Monthly Archives: August 2021

As Indian democracy crumbles day upon day under the grasp of Narendra Modi, social media platforms have functioned in lieu of a free press. As Reporters Without Borders recently noted, journalists in India risk dismissal if they criticize the government. Since Modi took control in 2014, Indias ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has fallen every year, plateauing at 142 (of 180 countries and regions) between 2020 and 2021.

But Modi is effectively squashing social media as a remaining lifeline, via IT regulations implemented in February that activists and concerned citizens alike have called unconstitutional and undemocratic. The new rules give the Indian government more power in managing their perception, with tech companies and video content providers forced to comply. They require social media platforms to be responsive about complaints about posts on their network, divulging to the government whom the originator of flagged content isessentially ending end-to-end encryption.

Compounding this suppression is the fact that US-based tech companies had already been increasingly bowing to Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. Weeks before the rules were implemented, Twitter suspended hundreds of accounts of journalists, media outlets, and politicians from opposition parties, among others, during the countrys farmers protests against new agricultural laws, in addition to blocking hundreds of pro-farmer tweets the government deemed controversial. Similarly, a 21-year-old climate activist supporting the protests was arrested for having edited a Google Doc with resources for protesters and people supporting the protests. The police found out shed edited the document when Google shared her data.

Tech giants based in America have long thrived on exploiting the so-called global south. We have always been a good source of data and companies have appeased authoritarian regimes in exchange for this new, much-sought-after capital.

This is nothing short of digital colonialism: Where colonial powers once sought natural resources, today they seek data.

If the platform giants dont follow the Indian governments new regulations, they may lose a market of 1.3 billion people. And thats something theyre clearly not willing to risk, regardless of the price Indian citizens themselves pay.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Big Tech started making a power grab in the global south that wasnt just about deepening an already existent reliance on technology. It was about expanding territories by seizing opportunities with local partners.

In April 2020, Facebook picked up a 9.99 percent stake ($5.7 billion) in Reliance Industries Jio Platforms, Indias largest mobile network provider. In November, WhatsApp finally launched payments in India. And in June of this year, Google announced an Android smartphone in collaboration with Jio. In just the first eight months of the pandemic, Reliance owner Mukhesh Ambanis wealth ballooned by $22 billion.

More than the money, however, as these new IT regulations are enforced, gaps between how Big Tech presents itself in the West versus how it presents itself in India have widened. In the former instance, the likes of Jack Dorsey have taken a strong stance against political figures like Donald Trump, following the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Dorsey defended banning Trump on account of potential offline harm.

In response, Indian BJP leaders tweeted out in support of Trump, stating that if they can do this to POTUS, they can do this to anyone and big tech firms are now the new oligarchs. Yet they mustve known these firms would cede to the true new oligarchs, themselves.

In India, a country with increasingly (and historically) tense Hindu-Muslim relations, a politicians tweet linking Islam with terrorism was removed only at the behest of his own government. Similarly, the BJPs social media head tweeted a video suggesting that a protest against a controversial citizenship law in India was sponsored by the opposition partysomething that was found to be false. That tweet is still on the platform without any tags marking it as false.

Why these inconsistencies? The question cannot be about whether the governments in countries like India are solely responsible for the state of their democracies. That view, especially if limited to the global south, is naive and culturally imperialist. If the Cambridge Analytica scandal has taught the world anything, its that data can make or break democratic elections anywhere.

Read the original:

Big Tech Is Bending to the Indian Governments Will - WIRED

It would be tragic for the massive damage awards we are seeing in patent litigation over the last year to lead to a complete capitulation of American innovation by Congress.

In recent days, both Google and Apple have lost big patent cases. On August 13, Apple lost a $300 million jury verdict to PanOptis. Also on August 13, Google was found to infringe five Sonos patents at the International Trade Commission (ITC) in an initial determination by Judge Charles E. Bullock, which, if upheld by the full Commission, would block the importation of Google hardware, including Chromecast and Pixels.

