In what seems to be a common occurrence, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is once again in the headlines.

After months of speculation about national security risks and users data being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party, US President Donald Trump has announced plans to ban TikTok in the United States any day now.

In response, a deal is being negotiated between TikToks parent company ByteDance and US software giant Microsoft. If successful, Microsoft will take over the apps operations in the US and potentially also in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A US ban would not be unprecedented. India barred TikTok last month, alongside dozens of other Chinese-owned apps and websites.

According to reports, ByteDance has agreed to sell some of its TikTok operations to Microsoft. The deal, which is unlikely to progress before mid-September, would appease US regulators and could be seen as a way forward for TikTok in Australia.

Microsoft has indicated any takeover would include a complete security review and an offer of:

continuing dialogue with the United States government, including with the president.

Moving ownership to a US company could help address concerns surrounding the perceived influence of the Chinese government over TikTok. But there will need to be strong oversight to ensure existing user data is transferred entirely to Microsofts control.

While Microsoft has pledged to ensure TikTok data are deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred it would be difficult to prove copies had not been made before control was handed over.

Whats more, a Microsoft-owned TikTok may not appeal to everyone. Some may think Microsoft is too closely tied to the US government, or may consider it a monopoly holder in the personal computing market.

Also, it would be naive to think foreign governments will not be able to covertly access US-stored user data, if they are so inclined.

Should the deal go ahead, it may open an opportunity for the Australian and New Zealand governments to align with a US-supported initiative.

Australia is still deciding how to proceed, with the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media due to hear from TikTok representatives on August 21. The committee has been tasked to look at the influence of social media on elections and the use of such platforms to distribute misinformation.

TikTok wont be alone though Facebook and Twitter are both due to attend. It is, however, unlikely the Microsoft acquisition will have much influence on the proceedings as the deal is still in the early days of discussion.

Microsofts acquisition may introduce fresh concerns about the US governments influence over TikTok. Although, this is perhaps more politically palatable than potential Chinese government influence over the app given the Chinese Communist Partys unsavoury record of privacy abuses.

Perhaps the only winner from the deal would be ByteDance itself. A product that is increasingly disliked by foreign governments will only become harder to sell with time. It would make sense for ByteDance to cash out its asset sooner rather than later.

The deal would also likely earn it a significant payout, given TikToks millions of users.

Read more: TikTok tries to distance itself from Beijing, but will it be enough to avoid the global blacklist?

Despite ongoing allegations, there is no solid evidence of a threat to either national security or personal data from using TikTok. Many of the concerns hinge on data sovereignty specifically, where data are stored and who can use and access them.

TikTok has responded to allegations by stating its user data are not stored in China and are not subject to Chinese government influence or access.

That said, while TikTok user data may well be stored outside China, it is unclear whether the Chinese government has already secured access, or will seek to do so later through legal channels.

Read more: China could be using TikTok to spy on Australians, but banning it isnt a simple fix

There are, however, other potential issues that may be driving the USs concerns.

For instance, in 2018 an unexpected consequence of sharing fitness tracker data through the Strava website inadvertently revealed the locations of secret US military bases.

Thus, services such as TikTok which are meant to be relatively benign (if used ethically) can, under certain circumstances, present unexpected threats to national security. This may explain why Australias defence forces have banned the app.

Read more: Strava storm: why everyone should check their smart gear security settings before going for a jog

Threats from the US against TikTok are not new.

The countrys Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated TikTok was being examined by US authorities in early July. And suggestions of a national security review go as far back as November last year.

However, in regards to Trumps most recent threat, one contributing factor may be the personal feelings of the president himself.

There are theories much of the new hype over TikTok could be a reaction from Trump to an ill-fated political rally in Tulsa.

A number of TikTok users reserved tickets to the Trump rally and didnt show up, as a protest against the president. The rally saw only a few thousand supporters attend, out of hundreds of thousands of allocated tickets.

