Category Archives: Big Tech

Google is the U.K.s first big antitrust target after the country quit the European Union as regulators opened a probe Friday into the companys planned changes to advertising data.

The Competition and Markets Authority said its investigating Googles plans to remove third-party cookies and other functionalities from its Chrome browser, according to an emailed statement. This could undermine the ability of publishers to generate and undermine competition in digital advertising, entrenching Googles market power.

Publishers and advertising technology companies complained in November that Googles so-called privacy sandbox changes will curb members ability to gather information on web users, which helps them offer more valuable advertising. Smaller media companies are at risk of losing as much as 75 per centof their revenue, it said.

Google upended the advertising world with its decision last year to phase out third-party cookies that help advertisers pinpoint customers with ads for websites they previously visited and monitor which ads convinced them to buy. Googles Chrome is used by the overwhelming majority of internet users and the changes will be followed by browsers based on Google technology such as Microsoft Corp.s Edge.

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Google's ad changes face UK probe in first shot at Big Tech - BNN

Banks will still have the appetite for financial technology M&A in 2021, but the economic uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic will make them more cautious in their dealmaking, analysts said.

The COVID-19 crisis has put pressure on banks to improve their digital offering as lockdowns have forced customers to use applications and online banking rather than visit branches. Buying up small, innovative fintechs can be a faster and more effective way for banks to improve their tech offerings, and the infrastructure that supports them, than building their own solutions. But given the punishing year that lenders have had, and the bleak economic outlook for 2021, their capacity for larger deals will be constrained.

Big techs such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc., on the other hand, have deeper pockets.

Meanwhile, a streak of M&A in the payments world in 2020 is likely to continue this year, as the shift to digital payments ushered in by the pandemic makes payments fintechs attractive targets.

Big tech, deep pockets

Although it is still difficult to see what the wider-reaching impacts of the events of 2020 will be, many corporates will be taking a "longer-term view" and will be thinking about the importance of technology and innovation, according to Fionnghuala Griggs, partner and global co-head of fintech at Linklaters. For many banks, card networks and other financial institutions, M&A will still look like an attractive way to broaden their geographic coverage and unlock potential benefits of scale, she said.

But they will be far more circumspect in the coming year when it comes to dealmaking.

"Given the economic uncertainty they will be understandably cautious over how they deploy their resources for M&A opportunities, and therefore we expect that there will be an increased focus on valuation, and on the ability of fintech business models to generate profits on a longer-term basis," she said in an email.

The need to provide better, faster and cheaper financial services remains a powerful driver for investment by banks into fintech, according to Benjamin Ensor, director of research at 11:FS, a fintech and banking tech consultancy. But the pandemic has diminished banks' appetite and ability to make acquisitions.

"What has changed with the pandemic is the appetite and ability of companies to invest and so take part in acquisitions. Specifically, the earnings outlook for most banks deteriorated sharply with the onset of pandemic and is unlikely to improve dramatically even with the gradual roll out of vaccines because of the huge damage to businesses right across most economies," he said in an email.

"While banks and other financial services companies may want to invest in promising fintechs, they have less capital available to do so than they did at the start of 2020," he said.

By contrast, "big tech" companies have "thrived" during the pandemic and have money to spend on acquisitions, he said.

Although a banking crisis was averted in Europe in 2020 due to robust fiscal and monetary support, profitability at European lenders will be "subdued" in 2021, according to a December analyst note from Scope Ratings.

The picture for tech giants, however, is brighter. Retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc.'s earnings per share exceeded analyst expectations in the third quarter, at $12.37 compared with the S&P Capital IQ mean consensus estimate of $7.53, while the company said that it expects double-digit growth in sales in the fourth quarter. Google LLC parent Alphabet Inc. reported a 14% year-over-year increase in revenues in the third quarter, at $46.17 billion, partly thanks to a rebound in its digital advertising business.

"Big techs" have been muscling their way into financial services in recent years, having lent $572 billion globally in 2019, double the amount of credit extended by fintechs that year, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

Even if incumbent financial institutions such as banks, investment management companies and insurance companies want to buy fintechs, they may increasingly find themselves outbid, either by big tech firms or established fintech companies that are looking to bolster their capabilities in areas such as artificial intelligence, Ensor said.

Payments heats up

M&A involving payments companies was a major theme in 2020, with a number of large European deals including Nexi SpA's 7.8 billion deal to buy Danish rival Nets A/S, agreed in November, and Worldline SA's 7.8 billion acquisition of Ingenico Group SA, cleared by European regulators in October.

Linklaters' Griggs anticipates further payments M&A in 2021.

"The events of 2020 have placed ever-increasing focus on the value of digitalization and technology in payment service, and has also driven widespread innovation in the sector, including significant growth opportunities for companies offering new payment methods. As a result we expect fintechs focused on payments ... to remain attractive investment prospects, whether for full acquisitions, minority investments or strategic partnerships," she said.

Some 420 billion transactions worth $7 trillion are anticipated to switch from cash to cards and digital payments by 2023, rising to US$48 trillion by 2030, according to November research from Accenture. The coronavirus pandemic has sped up the shift to digital payments "at a pace banks could not have predicted," Sulabh Agarwal, who leads Accenture's payments practice globally, said in a company statement.

The pandemic triggered a major shift toward digital payments in much of Europe, especially in countries such as Greece and Italy, where the public have traditionally leaned toward using cash instead of card, online or mobile transactions.

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Big tech rather than banks to drive fintech M&A in 2021, with payments key - S&P Global

Big Tech is stepping into a year where the only certainty is that there will be much unwelcome uncertainty. And with so many of the major technology platforms calling Ireland their European home, that could have implications for Ireland Inc.

If 2019 and 2020 were the years of uncomfortable political hearings, when founders and senior executives were summoned for questioning before the US Congress, the European Parliament and, at one point, the Dil then 2021 promises to be the altogether far more sobering and alarming year of the antitrust investigation.

The political grillings seen over the past 18 months, especially in the US, have set the stage for what is to come next. By last July when we reached that odd hearing featuring the virtual appearances of the chief executives of Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google/Alphabet before the US House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee, politicians questions were making it clear that anything the chief executives said could and would be used against them and their companies.

Following a 16-month long investigation of which a number of those US hearings formed a part, the fat (449-page) congressional report that eventually appeared in October proved this was indeed the case. It referenced testimony and documents, such as internal chief executive emails, to back its conclusion that much stronger regulatory and antitrust action was needed.

As 2020 came to a close, no fewer than five antitrust investigations against large technology and social media platforms were officially underway in the US, at both federal and state level: three against Google, and two against Facebook. More could be on the horizon for 2021.