Two immediate thoughts come to mind.

First, this likely means that Apple, Google and their big tech allies will use these instances, as well as other recent high-profile patent losses, as evidence of the need for yet more innovation-crippling patent reform. That would be a huge mistake for America at a time when we find ourselves locked in a race for technological supremacy with the Chinese.

Ill tell you who doesnt think we have bad patents in the United States, said Chris Israel, current Executive Director of The Alliance of U.S. Startups for Inventors and Jobs, during a recent IPWatchdog Webinar, it is the Chinese. They in fact think we have very good patents and trade secrets and intellectual property, and they are in a 24/7 [race] to take that from us. Israel, no stranger to international intellectual property enforcement, previously served in the Bush White House as the first U.S. International Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a position commonly referred to as the IP Czar.

The second thought its about time!

The entire premise for the creation of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with passage of the America Invents Act (AIA) in 2011 was that there were bad patents that needed to be invalidated in a quicker, cheaper, streamlined process. Everyone familiar with the procedures as they have been implemented over the last decade understand the PTAB has not lived up to the quicker, cheaper, more streamlined goal, instead adding a layer of review, expense and multiple years to virtually every dispute. What the PTAB has has been very efficient at is invalidating patent claims, often killing entire patents and even entire patent families.

With a tribunal and appellate structure biased toward finding bad patents and rooting them out, it is hardly surprising that the PTAB panels found what they were looking for and complied. As the saying goes, when you are a hammer, the world appears to be a nail, and patent owners unfortunate enough to have their patent claims instituted for challenge by the PTAB have been hammered repeatedly by the Board. The Federal Circuit has given cursory review, at best, to any decision invalidating claims, while saving its rigorous scrutiny for those appeals where the patent owner managed to have claims escape the grasps of inter partes review (IPR).

Once upon a time, it was quite difficult to defeat a patent. Over the last 15 years, it has become increasingly easy to defeat patents for a multitude of reasons, as the tide has turned away from innovators.Factor in the Supreme Courts decision to change more than three decades of what constitutes an obvious invention inKSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007); the Supreme Courts decision to change more than three decades of what constitutes a patent eligible invention (See Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010), Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs., 132 S.Ct. 1289 (2012), Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, 133 S.Ct. 2017 (2013), Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014)); and the creation of the PTAB in 2011,and patents are harder to obtain and much easier to challenge. The answer was clear file better patent applications.

The message was received loud and clear by patent practitioners, so it is hardly surprising that 15 years into this misguided patent experiment, the patents that the big tech companies are facing are stronger, becoming harder to invalidate and read directly on the most valuable products and services they provide. It was always a matter of time before those patents left standing would be the ones that we were told for so long the patent system should demand good patents, well written, with narrowly tailored claims. So, what will be the response of Apple, Google and the other big tech companies? Where will we go from here?

Optis makes no products, said Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock in an e-mail to Reuters. Of course, Apple doesnt make anything either. Instead, Apple innovates and then has manufacturing facilities in China and elsewhere around the world make products that are shipped back into the United States. This rhetoric has worked before, even though these big companies outsource their supply chain without regard to American workers and have built their lasting empires on the technologies they have managed to take from others without compensation.

It would be tragic for the massive damages awards we are seeing in patent litigation over the last year to lead to a complete capitulation of American innovation by Congress as they double and triple down on patent reform aimed at excusing a handful of big infringers from taking without paying.

Gene Quinn is a Patent Attorney and Editor and President & CEO ofIPWatchdog, Inc.. Gene founded IPWatchdog.com in 1999. Gene is also a principal lecturer in the PLI Patent Bar Review Course and Of Counsel to the law firm of Berenato & White, LLC. Genes specialty is in the area of strategic patent consulting, patent application drafting and patent prosecution. He consults with attorneys facing peculiar procedural issues at the Patent Office, advises investors and executives on patent law changes and pending litigation matters, and works with start-up businesses throughout the United States and around the world, primarily dealing with software and computer related innovations. Gene is admitted to practice law in New Hampshire, is a Registered Patent Attorney and is also admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. CLICK HERE to send Gene a message.