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Microsoft's takeover would be a win for TikTok and tech giants not users - The Conversation AU

This week, a house panel is inquiring about the state of competition among Silicon Valley giants such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The CEOs of the infamous tech behemoths will testify at a virtual hearing on Wednesday.

This antitrust investigation fits into a bigger picture of tech giants criticized for their anti-competition practices favoring their own products, monopolizing the market, and choking off competition through the acquisition of startups before they have a chance to take off, creating an imbalance in the tech-verse.

The high-profile hearing proceeds as the industry continues to reel from a widespread backlash against large tech corporations, known as Techlash, that gained momentum in 2018. Recurring issues regarding data privacy, consumer rights, and the power of tech giants in influencing political outcomes, have added fuel to growing weariness and skepticism towards big tech practices.

The hearing will mark the first time Amazons Jeff Bezos (with a net worth of US$171.6 billion) will testify before Congress, but also the first time for all four CEOs will testify at the same congressional hearing. The event is expected to be the first step taken towards laying a blueprint for antitrust regulations in the tech world.

Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Antitrust Subcommittee ChairmanDavid Cicillinesaid in a joint statement.

Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.

Californian consumer tech leader Apple is being investigated for the way it manages its apps store after claims were made that the iPhone maker gives preference towards its own apps over third-party entities. Many app developers have called out the firms ironclad control of its App Store, accusing the firm of applying rules inconsistently, particularly for apps that compete with Apples own products. Ultimately, this can lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers.

For its part, social media giant Facebook is involved in seemingly endless controversy, but the hearing will focus on allegations over data privacy and its acquisition of large entities such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Taha Yasseri, asenior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute said, one company owning four of the most popular social networking and communication apps, at best, can be described as a data monopoly.

Combined, the data from multiple platforms can lead to an extremely high level of precision in modeling our traits and behaviors. This amount of power should be regulated. said Yasseri.

However, Facebook haswon a temporary halt to a demand byEU investigators to turn over vast amounts of data, potentially frustrating efforts to build an antitrust case against the US tech giant. Facebooksued the Brussels-based commission on July 15, citing the exceptionally broad nature of the EUs orders.

Tech titan Google will likely be questioned over its unparalleled dominance on the ad and search market, while Amazon will be scrutinized on whether it promotes its own brands ahead of small sellers on its platform, and whether it capitalizes on data from smaller sellers for the benefit of its own business.

Analysts said the hearing marks the initial steps for antitrust laws to be rewritten, ensuring the rules are updated and set for the tech industry today. The hearing could see, for example, Amazon change the way it develops private label products.

So I mean, if you think about the core of anti-trust law, its not illegal. Its not forbidden to become a dominant company or a monopoly, Peter Choi, Vontobel quality growth analyst, toldYahoo Finance. Its more about the way you obtain that dominant position. And do you misuse that to sort of, you know, gain leverage in an adjacent market.

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Tech CEOs antitrust hearing what awaits the tech giants? - TechHQ

Tech CEOs swear in to testify to Congress.

In the last few years, onlineprivacy and cybersecurity have become a public concern, with tech giants like Facebook, Google and Apple backing a national law on data privacy regulations. But lawmakers at an antitrust hearing on Wednesday accused the tech companies of being disingenuous with their support for privacy -- arguing that they've used it as an excuse to snub out their competition.

The CEOs of tech giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google faced a five-hour series of questions from the House Judiciary's subcommittee on antitrust, specifically on whether or not they engaged in anti-competitive behavior.

Subscribe to the CNET Now newsletter for our editors' picks of the most important stories of the day.

Members of Congress gave several examples of times tech giants took actions that would directly benefit themselves while harming their competitors, like Google announcing it would phase out third-party tracking cookies by 2022 or Apple removing parental control apps shortly after it launched its own "screen time" feature.

Now playing: Watch this: Congress seeks answers from Amazon on use of internal...

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In both of those cases, the companies said the actions were taken to protect the privacy and security of their users, but House members argue that it was specifically to boost their own profits.

