Search results for "big tech"

Big Tech companies form coalition to fight semiconductor shortages

Several of the world’s largest tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have teamed up with chipmakers such as Intel to announce the formation of a new lobbying group to pressure the U.S. government for chip manufacturing subsidies. The lobbying group – dubbed the Semiconductor in America Coalition (SIAC) – have called on congressional […]

UK launches new tech watchdog to boost competition against Big Tech

The UK government launched on Wednesday a new tech watchdog that will help make sure tech giants, such as Facebook and Google, cannot exploit their market dominance to crowd out competition and stifle innovation. The Digital Markets Unit (DMU), based in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), will oversee plans to give consumers more choice […]

Big Tech's outsized influence draws state-level pushback

New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris was ecstatic when Amazon named Long Island City in 2018 as a front-runner for its new headquarters, a project that would bring 25,000 jobs and $2.5 billion in construction spending to his district in Queens. But his support faded quickly when he learned that state and city leaders had […]

Lawmakers press Big Tech CEOs on speech responsibility

The CEOs of tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google faced a grilling in Congress Thursday as lawmakers tried to draw them into acknowledging their companies’ roles in fueling the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and rising COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. In a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, lawmakers pounded Facebook CEO Mark […]

White House legal official Tim Wu will put Big Tech under scrutiny

On Feb.  4, Tim Wu, prominent, progressive attorney, sent his last tweet as a private citizen; the next day, the White House announced its decision to place Wu in the National Economic Council (NEC), one of two key advisory boards to President Joe Biden. While Wu has been on board over a month, none of […]

Debate heats up over how countries tax Big Tech companies

An international debate over how countries tax big U.S. technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook is heating up, presenting a challenge for President Joe Biden’s new administration. A mid-year deadline is on the horizon for talks about a global deal to defuse trade disputes with France and other countries that are imposing go-it-alone […]

Analysis: Biden to take a tough stance on Big Tech policy

Many of Big Tech’s expected future regulatory challenges are a result of their own making – as in the case of Facebook, Google, and Amazon. These companies are being charged by some countries with monopolistic tendencies, prompting some of the regulators in states to send warnings to these firms so they can get their act […]

Closer look by Beijing at group buying and big tech

China is ramping up its scrutiny of the practice of community group buying, summoning some of the nation’s largest tech companies for discussions as part of an anti-monopoly push. Community group buying allows groups of people living in the same town or region to buy groceries and other items in bulk at a discounted rate, […]

For Big Tech, Biden brings a new era but no ease in scrutiny

The Obama-Biden administration was a charmed era for America’s tech companies — a moment when they were lionized as innovators, hailed as job creators and largely left alone. Now Joe Biden is coming back, this time as president. But times have changed. The halcyon days of an adoring Washington are unlikely to return when Biden […]

We must not neglect the ethical concerns of big tech

It is without a shadow of a doubt that ethical scandals in the tech industry have become the norm everywhere; every week, a new story surfaces about how the titans of social media have been breaching the ethical code of its users. However, we need to ask ourselves what “ethical tech” actually means? “Technologies have […]