Go here to see the original:

Note to Congress: Resist Big Tech Pleas to Weaken Strong Patents in Light of Recent Losses - IPWatchdog.com

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Antitrust and intellectual property law expert Thomas Vinje believes enforcement has been largely ineffective when it comes to rebalancing the power many of the larger tech companies purportedly have, as many consider fines to simply be the cost of doing business.

Addressing a Global Competition Review webinar on Thursday, Vinje said that in digital markets, once dominance is established, it tends to remain in place. He said that was true of IBM and Microsoft in the past and it is now true of Google, Apple, and Facebook.

He rejected the notion put forward by some that the market will just level itself out once precedents are set by some breakthrough companies disrupting the ecosystem.

"Digital markets do not move fast once dominance is established," he said. "It's often said -- I've heard many say -- we don't need to act, we don't need to enforce antitrust laws because these markets move so fast that any problems will be solved by the market. Frankly, that is just not what has happened it's not how these things work."

He would argue such markets do not generally correct themselves once dominant positions are established, as they are often protected by very intense network and scale effects. It's one of the reasons why antitrust enforcement has not acted as the silver bullet, he said.

"By the time enforcement is finished, the dominant company has typically achieved the aims, its aims, and reversing the harm is really rarely possible," he said. "So I'd suggest the conquering moves fast but the resulting system is long lasting and innovation is lost by virtue of that."

The second reason Vinje suggests as to why antitrust enforcement has been largely ineffective in this realm is that remedies are often not effectively formulated.

"Frankly, in Europe at least, appropriate enforcement action is not undertaken," he said, pointing to exceptions such as Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser choice battle with EU regulators.

"There was an effective browser choice screen, heavily negotiated, and it was largely effective, unlike the choice screen that Google has implemented in reaction to the commission's Android decision."

See also: Android antitrust: Google hit with giant 4.34 billion fine by Europe

According to Vinje, the fines imposed by regulators are being regarded by dominant companies as not being "anything other than the cost of doing business".

"Google is a good example, they've been fined over 8 billion in the span of a few years and I, at least, see no signs of Google remedying its conduct," he added. "Antitrust enforcement needs to be complemented by regulation."

Addressing the actions of the companies that have been caught up in allegations of dominance, Vanje said these companies probably do consider their actions to be of good faith, but employees have started to see the bigger picture.

"I think it's human nature to believe in what one is doing, and to believe in oneself, and it's human nature if you're working for a company to believe in that company they believe in what they're doing, they believe they're only acting correctly, and they believe that the antitrust enforcement is inappropriate, they genuinely believe it," Vanje explained.

"What can happen, and I think the reputational thing is bound to happen, after facing antitrust enforcement for a sufficient number of years and having the light shined on it, and having a lot of publicity about it, and I understand this happened inside Microsoft the Kool-Aid dissipated and they came to actually see, 'Wait a minute, what we're doing is not entirely kosher, the issues that are being raised actually have some legitimacy'."

He said this has led to a significant cultural shift within the company.

Also appearing at the webinar was chair of Australia's competition watchdog Rod Sims, who is leading the charge for the country's digital platforms attack.

He considers the best way forward for reining in tech giant dominance to be international alignment.

"[Legislation has] got to be really well researched and put together in an extremely considered way," the ACCC chair said. "Having a thousand flowers blooming is great, we get creativity, we get thought about how else you go about it but we need alignment of direction. We don't really want some people going this way and others going that way.

"I think it's important we get [laws] right and bring some level of international alignment."