"You're using privacy as a shield, and what you're really doing is using it as a cudgel to beat down competition," said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican from North Dakota. "It's a great word that people care about, but not when it's utilized to control more of the marketplace and squeeze out smaller competitors."

The lawmaker was referring to a 2015 decision from Google to stop allowing third parties to buy YouTube ads, forcing them to buy directly from the company itself. At the time, Google said it was for privacy reasonsand CEO Sundar Pichai defended the change on Wednesday.

"It's a service we provide to our users, we obviously want to make sure we protect the privacy of our users there," Pichai said.

Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat from Georgia, called out Apple for removing parental control apps that were in direct competition with Screen Time, a feature the tech giant rolled out in 2018.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said it removed the apps out of a security concern, not to gain a competitive advantage.

"We were concerned, congresswoman, about the privacy and security of kids," Cook said. "The technology that was being used at the time was called MDM, and it had the ability to take over the kid's screen, and a third party could see it and so we were worried about their safety."

Read more:What is Tor? Your guide to using the private browser

Lawmakers and privacy advocates were skeptical of the tech giants' defense.

For example, by phasing out third-party tracking cookies, Google, with its widely popular set of services like YouTube, Google Maps and Android, would have a competitive advantage through its first-party tracking.

Essentially, it would be providing privacy from others, but not from Google itself, experts said. All while benefiting their own profits.

"Because Google knows who you are when you register an account or connect to their software via phone or browser, they don't need cookies to predict your behavior or know who you are," said Liz O'Sullivan, technology director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. "Google has GPS, they have your email, your search history. All of that is way more valuable than a simple cookie. So eliminating them won't even be a drop in the bucket in protecting privacy."

Gabriel Weinberg is a direct competitor to Google, as the CEO of DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine. In 2018, he called out Google for owning the domain name Duck.com, which was redirected to the search giant.

At the time, Weinberg said it frequently confused DuckDuckGo users, and also raised issues with how difficult it was to add the search engine into Chrome.

"Google and Facebook routinely engage in privacy-washing, a deliberate attempt to use privacy to help their brand, but not actually deliver it to users," Weinberg said in a message after the hearing. "It misleads people into a false sense of privacy, and also is a primary contributor to the powerlessness people feel when they find out they aren't really getting what they were promised."

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Lawmakers accuse tech giants of using privacy as a weapon to hurt competition - CNET

A pedestrian takes a photograph in front of an electronic ticker board and a screen displaying stock figures outside the Exchange Square complex, which houses the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, Feb. 11, 2019.

Justin Chin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hong Kong launched a new, Nasdaq-style technology board this week the Hang Seng Tech index which tracks 30 of the largest tech stocks listed in the city.

Analysts say that's likely to lead to more money coming in for those 30 stocks in Hong Kong, adding to a booming year for Chinese tech companies and the Hong Kong market.

There were a few mega initial public offerings in Hong Kongthis year as U.S.-listed Chinese tech giants flocked home for secondary listings. Some examples included gaming giant Netease and e-commerce firm JD.com.

More are likely to return, following tensions between the U.S. and China that led to a U.S. bill that could essentially ban many Chinese companies from listing on American exchanges, analysts predicted.

That spells good news for the Hong Kong market, they said.

Under the new tech index, its constituents are reviewed quarterly and would allow tech companies that are listed in Hong Kong to be included if they meet certain requirements.

Currently, the top five firms listed on the index areAlibaba,Tencent,Meituan Dianping,XiaomiandSunny Optical. Together, they have a combined weighting of more than 40%.

Here's what the new index could mean for investors and the listed companies themselves.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other fund products will probably be launched to track the new index, and that will spur more inflows into the stocks under the index, Morgan Stanley said in a report this week.

More investors haveinrecentyears flocked to such passive investingby putting money into such funds, as opposed to individual stock-picking.

The new index is likely to draw some interest away from the tech-heavy Nasdaq in the U.S. and lead to more turnover at the Hong Kong stock exchange, said Citi analysts in a note on Monday. They also flagged that more index-linked funds could be issued.