Of these, the headliner is the suit against Google by the US justice department. It marks the first significant use of antitrust law by the US since it took on Microsoft at the turn of the millennium.

Focused on Googles search engine dominance and the companys ability to use its powerful position to potentially sideline smaller competitors, the action wont be heard until 2023. But if the Microsoft case serves as an example of what to expect, well be hearing lots of ongoing detail in 2021 as the case is prepared, especially as one of the other cases against Google announced in December and brought by Texas and nine other states may be rolled into the federal case.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as a large coalition of US states, are bringing separate antitrust cases against Facebook, demanding it be required to sell off its major acquisitions, WhatsApp and Instagram.

State investigations arent any less powerful, or worrying for the platforms, than federal actions. Think in terms of the situation in the EU, where member countries as well as the EU itself can bring cases against companies. Individual EU states, such as France and Germany, have brought punishing actions against the platforms in the past.

If anything, a multitude of separate US state actions might be worse than a single federal action, resulting in a multitude of different regulations and a huge headache for any company.

But theres more. The US justice department is also investigating Apple (seemingly centred on its App Store), and is believed to also be investigating Amazon, as well as further aspects of Facebooks operations. It noted in 2019 that it was looking at search, social media, and some retail services online.

The FTC is also investigating Amazons relationship with small traders on its platform businesses with which it sometimes competes directly.

Given the strong bipartisan antipathy to the big platforms, whether social, retail or search, the incoming Biden administration and a Biden-appointed justice department is likely to maintain the same cool relationship with the platforms as the previous administration.

And that is likely to be the case even as some tech industry figures have surfaced as actual or potential appointees within the administration. So far, executives from companies including Amazon, Airbnb, Lyft, Uber and Salesforce are in.

And since mid-November, former Google chief and chairman Eric Schmidt has been rumoured as a possible choice for a Biden tech industry taskforce, but this has been met with much public opposition.

On the other hand, the incoming US president has appointed Pete Buttigieg, who he ran against for the democratic presidential nomination, as his transport secretary. When campaigning in California, Buttigieg supported taxi drivers opposing Uber and Lyft, and also supported greater rights for gig workers and criticised Google and Uber in his economic policy proposals during the 2019 campaign.

His perspective in the West Wing is likely to carry far stronger weight than anyone in a lower level administrative role, or a tech policy adviser.

While recent fines and penalties emerging from the EU have indicated it remains no great friend of the platforms either, these recent moves from the US especially on the antitrust front mark a significant contrast between the US and the EU.

For years, the European Union was viewed (rightly) as the far stronger regulatory environment, and also as the torch-bearer for antitrust activity, given US silence in an area that had once been a US legal hallmark, delivering some of the most important, US public-benefiting actions, divestments and restructurings throughout the 20th century.

For years, many felt the EU would be the most likely source of significant antitrust moves against the platforms and, in particular, the most likely to enact one of antitrust laws most dramatic punishments: splitting up the big platforms by requiring a divestment of past major acquisitions.

Not that the EU has led by example in this area. It has repeatedly mirrored the US and approved highly controversial acquisitions, such as Googles takeover of ad giant DoubleClick, and Facebooks moves for Instagram and WhatsApp.

Still, many felt that EU would consider taking such action. In a sea change, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager indicated that, in the wake of a special report she had commissioned, she did not consider breaking up the platforms to be the best resolution to ongoing problems. The turnabout came as a shock to campaigners against the platforms.

However, the EU, with Vestager reappointed to the same commission role, has continued to use other aspects of EU antitrust law against the platforms, issuing major fines against companies including Google and Facebook.

At the tail end of 2020, Vestager announced major antitrust charges against Amazon, alleging it misuses data it acquires from sellers on its platform. A decision is expected in 2021. Other EU tech-related investigations are ongoing.

In addition, two major pieces of EU legislation the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act (DMA and DSA) were published as draft proposals in December. Together they would impose sweeping changes in the way the big platforms operate, designating the largest as gatekeeper companies with significant additional responsibilities and operating constraints.

The DMA has a firm antitrust focus, and could allow companies to be broken up. As happened with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) during its long evolution, much lobbying and argument lies ahead for the two pieces of legislation in 2021.

And yet, even as the EU was rattling its collection of antitrust swords with the publication of these acts, it also approved Googles controversial acquisition of FitBit, giving the search giant a massive tranche of health data generated by FitBits wearable fitness devices.

Mixed signals, indeed.

Regardless, given the growing, antagonistic antitrust and regulatory focus in both the EU and the US, there is certainly no promise of a happy new year in 2021 for Big Tech.

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No promise of a happy new year for Big Tech as EU and US lawmakers bear down - The Irish Times

If I had to pick the most far-reaching and significant threat facing big technology companies in the future, I would not make an obvious choice.

Here, I mean threat from the companies perspective, the thing most capable of overturning their highly profitable business-as-usual, what they see as their unique corporate culture and defend as exciting new work paradigms and lucrative move-fast policies that allow them to innovate.

Many of the rest of us may be more likely to identify these as the more noxious aspects of the industry.

Weve seen plenty of obvious threat candidates coming out of headline-making international political hearings, regulatory actions by nations and US states, new laws (such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU, and new state privacy laws in the US), and the continued establishment of case law from the EU.

From this menu, the list of uh-oh factors for tech is easy to compile. Most boil down to greater outside regulation and oversight via the use of antitrust, data protection, privacy and, to a lesser extent, employee protection laws.

And yes, this all (rightly) poses significant worries for big tech, including very real prospects of being broken up; of being subjected to greater operational transparency; of having more comprehensive limits placed on the use of personal data; of the crumbling of the data-gathering advertising model that is so lucrative.

But none of these industry alarms is as likely to cause the profound, long-term change that could emerge over time from the actions of just 200 individuals this week: the North American employees of Google parent company Alphabet, who have formed the first major union within a technology company.

Wed had enough, stated the two elected union executives of the new Alphabet Workers Union, Google software engineer Parul Koul and Google site reliability engineer Chewy Shaw, on Monday in anopinion piece for the New York Times. An initial 226 employees now have union cards affiliated to the Communications Workers of America.

That action will have sent shockwaves through the executive suites and boardrooms of the big technology companies around Silicon Valley. They wont admit it, of course. Google issued a statement in which it said it would continue engaging directlywith employees.

Because this is what these companies want: to handle employee grievances individually, out of public view. But as the history of the union movement has shown, nothing focuses a companys negotiating mind like having a unified bloc of employees backing the complaints of an individual, or fighting for employees as a whole.