Sims cited the five US antitrust Bills targeting major digital platforms and the new Bill on app marketplaces, the European Commission's draft Digital Markets Act, Germany's new competition legislation for digital firms, the UK's proposal to apply new rules to particular digital firms with "strategic market status", as well as regulatory developments in Japan, and draft legislation in South Korea targeting app marketplaces.

"In terms of enforcement, there are now so many cases against the dominant platforms it is difficult to keep track of them all," he added. "Here in Australia the ACCC has a number of investigations and active litigation on foot. We currently have two cases in court, one against Google and the other against Facebook, which both relate to how the companies use users' data."

Sims also pointed to proceedings Epic Games has brought against both Apple and Google.

"The key point, I think, from all of the above, is that while these enforcement actions and market studies are necessary to tackle the problems arising from dominant digital platforms, they are not enough on their own," Sims said.

See the original post:

Expert suggests current antitrust approach to reining in big tech is simply not working - ZDNet

Facing pressure from Congress and a groundswell of complaints by parents, many of the biggest technology companies are taking belated action to improve privacy protections for their teenage users. Though the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) provides some of the most comprehensive federal privacy rules for internet companies targeting children, no similar legislation protects users 13 and older. Big Techs planned actions appear aimed at addressing that gap (and perhaps at preempting a proposed expansion of COPPA that would extend its applicability to users as old as 17), though they vary in approach.

In late July, Facebook announced that it would end some targeted advertising on its Instagram platform by restricting marketers access to the interests and browsing activity of users under 18. The company will also default users under 16 into private accounts - Bloomberg

Google is taking a similar tack, using privacy defaults for YouTube users ages 13-17 as a means of protecting that age group (though still allowing them to change to public settings). The company will also start removing overly commercial content from YouTube Kid. In the search realm, Google will expand its SafeSearch system to filter explicit results for users under 18 and will no longer collect location history for that age group. Like Facebook, Google is also cutting back on ads that target users under 18 - Bloomberg and TechCrunch

Popular short-video app TikTok will also change certain setting defaults to private for its teenage users on a sliding scale that becomes more permissive as users get older, but it will also take steps to limit push notifications based on times of day for certain. Users ages 13-15 wont get pushes after 9pm, while users 16-17 will be cut off at 10pm - TechCrunch

While these strategies largely rely on the power of inertia in default settings, Apples recent announcement that it will introduce new iPhone software designed to identify and report collections of sexually exploitative images of children will instead use the companys device and iCloud access to protect children. The move appears designed at countering law enforcements criticism that Apple doesnt do enough to help identify criminals who hide their illegal activity behind encryption. While child protection experts are calling the news a game changer, Apple is already taking pains to assure digital-rights groups that its new software isnt designed for mass surveillance or the scanning of content on its devices - WSJ

Go here to read the rest:

The Robins Kaplan Privacy Pulse - Big Tech Aims to Increase Privacy Protections for Teens and Children - JD Supra

FUNAFUTI, Tuvalu (Project Syndicate)Last year, Microsoft announced that it will be carbon-negative by 2030. If we dont curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, the firmsaidon its official blog, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic. Microsoft deserves credit for publicly discussing the climate crisis, being transparent about its own greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, and at least having some sort of plan to reduce them.

But the elephant in the room is that Microsoft is one of thetop 10corporate buyers of commercial flights in the United States. Before the pandemic, in the financial year 2019, the firms business travel alone accounted for392,557 metric tonsof GHG emissions.

On the road to net-zero emissions, any step that advances that goal while saving a company millions of dollars a year should be considered low-hanging fruit.

Thats far more than my entire Pacific island countryemitsin a year. Tuvalu is well known for its vulnerability to the effects of climate change. We contribute almost nothing to global GHG emissions, but their consequences affect us on a monthly or even daily basis.

Microsofts high level of corporate air travel is not a good look for a company that talks big on climate, sustainability, and racial justice, especially one that literally has its own videoconferencing platform. Surely an advanced tech firm that claims to be reimagining virtual collaboration for the future of work should practice what it preaches, crank up Microsoft Teams, and fly less.