The following stocks will likely to enjoy the most inflows, compared to their own daily average trading volume in Hong Kong, according to Morgan Stanley.

For investors looking to decide what funds to get into that track the indexes in Hong Kong, it's worth noting that the new tech index would have achieved higher returns than the main Hang Seng composite index,according to back-testing data by the Hang Seng Indexes company.

That data showed the tech index would have returns of 36.2% for 2019 and 45.5% as of July 17. That compares to 10.95% and -2.44% respectively for the main Hang Seng index.

Alibaba, JD.com and Neteasewill likely benefit from more inflows as mainland investors would now be able to buy these stocks.

Mainland investors currently access Hong Kong-listed stocks via the Stock Connect Southbound channel. The stock connect is a program which links the exchanges of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and allows investors to trade selected securities on the participating platforms through their home exchange.

However Alibaba, JD.com and Netease are not included in the Southbound initiative becausethey all have secondary listings. Their primary listings are in the U.S.

Morgan Stanley pointed out that mainland investors would now be able to invest in funds that track the new tech index via a scheme between Hong Kong and the mainland that would allow them to do so.

CNBC's Saheli Roy Choudhury contributed to this report.

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How the new Nasdaq-like tech board in Hong Kong will benefit investors and tech giants - CNBC

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google testified remotely on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, defending their business practices as lawmakers questioned how they wield their power over American consumers.

The CEOs Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg fielded questions from lawmakers during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, which comes after a yearlong bipartisan investigation into unfair business practices by the tech giants.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, argues that their power over the marketplace is killing small businesses across the country.

Simply put: They have too much power, Cicilline said. Any single action by one of these companies can affect hundreds of millions of us.

Why does Google steal content from honest businesses? he asked while questioning Pichai.

We support 1.4 million small businesses, Pichai answered. We see many businesses thrive.

But lawmakers argue theres little room left for competition. The CEOs pushed back, however, arguing that theres still plenty of room for competition and opportunity on their platforms.

We nurture entrepreneurs and startups, Bezos said.

If Apple is a gatekeeper, what we have done is open the gate wider, Cook said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, questioned Zuckerberg on his companys efforts to crack down on fake accounts spreading misinformation.

Zuckerberg said Facebook invests billions of dollars a year in doing so.

Republican lawmakers also raised concerns over the platforms censorship of conservative voices.

Big techs out to get conservatives thats not a suspicion, thats not a hunch thats a fact, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said.

Zuckerberg argued that his companys goal is to offer a platform for all ideas.

So far, lawmakers havent agreed on the right way to take a more active role in policing the top tech companies.

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Lawmakers grill tech giants over their influence on consumers - WSYR

Some of the richest men in history representing the most valuable companies ever created will be grilled by Congress on Wednesday , as US authorities get increasingly serious about whether tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet have become too powerful.

The extraordinary hearing will see Amazons Jeff Bezos, Apples Tim Cook, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Google owner Alphabets Sundar Pichai called to account for the market dominance of their companies dominance that many say was achieved through anti-competitive business practices.

When the US House judiciary committee gavels into order its upcoming antitrust hearing the four star witnesses will represent more than $275bn in combined personal net worth and more than $4.8tn in market value.

Wednesdays hearing follows more than a year of investigation by the House antitrust subcommittee, whose chair, representative David Cicilline, began a broad inquiry into the market power of the tech giants after the Democrats retook control of the House in 2018.

The House investigation, along with separate moves by the Federal Trade Commission and justice department, represents the first time that federal regulators have taken a hard look at the tech industry since the Microsoft case in the 1990s. Over the intervening decades, a new generation of tech behemoths have come to dominate even more aspects of the economy with little if any scrutiny from regulators in the US.

The issues at question are complex and important; the questioning at congressional hearings often is not. When Pichai last testified before the House, one congressman asked him a question about his granddaughters iPhone, giving Pichai a chance to point out that, dominant as Google may be, it is not responsible for Apple products.