While the thoroughly un-unionised technology industry has long argued its pampered employees have no need for unions and indeed, many of its work conditions and contracts have been generous mounting evidence indicates this may be true for the younger, white, male employees that form the majority of the tech workforce, but not so much for women, LGBT+ employees or people of colour.

In addition, employees of many technology firms have grown increasingly unhappy with the ways their companies operate.

In 2018 many Google employees globally staged protests over a company culture that had, among other things, been involved in a secret AI drone surveillance project with the Pentagon, and awarded a generous severance package to an executive accused of sexual harassment.

More recently, many Google employees were disturbed by the companys firing of black AI researcher Timnit Gebru, who was critical of company diversity programmes.

Walk-outs and internal protests of the type we have seen at Google are important symbolically, but its easy for companies to divide and conquer workers who, as has been raised in several court cases and public campaigns, cannot always rely on the support of human resource or legal departments to address even the most serious bullying and harassment issues.

In addition, tech has a specific technique for disempowering workers: just dont hire them directly. Instead, make them gig economy workers. Get their labour, but as little-to-no-benefits independent contractors or outsourcing hires.

At Google, such workers outnumber regular employees by 135,000 to 115,000. Notably, in 2019, a number of such Google contract workers in Pittsburgh formed a small union which, because of the dearth of unions within tech, ended up affiliating with the United Steelworkers.

The new Alphabet union intends to represent all workers, whether contract or casual, or direct employees.

So many of the complaints that have surfaced in recent years within tech about working conditions, pay and benefits discrepancies, corporate culture, company operations are exactly the kinds of issues that unions have traditionally acted upon for workers.

Recent years have demonstrated that tech companies are not kindly, benevolent guardians of their huge workforces. Companies know unions can and will change the nature of what they do, and how they do it, in profound ways. The establishment of a first in-house union is groundbreaking.

Expect the industry to fight unionisation every inch of the way. But if tech workers want real workplace change, they need to put power behind their protests. Tech workers need unions.

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Big tech will be sweating over prospect of worker unionisation - The Irish Times

The hottest memes of 2020! The most viral videos of the year! The hottest hashtags!

The year-in-review lists from Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter were missing the biggest story of the year: their failure to stop the spread of misinformation.

The QAnon conspiracy theory found a shocking amount of mainstream support. Black Lives Matter protests were exploited to spread lies about violence coming to Small Town, USA. And officials had to fight destructive wildfires and false stories about antifascists at the same time.

And, of course, there was the misinformation superspreader event: the COVID-19 pandemic.

The consequences have been dire. But we don't have to let it continue in 2021.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election gave social media platforms a powerful taste of what bad actors could do when weaponizing the tools they created.

Yet, the companies were still hesitant to act. Sure, some nefarious users were banned. But, as long as the content wasnt illegal or causing immediate, quantifiable harm ... why would they take action?

Judging by the timing of some of this years biggest misinformation-related policy changes, it seems most of the major social media platforms gave themselves a deadline to do something before the 2020 U.S. presidential elections.

Then, in March, the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. There were anti-mask demonstrations. People drank bleach. And some people refused to believe COVID-19 is real.

There was just so much conflicting information about the virus and the fact that everyone had time on their hands [due to lockdowns] to actually look at it all, explained Gita Johar, a professor at the Columbia Business School. People were sharing everything just trying to make sense of what was going on.

In a recently published study, Johar found that people who feel a sense of exclusion and uncertainty, perpetually or during an unpredictable time, like a pandemic, are more likely to spread what they see on social media.

In fact, we found that people seem to be able to tell whats true and false apart, but they still share information regardless, she said.

And there were plenty of trolls, conspiracy theorists, and politicians willing to flood scared, confused, and angry users with false information.

All the COVID misinformation actors have to do is sow doubt, said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. They adopted the Steve Bannon tactic: flood the zone with shit. And that's what we're seeing now. Actors are flooding the zone with nonsense.

Fadi Quran, campaign director for the nonprofit activist organization Avaaz, which has done extensive research on disinformation online, agreed, saying, Trump and others within the Steve Bannon network have been pushing claims about voter fraud for years.

Facebook, too afraid of offending conservatives who accuse the company of having an anti-conservative bias, basically let Trump, Bannon, and others on the right do whatever they wanted.

Big Tech companies took plenty of half-measures this year.

Facebook limited political ads in the week running up to the election. The Trump campaign found a way around this new policy.

Facebook also slapped fact-check labels on rampant misinformation, an approach Ahmed called "disastrous."

That's what the social media companies want," he said. "They want the debate on the platform.

That's because the more time a user spends interacting with content, no matter how false or toxic it is, the more opportunities there are to serve that user ads.

We know the people behind this misinformation and we know that what they're saying is untrue, Ahmed continued. Yet for the social media companies, it's an economically productive market for them.

And there's a lot of content that falls through the cracks on Facebook, a site with nearly 2 billion daily active users. Facebook has around 15,000 content moderators working for the site through third-parties. A NYU report found that Facebook should have double the number of content moderators, who should be in-house employees.

And if Facebook misses something? A MIT study found that users believed that misinformation that hadn't received a fact-check label must be true.

When it comes to labeling, they did not implement it the ways experts in the field of debunking disinformation recommended that they implement it, said Quran.

According to Quran, Facebook, for example, doesnt retroactively correct the record for users who saw misinformation before it was fact-checked.

In a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has studied anti-vaxxers and coronavirus conspiracy theorists, volunteers flagged 912 posts on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter for misinformation. Only one in 20 were removed.

Social media companies have "been engaged in a process of gaslighting the world with the idea that they're taken these incredible unprecedented measures when in fact they're doing very little beyond spin, Ahmed said.

In October 2020, however, Facebook did do something major. The company banned QAnon. It was a welcome move.

But QAnon has existed since 2017 and has sparked numerous incidents of real-life violence. As a major spreader of conspiracy theories during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, imagine how much less shit would have flooded the zone if Facebook took action earlier.

My estimate is that if Facebook implemented that ban two years before they did, it would have prevented between 5 to 10 million Facebook users from joining QAnon conspiracy groups and pages, said Quran.

To fix the misinformation epidemic, the social media companies have to want to fix it, something they've shown little appetite for.

Indiscriminate sharing can become a bad habit, explained Johar. Unless we take steps at the source of the problem, which is the supply of misinformation, I don't think that you can just rely on consumers to be able to disentangle and make sense on their own.

With coronavirus vaccines on the way, attacking this problem has never been more important. Avaazs Quran believes that there are some extremely simple steps to curb misinformation, especially when it comes to public health.

One proposal: Facebook should change its algorithm to stop promoting pages that frequently spread misinformation.