But Microsoft is hardly an outlier among tech firms. Five of the 10 largest buyers of corporate air travel in the U.S. aretechnology companies: Amazon AMZN, +0.38%, IBM IBM, +0.79%, Alphabet GOOG, +1.11%, Apple AAPL, +1.02%, and Microsoft MSFT, +2.56%. These digital giants, along with the big consulting firms, are also among the top buyers of flights globally.

Although one might expect these big, growing companies large number of employees to fly to many meetings, there are plenty of even bigger employers that fly less. Companies that touttechnological innovationas the key to tackling climate change should be savvy enough to use video calls, rather than shuttle employees around the planet on airlines that before the pandemic burned7 million to 8 million barrels of oil per daymore thanIndia.

In May last year, apaperin the journalNature Climate Changefound that the pause to aviation accounted for 10% of the decrease in global emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns. Given that only4%of the global population took an international flight in 2018, and that half of all aviation emissions come from just1% of the global population, this outsize impact shows not only how often the 1% fly, but also that flying is a function of privilege. And according to the International Air Transport Association, many, if not the majority, of frequent fliers arebusinesspeople.

Microsoft, which is so committed to business travel that it has its ownpriority check-in laneat Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, sits near the top of a highly unequal and skewed global carbon hierarchy. The wealthiest (and often the whitest) pollute the most, while those who emit the leastpredominantly people of color, the socially vulnerable, and inhabitants of the Global South, including the Pacificbear the costs.

Comparatively wealthy fliers must recognize their responsibility to those less fortunate, who deserve to live without fear of global warmings effects. Climate-vulnerable people want to maintain their homes and identities as citizens of their country, rather than being forced to migrate elsewhere.

If concern for equality and climate justice wont cure Big Techs corporate flight addiction, maybe money will. The profits of Amazon and other large technology firms soared during last years lockdowns, even when commercial flights were reduced to zero for many months.

Chief financial officers and accountants are therefore now wondering whether the expense of business flights makes any sense. Employees can hold more meetings in a day via videoconference, and business fliers say the pause in air travel either hadno impacton their productivity, or actually improved it.

Bill Gateshas predicted that business travel willdecline by halfafter the pandemic. If thats the baseline, then what would a company truly committed to urgent climate action do?

With that question top of mind, a coalition of NGOs, activists, and Microsoft customers recently launchedJustUseTeams.com, calling on Microsoft to take the lead and announce that it will permanently lock inallof its 2020 reduction in business flights. Once Microsoft shows some leadership on this issue, the campaign willexpand to other tech firms. On the road to net-zero emissions, any step that advances that goal whilesavinga company millions of dollars a year should be considered low-hanging fruit.

Tech firms will claim that they have been trying to pluck it, but their actions are inadequate to the climate crisis we face. Microsoft, for example, is part of an initiative to promotesustainable fuels. But the airline industry hasconsistently failedto meet its own targets for scaling up such fuels, which stillaccount for less than 0.1%of the sectors use.

Meanwhile, many Big Tech firms buy carbon credits, and maintain that this somehow erases or offsets their own flight emissions. But this claim is losing whatever scientific credibility it once may have had. A recent investigation revealed that the most popular carbon-offset scheme used by airlines is based on aflawed system, in which so-called phantom credits are often sold on the promise to protect forest areas that were never at risk of being cut down.

In reality, neither airlines nor their biggest corporate customers are in a position to claim that their flights are carbon neutral.

Microsoft and other big technology companies therefore must commit to remain permanently at their 2020 flight levels. This is possible, necessary, and fair. It is also good business.

Richard Gokrun, a former meteorologist, is executive director of Tuvalu Climate Action Network (TuCAN).