Heres a preview of some questions these titans of technology should face on Wednesday:

Amazon is not only the largest retailer in the world, but the largest cloud computing company as well. The company has grown even larger by running a marketplace where third-party companies can sell their products, for a fee. Many critics argue that Amazon should not be allowed to both run the marketplace and compete within it, comparing the situation to Amazon being both player and referee an unfair advantage over the other team. Why should it be allowed to maintain this advantage?

For years, third-party sellers that use Amazons marketplace have suspected that Amazon uses sales data to launch competing products under its own private labels. Last year, an Amazon executive testified under oath that Amazon does not do this; but in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that it was standard operating practice. Did Amazons executive lie?

Amazon is a provider of cloud computing services, and some of its customers are also its competitors. Does it ever use data from its cloud customers to inform decisions about competing products?

Amazon is also an investor. Has Amazon ever used its role as a startup investor to inform the development of competing products?

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in demand, driving Amazons business to near peak holiday season levels. Have Amazon executives discussed taking advantage of the pandemic to move into new markets or extend its dominance of existing markets?

There are 900m iPhone users in the world, and the only way they can download apps to their phones is through the App Store, which Apple controls. Apple gets to decide which apps can be in the store, and takes a substantial cut of their sales. How does that gatekeeping affect consumers?

Apple has repeatedly copied features from third-party apps, incorporating them into its operating system and rendering them obsolete. Why should that practice continue to be allowed?

Last month, the developers behind the email app Hey went public with a chilling complaint: that Apple was requiring it to use its in-app payment tools and fork over a 30% commission or the app would be booted from the App Store. Why does Apple deserve such a large cut of other companies revenues?

Earlier this month, many major US tech companies said they would stop cooperating with law enforcement requests for user data from Hong Kong authorities following the passage of national security laws imposed by Beijing. Apple did not. Does Apples reliance on China as a market and supplier compromise its commitment to human rights? Will Apple provide Beijing with the personal data of dissidents?

Google had $162bn in revenues last year, but that number hardly captures its dominance in products such as maps, email, web browsing and more. It all stems from the first product, search: Google handles more than 90% of all search queries worldwide. How is this a healthy competitive market?

Googles dominance in search gives it unprecedented power to shape the information that reaches billions of people around the world. And Google has at times struggled to ensure that that information is of high quality. How does the company plan to improve search results? And should a single company have that much power in defining what the world gets to read?

For a time, the number of people using Facebook was larger than any other category of humans on Earth other than followers of Christianity; then Facebook grew even bigger. In recent years, Facebook has acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, Onavo, Oculus, CrowdTangle and Giphy. It tried to acquire SnapChat, then copied its most popular feature. It recently launched copycat versions of rivals Houseparty and TikTok. Is there a rival social media app that has gained popularity in recent years that it did not either acquire or copy?

On 26 June, amid a growing ad boycott over Facebooks failure to curb hate speech, Zuckerberg reassured employees that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough. What made him so confident that advertisers would have no choice but to return to the platform, whether or not it fixed the hate speech problem?

Facebook has responded to criticism of its record on hate by pointing to the vast amount of content published every day claiming that it automatically deletes nearly 90% of hate speech before anyone flags it. If Facebook is too big to prevent its product from being used to incite genocide and mob violence, isnt it too big to exist?

Read this article:

Billionaire bosses to feel the heat over tech giants' massive wealth and power - The Guardian

Monday, a group calling themselves Americas Frontline Doctors staged a press conference outside the steps of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in order to speak out about their belief that the medication hydroxychloroquine was an effective tool to fight COVID-19.

The star of the show was Dr. Stella Immanuel, a physician at Rehoboth Medical Center in Houston, who spoke about her own experience treating patients. Said Immanuel, In the past few months, after taking in over 350 patients, we have not lost one. Not a diabetic, not somebody with high blood pressure, not somebody with asthma, not an old person.

The video of the press conference was loaded onto social media channels quickly, where it was shared widely by many people, including, of course, President Donald Trump.