There are repeat misinformers still creating viral content, he said. Facebook could easily just stop amplifying them.

While its too late for the social media companies to fix the problems misinformation created in 2020, its not too late for 2021.

Action now could still save lives, explained Ahmed. If you take away those voices in the very cynical, very organized, very disciplined anti-vax networks, it would give an opportunity for health authorities to get their message across clearly.

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How Big Tech failed to stop misinformation in 2020 - Mashable

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Outsized bets on large U.S. technology companies and emerging cryptocurrencies fueled the years top-performing U.S. mutual fund and exchange-traded funds as the coronavirus pandemic upended global markets, while funds that bet on oil and gas companies fell nearly 100%, according to data from fund-tracker Morningstar.

FILE PHOTO: Representations of the Ethereum virtual currency standing on the PC motherboard are seen in this illustration picture, February 3, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

The year was a challenge like few others for the $21.3 trillion mutual fund and $4.4 trillion ETF industry. U.S. stocks plunged in March before staging a more than 60% comeback, while bond yields hung near record lows for much of the year after unprecedented moves by the Federal Reserve to backstop the financial markets and keep interest rates low.

Overall, those who played risk assets were rewarded. The years best fund, Grayscale Ethereum Trust, which holds ethereum, the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, soared 333.7% for the year through Dec. 9, according to Morningstar.

The funds gains came during a retail-investor led rally in cryptocurrencies that pushed total assets invested in crypto funds to a record $15 billion, up from $2.57 billion at the end of 2019, according to digital asset manager CoinShares.

Tech was another clear winner from the pandemic as people moved from offices to work-from-home and conducted business by video call while ordering goods online. The Bank of Montreal MicroSectors FANG+ 3X Leveraged ETN and the Bank of Montreal MicroSectors FANG+ 2X Leveraged ETN - both of which use leverage to invest in so-called FANG technology stocks such as Facebook Inc and Netflix Inc - posted returns of 301.9% and 201.9% respectively, making them the second- and third-best performing funds for the year through Dec. 9.

Among actively managed funds that do not use leverage, the ARK Innovation ETF posted the best overall returns with a gain of 143.8%, followed by a 141.4% gain in the American Beacon ARK Transformational Innovation fund and a 139.7% gain in the Morgan Stanley Institutional Discovery fund.

Nearly all of the top 10 performing U.S. stock funds run concentrated portfolios that hold less than 50 stocks and in some cases have more than 10% of their assets in the shares of a single company, according to Morningstar.

Those big bets helped pay off during a broad market rally that has pushed several asset classes near all-time highs and brought the S&P 500 up more than 65% since the lows it hit in mid-March when much of the U.S. economy shut down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

When fund management swings for the fences with big bets on a handful of growth names they will hit home runs, but they might also strike out, said Todd Rosenbluth, head of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA.

The worst-performing funds, meanwhile, were those that took a long bet on oil and gas stocks which plummeted this year from a collapse in demand which briefly turned oil futures negative in April for the first time in history.

The Direxion Daily S&P Oil&Gas E&P 2X ETF fell 97.3% for the year, followed by the Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners Bear 2X ETF, which tumbled 95.5% for the year.

Among actively managed equity funds, the Highland Small Cap Equity fund posted the years worst return with a 51.1% decline.

The years top-performing intermediate core bond fund, meanwhile, was the American Funds Strategic Bond fund with a 17.7% gain. The fund has roughly 43% of its portfolio in Treasuries, double the weight if its benchmark index, according to Morningstar. Its performance was roughly 18 percentage points ahead of the years worst performer in the category, the Putnam Mortgage Securities A fund, which has roughly half of its portfolio in cash and less than 1% of its assets in Treasuries.

Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Megan Davies and Andrea Ricci

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Big tech bets and cryptocurrencies power 2020's top U.S. funds - Reuters

This article is part of The Biden Transition, Foreign Policys ongoing coverage of how U.S. President-elect Joe Biden builds a new White House administrationand what the new teams policies might be.

So far, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden seems like business as usual for Silicon Valley.The industrys upper class bankrolled his campaign, and several tech executives are likely to take senior positions in the incoming administration. After four unpredictable years, policy discussions are back on familiar groundand companies are dusting off their tried-and-true lobbying techniques. But while this may look at first glance like a return to the past, it is not: The mood and context have changed utterly, and the traditionally cozy relationship between the Democratic Party and Big Tech is on the brink of turning much more contentious.

The Dec. 10 anti-trust lawsuit brought against Facebook by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of New York and other states is likely just the start of the long-expected crackdown on Silicon Valley, no matter which party controls the White House.

Here is why Big Tech is in for a rough time over the next four years:

1. Self-regulation has failed. One of Silicon Valleys most valuable assets until now has been the cultural permission to try new things. The public has put up with arrogant rhetoric and a lax attitude toward the law in exchange for innovative ideas that meaningfully improved upon the status quo. But it was a Faustian bargain, with untrammeled innovation raising the specter of uncontrolled growth. When we learn about Airbnb endangering neighbors, Twitter failing to stop rampant harassment, or YouTube radicalizing its viewers with an algorithm that recommends extremist content, we see the destructive harm technology companies can do and their unwillingness to rein in their greed. The narrative has shifted from a question of whether there will be regulation at all to the fight over who should make the rulesand how tough those rules should be.

2. Trust is broken. Across the industry, the promises made by the titans are meeting skepticism. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, we used to wonder when Mark Zuckerberg would run for president; now we ask in disbelief how he has kept his job as CEO of Facebook for so long.A decade of lofty rhetoric about an open and connected world now falls flat, and the public sees Facebook for what it is: a data-hungry corporation that evades accountability and keeps its users addicted to its products. Even within the company, internal surveysshow barely half of its workforce thinks its products are having a positive effect on the world. Zuckerberg, who once symbolized hope for a better future, has instead become Silicon Valleys Darth Vader. It has come to the point where the city of San Francisco, where Zuckerberg has a residence, is working to remove the Zuckerberg name from its General Hospital, citing him as a risk to public health.

3. The backlash is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans dont agree on much these days, but they do agree that the technology industry hasbecome too powerful. Whether it is Amazon systematically decimating main-street business, Instagram sapping the attention of the countrys youth, or Ubers gig-economy practices taking advantage of workers, Americans sense an imbalance. Though the industrys products remain popular with consumers, a consensus seems to be growing that concentrating so much decision-making power in the hands of a few billionaires is dangerous for society and democracy.U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warrens call to regulate and break up Big Tech was just the opening shot; taking on these massive corporations will become a much more common exercise in economic populism.

