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Category Archives: Big Tech

Report Sounds Alarm Over Growing Role of Big Tech in US Military-Industrial Complex – Common Dreams

Posted: April 18, 2024 at 3:39 pm

Report Sounds Alarm Over Growing Role of Big Tech in US Military-Industrial Complex  Common Dreams

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Report Sounds Alarm Over Growing Role of Big Tech in US Military-Industrial Complex - Common Dreams

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Big Tech’s ad transparency tools especially X’s are failing at their jobs, report finds – Mashable

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A newly released report alleges Big Tech's ad transparency tools are failing across the board with X scoring the worst at providing meaningful data that can help users, journalists, and advocates keep a watchful eye on scams and disinformation.

If "ad transparency" isn't a familiar term, that's probably because it's a somewhat counterintuitive concept. With TV ads, you generally know the sponsor it's announced front and center. Digital ads are more slippery. Even when the fact that something is an ad is disclosed, exactly who is advertising what, and why still may not be clear. If a platform fails to provide robust digital ad transparency information to those who request it, it's harder to track hoaxes and scrutinize sketchy or scammy ad practices.

The digital survey was conducted by Mozilla and CheckFirst, a software solutions company providing tools to counter and monitor disinformation. It analyzed a dozen ad transparency tools created by tech platforms to aid advertising monitors, including those on X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Alphabets Google Search, and Meta and Apple sites. Using guidelines from the European Unions 2023 Digital Services Act (DSA) and Mozilla's in-house ad library guidelines, the organizations scanned the platforms' ad repositories for things like public availability, the contents of advertisements, payer details, and user targeting details.

"Ad transparency tools are essential for platform accountability a first line of defense, like smoke detectors," said Mozilla EU advocacy lead Claire Pershan. "But our research shows most of the worlds largest platforms are not offering up functionally useful ad repositories. The current batch of tools exist, yes but in some cases, thats about all that can be said about them.

Not one of the analyzed advertising repositories tested well, and few if any were easy to find to begin with. Before researchers can even begin testing whether ad transparency measures are accurate, they must wade through incompatible, opaque services, the report explains.

X stood out as the worst scorer on data accessibility and search capabilities, only providing watchdogs with a single CSV file. "Xs transparency tools are an utter disappointment," explained Pershan. "Its repository offers no filtering and sorting capabilities; ads can only be accessed through a cumbersome CSV export file; the content of ads is not disclosed (only a URL to the ads), and there are gaps in targeting parameters and recipient data. And searching for historical content is nearly impossible. All this may be why the European Commission has included Xs ad repository in its formal proceedings against the platform under the DSA."

The report also found common, glaring gaps in ad transparency tools across the board, including:

Ads missing from repositories that were visible to users.

Inconsistent public access to ad information.

Poor search functions impeding ad oversight.

Another concerning fact: "Only a handful of the platforms analyzed have a repository for branded or influencer content, even though many allow for influencer content on their services," the researchers report.

These figures are especially worrisome in a contentious election year, one that is already stoking fear about intentional disinformation campaigns, the role of AI, and the influence of Big Tech leaders on candidate advertising and voter awareness.

Last year, X CEO Elon Musk announced the site was reversing its previous election policy banning political advertising from campaigns and political parties. Disinformation watch dogs went on alert immediately. Other platforms, like Meta and Google, have added new advertising policies ahead of the election to assuage generative AI threats.

Advertising across Big Tech platforms has become a hot-button topic in a sporadically regulated industry.On sites like TikTok and X, ads are crowding out user-generated content.

In June 2023, Google's advertising business came under fire from both the U.S. government and the European Union, accused of violating both unions' antitrust laws.In recent months, Google has amped up its advertising scrutiny, most recently announcing a ban on ads that feature fake endorsements, an apparent response to a Mashable investigation.

But there's been a positive shift along this bumpy road: In the five years since Mozilla and a panel of independent researchers released its advertising API guidelines in 2019, 11 of the worlds largest tech companies have introduced ad repositories. According to the report, both Google and Facebook have since updated their services with ad targeting criteria, engagement and historical data, and better filtering.

"Who pays for ads and how theyre targeted is crucial in helping watchdogs look out for the public interest whether that's fair elections, public health, or social justice," said co-founder and chief technology officer for CheckFirst Amaury Lesplingart. "In short, if you see an ad telling you that climate change is a hoax, you might be interested to know if that ads paid for by the fossil fuel industry."

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Big Tech's ad transparency tools especially X's are failing at their jobs, report finds - Mashable

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Big Tech Taps AI Agents to Drive Revenue Growth – PYMNTS.com

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Big tech companies are reportedlyin a raceto unveil software to fuel AI spending.