Of course, the statements made by Immanuel were contrary to the official position of both the Food and Drug Administration as well as the National Institute of Health, both of which say that hydroxychloroquine is not beneficial in the treatment of COVID. Thus, reporters began looking into her background and left wing outlets had a field day ridiculing her as someone who believes in Alien DNA and Demon Sperm.

Thats when Facebook, Twitter and Youtube jumped into our story by removing the video from their platforms.

The justification for the removal of the video was pretty simple. The tech giants all claimed that the video spread dangerous misinformation, and contradicted the scientific consensus in the medical community.

By my estimation, they are almost certainly right that Immanuel and friends were peddling misinformation, but even if the claims in the video were utter nonsense, that should have been no justification for social media companies taking it down.

The concept of free speech is about so much more than just the Constitutional protection afforded to citizens against government restrictions on speech. It is in fact a bedrock American principle that rightly holds that the free expression of ideas, even if you are wrong, and even if no one agrees with you, is vital to the healthy functioning of our republic.

Yes, even if you are wrong. Because in a free society, progress is always made by those who reject the majority opinion. Scientific advancement is made by those that break the established order, and carve a new path.

That means that a lot of liars, hucksters and morons will have to be heard. We have to tolerate that to ensure that we are able to hear the geniuses and the revolutionaries that are telling us things we arent ready to hear, but one day will be.

Ignaz Semmelweis was an obstetrician, and was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures in medicine. Observing that the mortality rate for women in his ward in Vienna went radically down if he simply washed his hands prior to treating patients, he ultimately published a book of his findings.

Unfortunately, his observations conflicted with established scientific and medical opinions among his contemporaries, and suggested doctors were causing deaths. Thus many in the medical community rejected his advice, condemning untold numbers of women to death.

Of course Semmelweis isnt alone. Aristarchus and then later Copernicus had their theories of heliocentrism widely opposed and dismissed in their time. Gregor Mendel, who conducted pioneering work on genetic inheritance was not taken seriously until more than three decades after his observations were published. The list goes on.

The point of this isnt to suggest that Immanuel is Copernicus. Quite the opposite, as I am rather certain she is no sage of truth.

But that doesnt matter. The point is that when adherence to consensus opinion becomes the thing that allows you to be heard, while contradicting it gets you suppressed and silenced, we are living in a terrifying period in American history.

The answer to troubling speech is not to shut it down. Rather it is more speech. Respond. Reflect. Debate. Engage. But dont erase, and suppress.

Besides, trying to silence unpopular or heterodox opinions just makes that troubling speech far more popular.

Today, trust in authority figures and experts has eroded. Theyve misled us too often, and it seems like their own personal agendas always twist and warp everything.

So when agents of the status quo take action to suppress contrary opinion, even if they are ultimately right, it inspires heightened interest in the thing being hidden. Any teenager who has ever been told that they cant watch a certain movie or listen to an album is well acquainted with this phenomenon.

Tech giants should not be making themselves the arbiters of what is true, and what isnt.

Matthew Gagnon, of Yarmouth, is the Chief Executive Officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. Prior to Maine Heritage, he served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C. Originally from Hampden, he has been involved with Maine politics for more than a decade.

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Tech giants should not be arbiters of truth - Bangor Daily News

Google has announced that its staff will work from home until at least July 2021.

The change will affect nearly all of Googles 200,000 employees, including contractors and full-time workers, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.

In a blog post in May, Google announced it would begin reopening its offices from early July this year. This was only to allow those staff who wanted or needed to come back, and was done on a limited, rotating basis, the blog said.

Google has stressed to its staff that coming back to the office would be voluntary through the end of the year, and we encourage you to continue to work from home if you can.

To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we are extending our global voluntary work from home option through June 30 2021, for roles that don't need to be in the office. I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, wrote in an email to employees

Excerpt from:

How the Tech Giants are Adjusting to Working From Home - Tech.co

Some of the richest men in history representing the most valuable companies ever created will be grilled by Congress on Wednesday , as US authorities get increasingly serious about whether tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet have become too powerful.

