[ad_1] If RSA’s attendees were even able to score an Airbnb, it was second to the tech companies who’d, for years, packed employees into expensive rentals that once were on the normal-person market. Companies whose fat salaries also pushed rents out of reach for locals. Both had ensured a steady flow of evictions among artists, […]
Category: big tech
Amazon invests $2 billion in its clean energy fund
[ad_1] Amazon is committing $2 billion to companies developing clean energy technology with its Climate Pledge Fund, the company announced Tuesday. The fund is one facet of Amazon’s Climate Pledge, which aims to eliminate the company’s net carbon emissions by 2040. While it’s perhaps another step in the right direction, the fund comes after years […]
UK to levy additional tax on big tech companies beginning April 1st
[ad_1] The UK first announced the “digital services tax” in 2018, and after a couple rounds of review, it’s ready to be enacted. The new legislation will levy a two-percent tax on the revenue from search engines, social media services and online marketplaces that derive value from UK users. It will only apply when companies […]
EU won’t let Facebook tell it how to regulate tech giants
[ad_1] This comes as Facebook is promoting its “Charting a Way Forward: Online Content Regulation” white paper, which offers guidelines for future regulations. Breton dismissed the guidelines proposed in Facebook’s white paper as insufficient. He noted that Facebook didn’t mention its own market dominance or clearly outline its responsibilities. “It’s not for us to adapt […]
Amazon employees say they were threatened for climate change criticism
[ad_1] In October, the employees, Maren Costa and Jamie Kowalski, told The Washington Post that Amazon contributes to climate change by supporting oil- and gas-company exploration with its cloud computing business. Both employees say they were subsequently called into meetings with human resources, where they were accused of violating the company’s external communications policy. Costa […]
Senator Wyden pushes his ‘Mind Your Own Business’ privacy act forward
[ad_1] As The Verge reports, the bill would allow the FTC to set minimum privacy and cybersecurity standards for tech companies, issue fines up to four percent of a company’s annual revenue and make it a crime for senior execs to lie to the agency regarding privacy issues. It would empower state attorneys general to […]
G20 leaders will discuss raising taxes for big tech firms next week
[ad_1] The finance ministers are scheduled to meet in Washington, where they’ll review proposals by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — the group tasked with overhauling tax rules that date back to the 1920s. The new rules may create a corporate income tax of a few percentage points, which could make […]
Google could soon face another antitrust investigation
[ad_1] Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns that just a handful of companies control the internet and technology at large. Earlier this summer, a House antitrust subcommittee grilled executives from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. In May, we learned that the Justice Department was considering an antitrust investigation into Google, and as far back […]
Democratic hopeful Tulsi Gabbard sues Google over alleged censorship
[ad_1] According to The New York Times, after the first debate, Gabbard was briefly the most searched-for candidate on Google. Purchasing ads would have helped the campaign get its website at the top of the search results, Tulsi Now Inc. said. The campaign team also believes its emails were being placed in Gmail spam folders […]
Lawmakers want to block tech giants from offering digital currency
[ad_1] In addition to blocking Facebook’s plans for Libra, the “Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act” would prevent other firms (those mainly offering an online platform service with at least $25 billion in annual revenue) from launching similar cryptocurrencies. Companies that violate the rules could be fined as much as $1 million per day. […]