CATEGORIES

EUROPEAN PRIVACY GROUPS CHALLENGE FACIAL SCAN FIRM CLEARVIEW

Privacy campaign groups filed legal complaints Thursday with European regulators against Clearview AI, alleging the facial recognition technology it provides to law enforcement agencies and businesses breaches stringent European Union privacy rules.

WHATSAPP SUES INDIAN GOVERNMENT OVER NEW INTERNET RULES

The messaging app WhatsApp has sued the Indian government seeking to defend its users’ privacy and stop new rules that would require it to make messages “traceable” to external parties.

OPRAH, PRINCE HARRY HOST DISCUSSION WITH GAGA, GLENN CLOSE

Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry are continuing their mental health series with a virtual town hall featuring Lady Gaga, Glenn Close and others.

FLORIDA LAW SEEKS TO REIN IN LARGE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act exempts websites from being sued for removing content deemed to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable” as long as the companies are acting in “good faith.”

EU BEEFS UP DISINFORMATION CODE TO PREVENT DIGITAL AD PROFIT

European Union officials unveiled plans to beef up the bloc’s code of practice on online disinformation, with the aim of preventing digital ad companies from profiting off of “fake news.”

GM'S NEWEST VEHICLE: OFF-ROAD, SELF-DRIVING ROVER FOR MOON

General Motors is teaming up with Lockheed Martin to produce the ultimate off-road, self-driving, electric vehicles — for the moon.

BEST BUY RAISES 2021 COMPARABLE STORE SALES EXPECTATIONS

Three months after saying that comparable-store sales may actually fall in 2021, Best Buy on Thursday released a much more optimistic outlook after reporting booming sales in the first quarter.

SPOTIFY CO-OWNER EK SAYS KROENKES REJECT BID TO BUY ARSENAL

Spotify co-owner Daniel Ek says a bid to buy Arsenal has been rejected by the Kroenke family which owns the London-based Premier League club.

TALKING TO THE MOON: EUROPE PITCHES LUNAR SATELLITES PLAN

The European Space Agency presented a vision to put satellites in orbit around the moon that would facilitate future missions to Earth’s closest neighbor.

REPORT: MICROSOFT INVESTIGATED GATES BEFORE HE LEFT BOARD

Board members at Microsoft Corp. made a decision in 2020 that it wasn’t appropriate for its co-founder Bill Gates to continue sitting on its board as they investigated the billionaire’s prior romantic relationship with a female Microsoft employee that was deemed inappropriate, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

FOUNDER OF TIKTOK'S CHINESE OWNER STEPPING DOWN AS CEO

The founder of TikTok’s Chinese owner said Thursday he will give up his job as CEO to focus on longer-term initiatives, a step that comes amid uncertainty over whether the Biden administration will force the sale of the popular short video service’s U.S. arm.

RUSSIA WON'T BLOCK TWITTER, BUT PARTIAL SLOWDOWN TO CONTINUE

Russian authorities backed away from threats to block Twitter, saying that the social media platform deleted most of the banned content identified by Moscow and expressed “readiness and interest in building a constructive dialogue.”

STELLANTIS, FOXCONN TEAM UP TO MAKE CARS MORE CONNECTED

Carmaker Stellantis and Taiwan’s Foxconn announced plans to develop a jointly operated automotive supplier focusing on technology to make vehicles more connected, including artificial intelligence-based applications and 5-G communications.

COLONIAL PIPELINE CONFIRMS IT PAID $4.4M TO HACKERS

The operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline confirmed it paid $4.4 million to a gang of hackers who broke into its computer systems.

FTC SUES FRONTIER FOR DELIVERING INTERNET THAT'S TOO SLOW

The Federal Trade Commission and six states are suing Frontier Communications for not delivering the internet speeds it promised customers and charging them for better, more expensive service than they actually got.