The extraordinary hearing will see Amazons Jeff Bezos, Apples Tim Cook, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Google owner Alphabets Sundar Pichai called to account for the market dominance of their companies - dominance that many say was achieved through anti-competitive business practices.

When the US House judiciary committee gavels into order its upcoming antitrust hearing the four star witnesses will represent more than $275 billion (233.8 billion) in combined personal net worth - and more than $4.8trillion in market value.

Wednesdays hearing follows more than a year of investigation by the House antitrust subcommittee, whose chair, representative David Cicilline, began a broad inquiry into the market power of the tech giants after the Democrats retook control of the House in 2018.

The House investigation, along with separate moves by the Federal Trade Commission and justice department, represents the first time that federal regulators have taken a hard look at the tech industry since the Microsoft case in the 1990s. Over the intervening decades, a new generation of tech behemoths have come to dominate even more aspects of the economy with little if any scrutiny from regulators in the US.

The issues at question are complex and important; the questioning at congressional hearings often is not. When Mr Pichai last testified before the House, one congressman asked him a question about his granddaughters iPhone, giving Mr Pichai a chance to point out that, dominant as Google may be, it is not responsible for Apple products.

Preview

Heres a preview of some questions these titans of technology should face on Wednesday:

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Amazon is not only the largest retailer in the world, but the largest cloud computing company as well. The company has grown even larger by running a marketplace where third-party companies can sell their products, for a fee. Many critics argue that Amazon should not be allowed to both run the marketplace and compete within it, comparing the situation to Amazon being both player and referee - an unfair advantage over the other team. Why should it be allowed to maintain this advantage?

For years, third-party sellers that use Amazons marketplace have suspected that Amazon uses sales data to launch competing products under its own private labels. Last year, an Amazon executive testified under oath that Amazon does not do this; but in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that it was standard operating practice. Did Amazons executive lie?

Amazon is a provider of cloud computing services, and some of its customers are also its competitors. Does it ever use data from its cloud customers to inform decisions about competing products?

Amazon is also an investor. Has Amazon ever used its role as a startup investor to inform the development of competing products?

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in demand, driving Amazons business to near peak holiday season levels. Have Amazon executives discussed taking advantage of the pandemic to move into new markets or extend its dominance of existing markets?

Tim Cook, Apple

There are 900million iPhone users in the world, and the only way they can download apps to their phones is through the App Store, which Apple controls. Apple gets to decide which apps can be in the store, and takes a substantial cut of their sales. How does that gatekeeping affect consumers?

Apple has repeatedly copied features from third-party apps, incorporating them into its operating system and rendering them obsolete. Why should that practice continue to be allowed?

Last month, the developers behind the email app Hey went public with a chilling complaint: that Apple was requiring it to use its in-app payment tools - and fork over a 30 per cent commission - or the app would be booted from the App Store. Why does Apple deserve such a large cut of other companies revenues?

Earlier this month, many major US tech companies said they would stop cooperating with law enforcement requests for user data from Hong Kong authorities following the passage of national security laws imposed by Beijing. Apple did not. Does Apples reliance on China as a market and supplier compromise its commitment to human rights? Will Apple provide Beijing with the personal data of dissidents?

Sundar Pichai, Google

Google had $162 billion in revenues last year, but that number hardly captures its dominance in products such as maps, email, web browsing and more. It all stems from the first product, search: Google handles more than 90 per cent of all search queries worldwide. How is this a healthy competitive market?

Googles dominance in search gives it unprecedented power to shape the information that reaches billions of people around the world. And Google has at times struggled to ensure that that information is of high quality. How does the company plan to improve search results? And should a single company have that much power in defining what the world gets to read?

