy regulator agreed with them Google fights back how with this argument a little bit more. On where they're coming from. And you know, we're they're gonna come from bigger picture. What does it do with this problem on its hands? Now that a precedent has been set here. Not that not that complicated. But the, you know, the broader question here is that this is a starting gun for a bunch of litigation that's going to start hiring up in various countries across the view as decision start to come in Ireland's going to start issuing decisions in a bunch of aces that it has involving other companies, and those are going to end up in court and in coming months and years, we're going to start to see what ballad consent really is and Google is not exactly gonna go hungry from any eight figure fine. But you know, maybe this does set an example, what else has been happening throughout Europe in terms of some noise being made in this arena, where what other countries, do you think we might look to next first of all about the finding a right that the fine is not that big for Google. But it's certainly a shot across the bow. In terms of the countries the way the way that GDP are works. The country were. Your headquarters as in Europe is going to be the one that's your lead privacy. Regulator which means the Irish regulator is really powerful. Helen dickson. The data protection protection Commissioner there has privacy oversight for Google Facebook Twitter a bunch of other big tech firms. That's going to mean that a lot of cases are going to come from their big European board where they will make joint decisions on some of these cases. So we may start to see some of these cases of fear before the European data protection board just to at another acronym. Jumble. You always on us in with the latest from overseas. And we always appreciate it. Sam schechner. Thank you so much and up to soon, that's it for the tech news briefing reporting from the newsroom in New York on tiny boosters, thanks for listening.
WSJ Tech News Briefing
Shares of Apple supplier Japan Display surge 19 percent following report of bailout talks
"Individual investors. Leaps into the stock market after sitting out most of a decade long bull run this past year since launching in twenty thirteen Robin Hood in particular has amassed about six million clients is gained one million alone. Since last July and has more users than trade coming up. What fifty seven million dollar fine means for Google and data privacy protection? A French regulator. Find alphabets Google fifty six point eight million dollars the biggest penalty yet under a new European privacy law. We note as the European Union wide general data protection regulation GDP are which went into effect. Last year doesn't unprecedented penalty make new advances in the fight for privacy protection. Let's get more from Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Schechner, he is on the scene at Davos at the moment, actually and is chiming in in a pinch. Thanks as always fence. We got here because privacy activists say there really isn't a question about this debate where they coming from they use a term, but Google obviously rejects enforced consents, where they say that it's so complicated. Defined the ways to turn off the consent. If people just quick the blue box that says, okay, I agree and that that is valid consent. And in this case Francis privacy regulator agreed with them Google fights back how with this argument a little bit more. On where they're coming from. And you know, we're they're gonna come from bigger picture. What does it do with this problem on its hands? Now that a precedent has been set here. Not that not that complicated. But the, you know, the broader question here is that this is a starting gun for a bunch of litigation that's going to start hiring up in various countries across the view as decision start to come in Ireland's going to start issuing decisions in a bunch of aces that it has involving other companies, and those are going to end up in court and in coming months and years, we're going to start to see what ballad consent really is and Google is not exactly gonna go hungry from any eight figure fine. But you know, maybe this does set an example, what else has been happening throughout Europe in terms of some noise being made in this arena, where what other countries, do you think we might look to next first of all about the finding a right that the fine is not that big for Google. But it's certainly a shot across the bow. In terms of the countries the way the way that GDP are works. The country were. Your headquarters as in Europe is going to be the one that's your lead privacy. Regulator which means the Irish regulator is really powerful. Helen dickson. The data protection protection Commissioner there has privacy oversight for Google Facebook Twitter a bunch of other big tech firms. That's going to mean that a lot of cases are going to come from their big European board where they will make joint decisions on some of these cases. So we may start to see some of these cases of fear before the European data protection board just to at another acronym. Jumble. You always on us in with the latest from overseas. And we always appreciate it. Sam schechner. Thank you so much and up to soon, that's it for the tech news briefing reporting from the newsroom in New York on tiny boosters, thanks for listening.