4. Scrutiny is increasing inside Silicon Valley. Google used to promise to do no evil; now it appears to be suppressing anyone who suggests it may be doing harm. A recent controversy over the removal of Timnit Gebru, a well-known Google artificial intelligence ethics researcher, shows just how bad this has become. Gebru co-authored a paper that warned about the societal risks of using large language models, a machine-learning approach the company commonly employs, and was subsequently removed from her position in a cloud of controversy. This has caused a massive backlash within Google, leading to more than 1,400 employees signing a letter of protest and others to speak out publicly to defend her. As media become more critical, employees more informed, and members of the public less trusting, we can expect the internal backlash in Silicon Valley over discrimination, bias, and the spread of other societal ills to reach new heights.

5. The entire Democratic Party has moved to the left. Silicon Valleys executive class includes some prominent Trump supportersbut there are few in the industrys rank and file. The Valleys predominantly liberal populationalong with the rest of the Democratic Partyhas moved to the left on key issues such as workers rights, wealth disparities, immigration, justice, and policing. The coziness that former President Barack Obama showed with Google and other industry giants would not be tolerated by todays activist wing. In the Bay Area, technology companies are being pushed to take more progressive public stances on the issues that matter to their workforce, such as the recent controversy over cryptocurrency startup Coinbases attempts to quash discussion of discrimination and issues surrounding race. At the same time, the Trump era has led to heightened tensions, with supporters such as Peter Thiel having left the Bay Area, declaring it ideologically inhabitable. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has amassed a record for workplace violations, union busting, and COVID-19 denial in California, has moved his residence to Texas.

6. The public has a better understanding of techs dark side. For a long time, the benefits offered by smartphones, slick software, and constant connection were so obvious that any costs seemed negligible in comparison. But a decade of being glued to our devices has caused many people to call into question whether this equation still holds. Though device usage has only increased, satisfaction with a digitally connected lifestyle seems to have decreased. Abstract issues such as loss of privacy and the power of network effects now feel real and personal: Weve all seen our actions online lead to intrusive ads that follow us on Google and Facebook; weve all seen main-street businesses shut down through their inability to compete with e-commerce platforms massive logistical and economic advantages, including the tax and regulatory favors theyve been able to buy.

7. The future of labor and inequality is at stake. Few issues animate the Democratic voter base as much today as keeping corporate power in check and obstructing tax avoidance by the rich. Companies such as Amazon have come to symbolize everything they were traditionally seen to stand against: poor treatment of workers, monopolistic power grabs, and a concentration of wealth that would make a robber baron blush. And these issues are being exacerbated at a much faster pace than youd expect: Amazons size has exploded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the robot technology that may soon replace the companys workers isadvancing exponentially, and Amazon is eyeingeven more sectors of the economy to enter.

Tomorrows rising political stars are going to make their name standing up to Big Tech. The next presidential candidates wont be people like Zuckerberginstead, they may be drawn from the attorneys general pushing anti-trust lawsuits, senators curbing the power of social media companies, and House members interrogating tech CEOs in Congress. Long before then, the public will have become disillusioned with the tech giants claims about changing the world for the betterand become hostile toward the industrys destructiveness instead.

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7 Reasons Why Silicon Valley Will Have a Tough Time With the Biden Administration - Foreign Policy

from the good-for-them dept

A few weeks ago we noted that smaller, but still important, internet companies were working to get in the room on the discussions regarding Section 230 in Congress. The issue is that, among many in Congress and the media, they believe (falsely) that Section 230 is some sort of subsidy "only for Big Tech." As we've pointed out many times, the opposite is true. Facebook and Google have giant legal teams who can handle the liability without 230. It's everyone else who is screwed. This is why Facebook has always been first in line to undermine Section 230.

As you'll recall, Facebook was the key cog to fold and support FOSTA, pressuring the Internet Association to support the law, and allowing Congress to claim (falsely) that "tech" supported the law. Right after that happened I remember talking to some of the smaller members of the Internet Association who were absolutely livid about the situation, and how they felt that Facebook and IA completely threw them under the bus to cement Facebook's own position in the market.

With the fight over 230 heating up again it looks like a bunch of those companies have decided not to make the same mistake again. They've started a new organization, called Internet.Works to advocate on issues around 230. The coalition is made up of a bunch of important and successful internet companies, all of whom rely on Section 230, but who are not Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Apple. Instead, it's Automattic (the WordPress guys), Cloudflare, Dropbox, eBay, Etsy, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Medium, Nextdoor, Patreon, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap, TripAdvisor, Vimeo, and Wikimedia.

The organization is clearly set up to be a counterbalance to Facebook's ability to completely undermine 230 for everyone else:

These well-known internet companies and nonprofits launched Internet Works to elevate the voice of stakeholders across the digital economy and work with policymakers to preserve the benefits of Section 230, the foundational internet law that enables the United States to lead the world in innovation and robust job growth in the technology sector, said Josh Ackil, Spokesperson for Internet Works. Internet Works members rely on CDA 230 to make their platforms safe for users and support free expression. This coalition brings new voices and diverse perspectives to Washingtons current Section 230 debate, which too often focuses on the largest internet platforms.

Internet Works and its members represent different corners of the Internet ecosystem, and rely heavily on Section 230 to act responsibly to protect users and compete in their respective markets. In working with policymakers in Washington, the coalition will work to preserve the benefits of Section 230 for consumers and the internet ecosystem and promote the competition, diversity, and user choice in technology and services that this provision provides.

The group has also put out a "myths & facts about Section 230" document that is quite good and acts as a much less snarky version of my 230 myth debunker.

MYTH: Section 230 primarily helps large social media platforms.

FACT: Section 230 protects internet sites and users by providing a legal basis for organizations of all shapes and sizes to moderate content. It prevents internet service providers (ISPs), internet sites of all sizes, and users from being held liable for objectionable content posted by other users. Section 230 doesn't just apply to social media platforms.

It also protects online services that provide volunteer community moderation, such as message boards, as well as other organizations including PTAs, schools and libraries. Without the protection Section 230 provides, many of these organizations could face crippling lawsuits over user-posted content.

Unfortunately, only the largest corporations or organizations could withstand the possible wave of litigation over user-posted content which could occur if Section 230 is weakened or repealed.

The group does say that it supports "a unified approach to reform" which has had some worried that they were caving in as well, but the group is saying all the right things regarding the important benefits of 230. And it's (stupidly and unfortunately) probably necessary for them to say they're open to reform to even get a seat at the table. This is, of course, dumb that they have to say that, but because all of DC has decided (incorrectly) that 230 is the problem, not admitting that is being (falsely) seen as evidence that you're "not willing to discuss."