For example,Microsoftis at work trying toautomate taskssuch as invoicing or the ability to rewrite code for applications in a different language and then make sure it works as intended, the Information Reported Thursday (April 18), citing company employees.

This software is being powered byOpenAIstechnology and will improve on Microsofts existingCopilot, the report said.Sources said Microsoft could debut the new features at its Build developer conference next month.

As forGoogle, that companys DeepMind arm is developing AI agents to carry out tasks, conceivably doing things like taking over a users computer and working on multiple apps simultaneously, the report said.

While these high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) firms are developing new technologies, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) arestruggling to keep up, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week following the release of the 2024 AI Index report from Stanford University.

Speaking with PYMNTS, that studys editor-in-chiefNestorMaslejunderlinedthe report findings on the growing AI divide between large and small firms. While mammoth tech companies invest billions into AI research and development, smaller firms dont have the resources and talentto directly compete.

A small or even medium-sized business will not be able to train a frontier foundation model that can compete with the likes of GPT-4, Gemini or Claude, Maslej said.

However, there are some fairly competent open-source models, such as Llama 2 and Mistral, that are freely accessible. A lot can be done with these kinds of open-source models, and they are likely to continue improving over time. In a few years, there may be an open, relatively low-parameter model that works as well as GPT-4 does today.

Research last year byPYMNTS Intelligence found that generative AI technologies such as OpenAIs ChatGPT could substantiallyimprove productivity, yet they also risk disrupting employment patterns.

The Stanford report also found that while private investment in AI generally fell last year, funding for generative AI saw a dramatic leap, increasing nearly eightfold from 2022 to $25.2 billion, with companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging FaceandInflectionreporting significant increasesin their fundraising efforts.

Maslej said that while the costs of adopting AI are steep, theyare overshadowedby the expensesthat come withtraining the systems.

Adoption is less of a cost problem because the real cost lies in training the systems. Most companies do not need to worry about training their own models and can instead adopt existing models, which are available either freely through open source or through relatively cost-accessible APIs, he explained.

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Big Tech Taps AI Agents to Drive Revenue Growth - PYMNTS.com

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Big Tech is on a generative AI hiring spree – Fast Company

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Big Tech is on a generative AI hiring spree  Fast Company

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Big Tech is on a generative AI hiring spree - Fast Company

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Disruptive Innovation in the Era of Big Tech – HBR.org Daily

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Disruptive Innovation in the Era of Big Tech  HBR.org Daily

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National privacy standard eyed by Congress for data harvested by big tech companies Nebraska Examiner – Nebraska Examiner

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WASHINGTON U.S. House members tasked with addressing what happens to loads of user data collected by big tech companies see a long overdue opportunity for a national privacy standard, particularly for children and teens.

Lawmakers on a subpanel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce met Wednesday to hear from advocates and online safety experts on a series of data privacy bills that are drawing rare bipartisan and bicameral support.

The 10 bills discussed by six witnesses and members of the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce would regulate how data is collected and stored, allow users to opt out of algorithms, and ensure safeguards for minors on the internet.

The hearing came on the heels of widespread bipartisan support for a bill that would force the popular video platform TikTok to split from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The legislation passed the House in March in a 352-65 vote.

Today we find ourselves at a crossroads, said Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. We can either continue down the dangerous path were on, letting companies and bad actors continue to collect massive amounts of data unchecked, or we can give people the right to control their information online.

The Washington Republicans discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act was a focus of the Wednesday hearing.

The bipartisan, bicameral proposal, introduced alongside Senate Committee on Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, would shrink the amount of data companies can collect, regulate data brokers, allow users to access their own data and request deletion, and empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to enforce the policies.

Placing the burden on consumers to read notice and consent privacy agreements simply does not work, said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

By contrast, data minimization limits the amount of personal information entities collect, process, retain and transfer to only what is necessary to provide the products and services being requested by the consumer, Pallone said, praising provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act.

Rodgers said the foundational legislation would protect minors and establish a national standard to quash a modern form of digital tyranny where a handful of companies and bad actors are exploiting our personal information, monetizing it and using it to manipulate how we think and act.

One national standard would preempt the patchwork of state laws, so when consumers and businesses cross state lines, there are consistent rights, protections and obligations, GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, the subcommittees chair, said during his opening remarks.

Seventeen states have enacted their own privacy laws and regulations with another 18 states actively pursuing various pieces of legislation, creating a complex landscape of state-specific privacy laws, testified Katherine Kuehn, chief information security officer-in-residence for the National Technology Security Coalition, a cybersecurity advocacy organization.