DAIMLER TRUCK TO SHIFT SPENDING TO BATTERY, HYDROGEN RIGS

Daimler’s truck and bus division says it plans to shift most of its vehicle development resources to zero-emission vehicles by 2025 and predicts that battery and hydrogen-powered trucks could be competitive with diesels on cost later this decade.

AMAZON TO EXTEND PAUSE ON POLICE USE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

Amazon said that it will extend its ban on police use of its face-recognition technology beyond the one-year pause it announced last year.

PENTAGON RECONSIDERING HUGE JEDI CLOUD COMPUTING CONTRACT

The Pentagon is reconsidering how to make a massive shift to cloud computing, officials said Monday, suggesting it could scrap the so-called JEDI contract potentially worth $10 billion that was awarded to Microsoft Corp. but is mired in legal challenges.

GERMAN WATCHDOG BANS FACEBOOK FROM PROCESSING WHATSAPP DATA

A German privacy watchdog banned Facebook on Tuesday from gathering data on users of its WhatsApp chat app, citing an update to its privacy policy that it said breaches stringent European data protection rules.

TESLA TO STOP ACCEPTING BITCOIN FOR CAR PAYMENTS

Electric car maker Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment, CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Wednesday, citing environmental concerns.

CHINA SAYS XIAOMI REMOVAL FROM U.S. BLACKLIST “BENEFICIAL”

China’s commerce ministry on Thursday welcomed the removal of Xiaomi Corp. from a U.S. government blacklist, a day after the U.S. reversed a ban on U.S. investments in the smartphone maker that was imposed under former President Donald Trump.

KENTUCKY PLANT BENEFITING FROM LATEST APPLE INVESTMENT

Apple deepened its ties to a Kentucky plant on Monday by awarding another $45 million to support Corning Inc.’s work to supply glass for the tech giant’s iPhones and other devices.

FACEBOOKBACKED DIGITAL CURRENCY PROJECT DIEM SHIFTS TO US

A once-ambitious Facebook-backed digital currency project — formerly known as Libra, now called Diem — is shifting operations from Switzerland to the U.S. and said it plans to launch a cryptocurrency tied to the U.S. dollar later this year.

JAPANESE TYCOON PLANNING SPACE STATION VISIT, THEN MOON TRIP

The Japanese fashion tycoon who’s booked a SpaceX ride to the moon is going to try out the International Space Station first.

AMAZON WINS EU COURT FIGHT OVER $300 MILLION TAX RULING

In the latest setback to European Union efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance, a court on Wednesday annulled a ruling by the European Commission that a tax deal between Amazon and Luxembourg’s government amounted to illegal state support.

BIDEN SIGNS ORDER TO BEEF UP FEDERAL CYBER DEFENSES

President Joe Biden signed an executive order meant to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity defenses in response to a series of headline-grabbing hacking incidents that highlight how vulnerable the country’s public and private sectors are to high-tech spies and criminals operating from half a world away.

ALIBABA RECORDS FIRST QUARTERLY OPERATING LOSS SINCE IPO

Alibaba had its first quarterly operating loss since it went public in 2014 after Beijing slapped a record $2.8 billion fine on the nation’s largest e-commerce company for abusing its market position.

WALMART INVESTS IN GM'S CRUISE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE SUBSIDIARY

Walmart and some institutional investors have joined the latest investment in Cruise, bumping the capital influx into the General Motors autonomous vehicle subsidiary from over $2 billion to $2.75 billion.

FACEBOOK REPORTS SOARING QUARTERLY AD REVENUE, STOCK JUMPS

Facebook’s stock jumped Wednesday into record territory after the social media giant reported stronger-than-expected results for the first quarter thanks to soaring ad revenue.

GM: SOFTWARE, NEW BATTERY PARTS WILL SOLVE BOLT FIRE ISSUES

Engineers at General Motors have figured out how to fix a battery problem with the Chevrolet Bolt electric hatchback that caused five of them to catch fire.