An article in Bloomberg notes that basically the rest of the internet industry is pissed off at Facebook and recognizes the company's willingness to throw the open internet under the bus to maintain its market position (while also claiming to be "responsive" to Congress's misplaced anger).

There is a real myopia among legislators of only thinking of Facebook and Google as they consider bills to address online hosting, said Emma Llanso, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a policy group. That is a real concern for smaller websites and applications, because they do not have the resources these larger companies do.

It will be worth watching what happens with this new coalition, but it's important that their voices get heard by those in Congress (and the media) who keep insisting that Section 230 only benefits Google and Facebook.

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Filed Under: 230 reform, coalition, fosta, intermediary liability, section 230Companies: facebook, internet association, internet works

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Coalition Of Internet Companies Who Are Decidedly Not 'Big Tech' Raise Their Voices About The Importance Of Section 230 - Techdirt

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to rein in the unchecked power of Big Tech.

For more than a decade, lawmakers and regulators have taken a hands-off approach to Silicon Valley. But that's all likely to change for Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter as the folks in charge in Washington look to rein in their power and influence.

Politicians and policymakers on both sides of the aisle have grown increasingly alarmed by the power these companies wield-- how it might harm consumers by enabling the firms to choke off competition from smaller players, exploit personal data for profit, and distort what media is shared and consumed online.

Subscribe to CNET Now for the day's most interesting reviews, news stories and videos.

Some on Capitol Hill are calling for a full-scale reset. In October, the House Judiciary Committee published a scathing, 449-page reportthat concluded Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have transformed into monopoly powerhouses.

"Companies that were once scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," the report reads.

Many Democrats in Congress support legislation to break up tech monopolies. And over the past two months, Google and Facebook have been hit with lawsuits from dozens of states all over the country. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is going after Google, and a Republican-led Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against Facebook.

As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January and a new Congress gets to work, the days of unchecked power for Big Tech look like they're numbered.

"Everyone agrees there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed," Rep. David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and the chairman of the House antitrust subcommittee (which wrote the October report), said during a New York Times panel discussion earlier this month. The "era of self-regulation is over, and congressional action is required," he said.

Here's a look at the three big issues facing Big Tech in the coming year.

The antitrust target on the backs of some of the biggest tech companies in the world is growing larger. Google and Facebook are already facing multiple lawsuits from federal and state law enforcement as well as regulatory agencies.

And things are likely to get worse. Here's a quick rundown:

GoogleIn October, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit alleging that Google has used anticompetitive tactics to preserve its search engine business. On Dec. 17, 38 states filed an antitrust suit against the company, accusing it of running an illegal digital advertising monopoly and enlisting Facebook to rig ad auctions. These states also allege that Google manipulated digital advertising markets in violation of antitrust laws. And another group of state attorneys general, led by Colorado's, is also expected to file an antitrust case against Google.

FacebookThe social media giant is facing a lawsuit from the FTC and a coalition of more than 40 states and territories. The suit accuses the company of illegally stifling innovation and choking competition by buying and squashing smaller startups. The suit demands that Facebook unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Apple and AmazonSo far neither Apple nor Amazon is being sued by the US government or the states, but the House Judiciary report also singled them out for their behaviors. The report accuses Amazon of holding monopoly power over third-party sellers on its site. And it accuses Apple of having a monopoly through its App Store.

While the lawsuits get litigated, there's growing appetite among lawmakers in both parties to take legislative action on antitrust that could go far beyond the tech industry and affect all concentrated industries.

"It's not just the big tech companies that will be affected by these reforms," said Gigi Sohn, who served as an adviser to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and is a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. "It would also have big implications for other industries where there's concentrated power, like pharmaceuticals and airlines."

Sohn added that the centrality of the internet in our economy "has left gaping holes in our laws" and that it's up to Congress to fill those holes. How far the reforms could go will largely depend on who's in Congress and whether Democrats and Republicans can resolve their differences on these issues.

Some key areas where Democrats and Republicans may agree include more funding for antitrust enforcers, such as the FTC, and changing the burden of proof for proposed mergers so that companies whose market share passes a certain threshold are assumed to be monopolies and must prove their deal doesn't do harm. Other areas where agreement may be found is in data portability requirements for platforms, which allow consumers to move their information with them when they go to competing services and which institute prohibitions on platform bias, or the preference platforms give themselves when displaying their own listings above those of a competitor.

These were all ideas that came out of the House Judiciary subcommittee report.

Calls for changes to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act got louder in 2020. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill agree changes are needed to the law, which shields large social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from lawsuits over the content their users post on their platforms.

But their views differ greatly when it comes to exactly what they see as the law's problems.

Democrats are troubled by the rampant flow of hate speech and disinformation on social media, including interference by foreign countries in the 2020 US presidential election. Biden has called for the law to be revoked.

Republicans, led by Trump, allege that their speech is being censored by social media sites. Earlier this year, Trump issued an executive orderto get the FCC to examine how the agency could ensure that social media companies aren't censoring content on their sites. To bring more attention to the issue, Trump vetoed a critical defense funding bill because it didn't include a repeal of the protections.

Meanwhile, tech companies say Section 230 protections have been the key to allowing their services to flourish. The liability shield has let them choose what content they restrict and how.

After years of resisting any changes to Section 230, some companies, like Facebook and Twitter, say they're open to tweaks to the law. At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that social media platforms "have responsibilities, and it may make sense for there to be liability for some of the content that is on the platform."

At the same hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suggested regulations that would require companies to make their moderation processes more transparent. He also said companies could develop clear ways for users to appeal their decisions on content moderation and give users more choices in how algorithms sort their content.

Still, he cautioned lawmakers not to go too far in their reforms. And he warned that a heavy-handed approach could especially stifle smaller startups.

"What we're most concerned with is making sure that we continue to enable new companies to contribute to the internet and to contribute to conversation," Dorsey said.

Who owns your personal data, and how should companies be protecting the information they gather about you? That's the big question that many people hope Congress will answer in 2021.

The year 2020 was supposed to be the one in which Congress passed federal privacy legislation. There'd been much talk in Washington about comprehensive privacy legislation following the European Union's 2018 General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, which significantly increased requirements for how consumer data is stored and shared. As the feds dragged their feet and debated what the US should do, California followed the GDPR with its own Consumer Privacy Act, the CCPA, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. Other states have taken similar steps. Though some advocates would say the CCPA doesn't go far enough, it's still the most comprehensive privacy law in the US. And it could serve as the foundation for federal protections.

But in spite of more than 20 privacy bills or drafts of bills being introduced and discussed in Congress, there's still no law in place.