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

For a time, the number of people using Facebook was larger than any other category of humans on Earth other than followers of Christianity; then Facebook grew even bigger. In recent years, Facebook has acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, Onavo, Oculus, CrowdTangle and Giphy. It tried to acquire SnapChat, then copied its most popular feature. It recently launched copycat versions of rivals Houseparty and TikTok. Is there a rival social media app that has gained popularity in recent years that it did not either acquire or copy?

On June 26th, amid a growing ad boycott over Facebooks failure to curb hate speech, Mr Zuckerberg reassured employees that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough. What made him so confident that advertisers would have no choice but to return to the platform, whether or not it fixed the hate speech problem?

Facebook has responded to criticism of its record on hate by pointing to the vast amount of content published every day claiming that it automatically deletes nearly 90 per cent of hate speech before anyone flags it. If Facebook is too big to prevent its product from being used to incite genocide and mob violence, isnt it too big to exist?

- Guardian News and Media

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Billionaire bosses to feel heat over tech giants wealth and power - The Irish Times

Under the draft code Google and Facebook will have three months to negotiate revenue-sharing deals with media companies before independent arbitrators are called in to impose a compulsory arrangement. The platforms will potentially face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for breaches.

Mr Sims said in March that any revenue that came to the ABC as a result of the new code "would be applied to the delivery of ABC Charter objectives" and that there was a legitimate interst in ensuring that the value was put back into the broadcaster's journalism.

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In a submission to the ACCC about what the code should look like, SBS advocated for a collective bargaining model that would also allow for news media businesses to agree to individual commercial arrangements.

ABC's submission, which was made public on Friday, said that if the digital platforms were gaining value from using ABC news content, the public broadcaster had a "legitimate" interest in ensuring that revenue was reinvested into its journalism.

The ABC is a proven public policy tool for delivering quality news and information. A further argument is that exclusion of the ABC from this aspect of the Code could have the unintended consequence of compromising the effectiveness of the regime, by distorting the playing field in the market for public-interest journalism," its submission said.

But commercial media companies including Nine Entertainment Co (owner of this masthead) argued that the two public broadcasters shouldn't be compensated because they don't rely on advertising to fund journalism and their operating models haven't been undermined by the platforms' dominance. News Corps submission to the inquiry, which is available publicly, lobbied for the ABC to be included.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said on Friday that it was important for Australia's democracy to have a sustainable news media ecosystem and the code was focused on businesses whose viability and news production was threatened by advertising revenue losses.

"That is a policy problem that does not arise for Australia's public broadcasters, which have secure government funding, and accordingly the ABC and SBS are not the policy focus when it comes to remuneration aspects of the proposed mandatory code," he said.

An SBS spokesperson said the broadcaster was "disappointed" to have been excluded from the remuneration provisions.

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"Nearly a third of our funding comes from commercial sources, so it is appropriate that Google and Facebook contribute to investment in our valued news content, which benefits all Australians," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to engage constructively in this process prior to the finalisation of the code." ABC declined to comment.

The ACCC's approach is almost identical to one method proposed by News Corp. Mr Sims said that when the regulator decided to pursue an arbitration model, News Corp proposed "final offer arbitration". The idea was embraced by the ACCC as a proven way of bringing the parties together.

"In the end we thought that was the right way forward," he said. "But [News Corp] suggested it before we did."

Nine and other media organisations had proposed an alternative model whereby the government would calculated, collect and allocate a pool of revenue. Mr Sims said that the Nine proposal was problematic because the government would have too much involvement."You really don't want government determining these things. You want this to be a result of commercial negotiation," he said.

The code was largely welcomed by the industry when it was released, but Google managing director Mel Silva expressed disappointment. Ms Silva said that the code threatened the ability of Google to deliver services effectively to Australian consumers. In other markets where Google has been forced to pay publishers, it has withdrawn some services.

News publishers and the digital platforms are expected to provide responses to the draft legislation by August 28.

Zoe Samios is a media and telecommunications reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Fergus Hunter is an education and communications reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Read more:

ABC, SBS exclusion from tech giants' payments a 'government' decision - Sydney Morning Herald