This commentary was published with permission of Project SyndicateBig Tech Flies Too Much

If we take these five steps now, we can ward off a climate disaster

Amazon adds more renewable power, ranking it as largest wind and solar buyer in the world

Apple, Google and Coca-Cola among 400-plus companies backing Biden in 50% emissions cut as soon as 2030

Follow this link:

Big Tech flies too much. It's time for these companies to practice what they preach to help stop climate change - MarketWatch

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is sharing his opinions on the crypto plans of tech moguls Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.

Buterin, who is working to improve the scalability of Ethereum, currently the most widely used blockchain for decentralized finance, says he has reservations about how the payments giant Square, led by CEO Jack Dorsey, plansto build decentralized financial services using the Bitcoin network.

In an interview on Bloomberg Television, Buterin says that the Bitcoin blockchain, unlike Ethereum, does not have the necessary functionality to support Squares plan, as it was primarily designed to power the worlds largest cryptocurrency, which is distinctly different from powering decentralized finance.

Im skeptical about decentralized finance on top of a Bitcoin type of project On Ethereum, theres native functionality that allows you to essentially directly put either [ETH] or Ethereum-based assets into these smart contracts, into these lockboxes, where theres then arbitrary conditions that can then govern how those assets get released. Bitcoin does not have that functionality to the same extent.

Buterin believes Bitcoins limitations would require Dorsey to build an entirely new platform.

Jack is basically going to have to essentially create his own system that enforces those rules, and then on the Bitcoin layer, the bitcoins will just have to be owned by a multi-sig wallet controlled by either Jack or the participants in the system.

It looks similar but it will end up being something with a much weaker trust model. This is the whole reason why Ethereum started as a an independent system in the first place. Theres technical limits to your ability to graft new functionality onto a system thats not powerful enough to support that new functionality.

Dorseys team, which is going to be completely open source with an open roadmap and open development, apparently plans to weigh in on Buterins feedback. He has spun up a new Twitter handle dubbed TBD to open the discussion.

Meanwhile, Facebook has announced plans to launch a blockchain-based payment platform called Novi Wallet. In a new blog post called Good stablecoins, a protocol for money, and digital wallets: the formula to fix our broken payment system, the companys blockchain lead, David Marcus, outlines how the social media giant intends to reshape payments.

The COVID-19 pandemic supercharged the expansion of the digital economy around the world. It sparked changes in how people buy, where they buy, and how they discover and interact with businesses. It prompted greater reliance by many families on money sent from overseas as a critical economic lifeline. And this trend is set to continue the percentage of global digital transactions is expected to rise from 57% before COVID-19 to 67% by 2025.

Facebook is also planning to expand its influence by tapping into an emerging world. CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants his company to become a dominant player in the metaverse. The metaverse is a concept of a massive virtual world in which individuals, acting as avatars, can interact with one another and with digital objects.

Zuckerberg tells The Verge,

I think a big part of our next chapter is going to hopefully be contributing to building that, in partnership with a lot of other companies and creators and developers. But you can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content you are in it. And you feel present with other people as if you were in other places, having different experiences that you couldnt necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage, like dancing, for example, or different types of fitness.

Big tech players aside, the metaverse could also be powered by crypto and blockchain technology in the hands of decentralized platforms.

Buterin questions Facebooks move. He says that Zuckerberg is attempting to become a part of the next phase of the internet before Facebook becomes an old world company that loses its relevance. He also notes that while the tech giant may be attempting to build its own platform, the company faces a huge amount of mistrust.

As for Buterins vision of the Ethereum network in the next five to ten years, he hopes the popular blockchain will be running the metaverse.

Don't Miss a Beat Subscribe to get crypto email alerts delivered directly to your inbox Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and TelegramSurf The Daily Hodl Mix

Check Latest News HeadlinesDisclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Tithi Luadthong

Read the original post:

Who Will Run The Metaverse? Ethereum Creator Weighs in on Big Tech - The Daily Hodl