Experts agree that a piecemeal approach by states isn't enough to adequately address consumer privacy. And they agree it could create costly and complicated compliance requirements for individual companies. Sohn said there's already alignment on many privacy issues, so she's hopeful something can be hammered out in 2021.

In December, there were signs that Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee had begun to find common ground for legislation. Earlier this month the committee held a hearing that featured testimony from a bipartisan group of former FTC commissioners, including three former chairs. Key differences remain among Democrats and Republicans on proposed legislation, but it seems a federal privacy law will likely be a top agenda item for the next Congress.

The FTC is also exerting some pressure on companies, asking several, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, for information about how they collect and use the personal information of their users. The FTC also wants to know how these companies sell that information to advertisers, and how the practices affect children and teens.

"These digital products may have launched with the simple goal of connecting people or fostering creativity," FTC commissioners Rohit Chopra, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Christine Wilson wrote in a statement supporting the requests. "But, in the decades since, the industry model has shifted from supporting users' activities to monetizing them."

The statement continues: "Never before has there been an industry capable of surveilling and monetizing so much of our personal lives. Social media and video streaming companies now follow users everywhere through apps on their always-present mobile devices. This constant access allows these firms to monitor where users go, the people with whom they interact, and what they are doing."

What these companies do with the data, the commissioners said, "remains dangerously opaque."

Read more from the original source:

Big Tech in 2021: Washington is ready to lay down the law - CNET

Dark times: The coronavirus pandemic left cities nearly empty and society dependent on online services to connect.

In a year in which the coronavirus pandemic raged across the globe, infecting tens of millions and killing nearly 2 million people, words like "unprecedented," "extraordinary" and "grim" became cliches. Alongside wildfires, a record season of hurricanes and a nationwide debate over racial justice, it's easy to miss the flood of tech news that emerged in 2020.

From the simmering battle between DC and Big Tech companies to the streaming wars and Zoom's emergence as sometimes our sole connection to other people, each entry reflects just how big a role technology now plays in our lives -- for better or worse. In the midst of such terrible circumstances, tech often threw a lifeline to millions of people.

Subscribe to CNET Now for the day's most interesting reviews, news stories and videos.

So as a recap, I cobbled together the 20 biggest stories of 2020. You'll note that the coronavirus by itself doesn't make the list. But virtually every one of these items was influenced by the pandemic. Here they are, in ascending (least to most) order of importance.

Samsung made big improvements to the second iteration of its foldable phone.

20. Foldables continued to be a thing. Let's start with a light one. Last year saw the introduction of phones with foldable displays, but the industry added a bit more polish to them in 2020. Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip fixed a lot of mechanical issues that hampered last year's problematic Galaxy Fold, and the Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G offered even more refinement. Too bad the pandemic meant no one paid attention to these advancements.

19. Apple's M1 shift. In a normal year, Apple breaking away from Intel and building its own processor for its Mac line would be a top five event. In 2020, it just barely makes the list. Don't let the low ranking fool you, though -- this move could have huge ramifications for Apple and its MacBooks down the line.

Elon Musk had a good year thanks to Tesla's stock.

18. Elon Musk gets richer as EVs soar. Despite selling a fraction of the cars that larger automakers do, Tesla has been on a tear largely because of the perception that it remains head and shoulders above the competition, with other EVs failing to capture the attention of consumers. Experts call the runup a bubble, although the rise has made Musk the second richest man in the world, just behind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (you'll see him later in this list).

17. 5G gets real (thanks to Apple). The carriers technically launched the first 5G networks in late 2018, but the rollout and the devices were a mixed bag in 2019. If it weren't for the coronavirus, 5G would be much higher on the list. All three US carriers launched their nationwide networks (which were just OK), and Apple got into the mix by adding 5G into its entire iPhone 12 family. Too bad people hardly go out to try those networks.

16. Twitter bigwig accounts compromised. Hackers used a coordinated social engineering attack on employees to pry open access to some of the biggest accounts on Twitter, including those of Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Barack Obama and other famous tech executives, entertainers and politicians. Fortunately, the hackers only wanted the accounts to hawk a Bitcoin scam. Imagine if they had more nefarious motives.

15. Space is the place. A strife-laden year on the surface of planet Earth didn't stop NASA, SpaceX, China and others from making gains in orbit and beyond, according to Eric Mack. SpaceX brought human spaceflight back to US shores by sending two sets of astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk's company also made major progress launching a broadband satellite constellation and developing its next-generation Starship. Musk didn't blink when that rocket exploded spectacularly on landing after its first high-altitude test flight.

NASA was among those that sent a new robotic mission on its way to Mars in 2020, while China took a quick trip to the moon, bringing home the first lunar sample in almost five decades.

14. The digital divide widens. The coronavirus was terrible for everyone, but it was really bad if you lacked adequate broadband. Being on lockdown meant you needed a speedy connection for working from home or for remote education. But at least 18 million Americans lacked a good connection, which effectively barred them from participating in a society that has been forced to go more digital.

Wildfires raged in Australia and the US's West Coast.

13. The climate change reckoning. I remember watching the coverage of the Australian wildfires at the start of 2020 and thinking this would be the story of the year. Oh, how wrong I was. Ultimately, 2020 would see wildfires rage throughout the US West Coast as well, while there were so many hurricanes this season that the World Meteorological Organization ran out of names. It got so bad we dedicated this year's Road Trip theme to looking at the technology behind preparing for -- or rebuilding from -- natural disasters.

12. Amazon's dominance. Being locked down meant you were more reliant on online retailers for deliveries. That was huge for Amazon, which was already a big part of many Americans' lives, but became a real lifeline for basic goods like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Amazon hired more than 375,000 employees to keep up with demand, and in the third quarter, posted a profit of $6.3 billion -- after spending $2.5 billion on COVID-19-related costs. It wasn't just Amazon: Online grocers like Fresh Direct and Instacart also saw huge jumps in demand.

11. Gaming's big year. The coronavirus lockdown meant millions were stuck at home with a lot more free time. Many turned to gaming, with the Nintendo Switch being a hard item to find early this year. 2020 also marked the debut of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S, which likewise have been hard to come by during the holiday season. Not everything with gaming went smoothly, as supply issues frustrated consumers -- even next-gen Nvidia and AMD chips were in short supply. Then there was the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 being so bad that developer CD Projekt Red is offering refunds. At least Cyberpunk came out -- Halo Infinite, the big launch title for Xbox Series X, will launch in the fall of 2021.

The Black Lives Matter protest took on a new dimension partly due to the way organizers used tools provided by tech companies.