Among the other proposals the panel discussed was an update to the 1998 Children and Teens Online Privacy Act, co-sponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg and Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat.

The bill aims to ban targeted advertising to children and teens, prohibit internet companies from collecting the data of 13-to-17-year-olds without consent, and require direct notice if data is being stored or transferred outside of the U.S.

Ava Smithing of Nashville, Tennessee, described for the committee her teen years spent on Instagram and the body image issues and eating disorder that ensued after repeated targeted content.

The companies abilities to track engagements, such as the duration of time I looked at a photo, revealed to them what would keep me engaged my own insecurity, she testified.

They stored my insecurity as data and linked it to all my other accounts across the internet. They used my data to infer what other types of content I might like, leading me down a pipeline from bikini advertisements to exercise videos to dieting tips and finally to eating disorder content, Smithing, director of advocacy for the Young Peoples Alliance, said.

Bilirakis is a sponsor of the similarly named Kids Online Safety Act, along with fellow Reps. Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, Washington Democrat Kim Schrier and Castor.

We know that big tech has failed, ladies and gentlemen, to prioritize the health and safety of our children online, resulting in a significant increase in mental health conditions, suicide and drug overdose deaths. Weve heard stories over and over and over again in our respective districts, Bilirakis said.

Bilirakis bill would outline a set of harms to children under 17 and require big tech and video game companies to mitigate those harms. The bill also aims to increase parental protections on platforms and commission a study of age verification options.

A companion bill in the U.S. Senate has been introduced by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn.

Samir C. Jain, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the House panel that some proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act, while well-intentioned and pursuing an important goal, do raise some concerns.

Legislation that restricts access to content because government officials deem it harmful can harm youth and present significant constitutional issues, said Jain, vice president of policy for the civil liberties advocacy organization.

Further, requirements or strong incentives to require age verification systems to identify children often require further data collection from children and adults alike, and thereby can undermine privacy and present their own constitutional issues, Jain testified.

However, Jain praised provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act that would increase transparency into the algorithms employed by large data companies and prohibit using data in a way that perpetuates or exacerbates discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, sex, religion, or disability status whether a Black person looking for a job, a woman seeking a loan to start a business, or a veteran with a disability trying to find housing.

During questioning, Bilirakis asked each panelist: Yes or no, do you think this is the best chance we have to getting something done on comprehensive data privacy?

All witnesses answered yes.

Meta, which owns Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment.

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National privacy standard eyed by Congress for data harvested by big tech companies Nebraska Examiner - Nebraska Examiner

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Betting on US Big Tech? Top Earnings Reports to Watch in the Coming Week – FX Empire

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Daily Microsoft Chart as of the 17/04/2024 Source: ActivTrader

These earnings reports are like X-rays for the tech industry, revealing the health of these leading companies. The data and guidance provided can significantly impact both short-term trading and long-term investment strategies.

For active traders, these reports often create periods of higher volatility, presenting opportunities for strategies like scalping and day trading. News-based trading becomes particularly relevant, allowing traders to capitalise on price movements in either direction (up or down) using financial instruments like CFDs (Contracts for Difference).

Long-term investors can leverage these reports to reassess their asset allocation. The new information can help ensure their portfolios are aligned with their risk tolerance and current market conditions.

Disclaimer

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 66% and 83% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

ActivTrades Corp is authorised and regulated by The Securities Commission of the Bahamas. ActivTrades Corp is an international business company registered in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, registration number 199667 B.

The information provided does not constitute investment research. The material has not been prepared in accordance with the legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is to be considered to be a marketing communication.

All information has been prepared by ActivTrades (AT). The information does not contain a record of ATs prices, or an offer of or solicitation for a transaction in any financial instrument. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of this information.

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Betting on US Big Tech? Top Earnings Reports to Watch in the Coming Week - FX Empire

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WATCH LIVE: Will Cain holds panel to discuss Big Tech and Trump trial – Fox News

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WATCH LIVE: Will Cain holds panel to discuss Big Tech and Trump trial  Fox News

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WATCH LIVE: Will Cain holds panel to discuss Big Tech and Trump trial - Fox News

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Google fires 28 workers in aftermath of protests over big tech deal with Israeli government – The Bakersfield Californian

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Google fires 28 workers in aftermath of protests over big tech deal with Israeli government - The Bakersfield Californian

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Big Tech Earnings Are Just Around the Corner – Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) – Benzinga

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Big Tech Earnings Are Just Around the Corner - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)  Benzinga

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