10. Tech and the Black Lives Matter movement. The killing of George Floyd was just the latest in a string of killings of Black people by police, but video footage of the incident and the way it spread on social media fueled a national debate over racial justice as protests erupted in cities across the country. The use of phones and livestreaming to chronicle the protests, the awkward role that services from Facebook and Google played in organizing the demonstrations, and tech firms themselves coming out for the Black Lives Matter movement all made clear that technology left its mark on the movement.

9. A massive government hack. This hack of the US government arguably should be higher up, but it broke so late in the year that we won't likely know the full magnitude of the breach until 2021. Numerous parts of the US government, including the departments of Homeland Security, State, Commerce and Treasury, as well as the National Institutes of Health, were all affected by malware delivered through a compromised update from IT software services provider SolarWinds. The malware attacked Microsoft, which identified more than 40 customers that were targeted. We're still getting more information on this unprecedented attack.

8. Quibi flames out. A streaming video service with $1.75 billion in funding, as well as the backing of Hollywood power player Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman should last longer than seven months, right? That wasn't the case for ill-fated Quibi, which shut itself down despite signing a talent roster that boasted Chrissy Teigen, Lebron James, Dwayne Johnson, Reese Witherspoon, Chance the Rapper, Kevin Hart and more. Launching a service exclusively on your mobile device in the middle of a pandemic was a prime bit of misfortune. Charging $5 a month for it when YouTube is available for free also made it a harder sell. But the hype around Quibi's launch makes for a nice segue to the next item.

Hamilton helped make Disney Plus the breakout winner of the streaming wars this year.

7. The streaming wars escalated big time. Being stuck at home meant you needed entertainment, and streaming services were there for you. More than ever, the various services filled our need for pop culture, with Netflix's Tiger King capturing all the buzz at the start of the lockdown. Disney Plus cemented its top-tier status by offering Hamilton for no additional charge on the service (strategically after the free trial ended), although it ended up charging $30 for early access to Mulan. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched, and it will require you to subscribe to its premium tier for full access to The Office catalog, while AT&T's HBO Max made waves by offering Wonder Woman 1984 on its service for free, with a commitment to deliver all of its big movies to the streamer in 2021.

6. Trump and tech. President Donald Trump has had a love-hate relationship with technology. Chinese telecom supplier Huawei took the full brunt of his wrath, with the Commerce Department essentially cutting it off from any US components or technology. That meant its Android phones could no longer use core Google services like the Play store or Gmail -- a huge blow to HUawei's highly successful phone business around the world.

Trump's later target was social phenom TikTok, which the White House said posed a security risk to Americans because its parent company is Chinese. In July, he issued an executive order requiring TikTok to sell itself to a US company or risk getting shut out of the market, citing security concerns over how much data the short-video app collects on US citizens. The move forced ByteDance, the app's Chinese parent, to work out a deal with Oracle, which had Trump's blessing. But since the elections, Trump has apparently lost interest in dealing with TikTok, and the administration has dropped its enforcement of the executive order, leaving TikTok in limbo with a deal that hadn't been completed yet.

The other major issue Trump has taken up is rallying cry to remove or alter Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides a shield to online publishers from liability for content generated by users. It's considered one of the foundational laws for flourishing online platforms, and lawmakers of both parties want change. It will likely continue to be a story in 2021.

5. Facebook and Twitter finally got proactive. When Trump shared allegations of voter fraud on social media, both social networks slapped on labels pointing to more accurate sources of election information. He wasn't the only one to get that treatment as the companies tried to clamp down on misinformation. They also got more aggressive about banning conspiracy groups like QAnon. It's unclear how effective these measures were -- the labels were applied inconsistently, and not always quickly. But the effort marked a step forward for these companies more actively managing the misinformation that had proliferated throughout their networks.

Zoom was a dominant player in our lives.

4. Zoom's rise. In-person meetings were quickly replaced by video conferencing, and no service blew up like Zoom. It's impressive that the video service kept going despite a massive surge in usage, both for work and for personal connections. In April, the company said calls on the weekends had risen 2,000%. But attention also brought to light its mixed history with security, leading to pranks now known as "Zoom-bombing" and prompting Zoom to buy a security company. The fact that there's a condition called "Zoom fatigue" from the overuse of video chat is proof that Zoo has made it big.

3. Big Government versus Big Tech. By the end of the year, tech executives appearing before Congress had happened with enough frequency that it lost its novelty factor. But the fact that the CEOs of Alphabet, Facebook, Apple and Amazon were all called to justify the immense power they wield shows that the age when tech companies could grow unchecked was over. Following the European Union, which has already been aggressive in levying fines and setting regulations, the US is expected to step up the scrutiny of the tech industry. Lawsuits filed by state attorneys general and the Justice Department seek a potential breakup of Alphabet, while separate lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general aim to curb Facebook's power, with the FTC seeking a breakup of the company. Even Apple is facing criticism for the power it wields over its App Store, with developer Epic leading the charge in a lawsuit against its practice of taking a 30% cut of app revenue.

2. Misinformation was everywhere. I know I just gave the social networks credit for being more proactive about combating misinformation, but that was ultimately a drop in the bucket compared to all the baseless conspiracy theories, hoaxes and other bits of disinformation that proliferated online. Some people were so convinced 5G caused the coronavirus that they burned cellular equippment and assaulted technicians. Or that Bill Gates somehow caused the coronavirus and wants to implant chips in us. QAnon, a vast conspiracy theory that makes the baseless claim that Hollywood and Democratic elites are pedophiles and Satan worshippers, has somehow grown to the point that two elected officials have self-identified as QAnon believers.

Two approved COVID-19 vaccines are reasons for hope for 2021.

It's great that the social networks are getting more proactive at combating misinformation, but they're fighting a five-alarm fire with a water gun.

1. Vaccines. I wanted to end this list on a bright note regardless, given the year we've all had. But the science behind developing COVID-19 vaccines so quickly more than justifies this top spot. The vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna use a molecule known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, which is like a set of instructions human cells use to build proteins. Both vaccines contain these instructions, tricking cells into producing a harmless fragment of the coronavirus. The body recognizes the fragment, generating antibodies against it and providing lasting immunity, according to CNET Science Editor Jackson Ryan.

Ryan calls the technique "a truly revolutionary step forward, reducing the time and cost to develop new vaccines in the future" and the reason why they cleared the regulatory review period so quickly. On a more optimistic note, the process will help speed the development of the vaccine for the next pandemic too.

That's the kind of life-saving technology we can all get behind.

Now playing: Watch this: The year that was: 2020 in tech

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The biggest tech stories of a disastrous 2020 - CNET