Big Tech rolls on as investors shrug off regulatory pressure

WASHINGTON - Pressure is rising on Big Tech firms, signaling tougher regulation in Washington and elsewhere that could lead to the breakup of the largest platforms. But you'd hardly know by looking at their share prices.

Shares in Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet have hovered near record highs in recent weeks, lifted by pandemic-fueled surges in sales and profits that have helped the big firms extend their dominance of key economic sectors.

The Biden administration has given signs of more aggressive regulation with appointments of Big Tech critics at the Federal Trade Commission. 

But that has failed to dent the momentum of the largest tech firms, despite tough talk and antitrust litigation in the United States and Europe, with US lawmakers eyeing moves to make antitrust enforcement easier.

Big Tech critics in the United States and the EU want Apple and Google to loosen the grip of their online app marketplaces; more competition in a digital advertising market dominated by Google and Facebook; and better access to Amazon's e-commerce platform by third-party sellers.

One lawsuit tossed out by a judge but in the process of being refiled could force Facebook to spin off its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms, and some activists and lawmakers are pressing for breakups of the four tech giants.

All four have hit market valuations above $1 trillion, with Apple over $2 trillion. Alphabet shares are up some 80 percent from a year ago, with Facebook up nearly 40 percent and Apple almost 30 percent. Amazon shares are roughly on par with last year's level after breaking records in July.

Microsoft, with a $2 trillion valuation, has largely escaped antitrust scrutiny, even as it has benefitted from the cloud computing trend.

The surging growth has stoked complaints that the strongest firms are extending their dominance and squeezing out rivals. 

Yet analysts say any aggressive actions, in the legal or legislative arena, could take years to play out and face challenges. 

Fast-moving environment 

"Breakup is going to be nearly impossible," said analyst Daniel Newman at Futurum Research, citing the need for controversial legislative changes to antitrust laws.

Newman said a more likely outcome would be multibillion-dollar fines that the companies could easily absorb as they adjust their business models to adapt to problematic issues in a fast-moving environment.

"These companies have more resources and know-how than the regulators," he said.

Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities said any antitrust action would likely require legislative change -- unlikely with a divided Congress.

"Until investors start to see some consensus on where the regulatory and law changes go from an antitrust perspective, it's a contained risk, and they see a green light to buy tech," he said.

Other factors supporting Big Tech include a massive shift to cloud computing and online activities that allow the strongest players to benefit, and a crackdown in China on its large technology firms.

"The China regulatory crackdown has been so massive in scale and scope, it has driven investors from Chinese tech to US tech," Ives said. 

"Even though there is regulatory risk in the US, it pales in comparison to the crackdown we're seeing from Beijing."

Analysts say the big tech firms are also well-positioned to deal with tougher regulations.

Tracy Li of the investment firm Capital Group, in a recent blog post that the tech giants face major risks in regulation around privacy, content moderation and antitrust.

"Concerns related to privacy or content may actually strengthen, rather than weaken, the moats of the largest platforms," Li said. 

"These companies often boast well-established protocols and have more resources to tackle privacy and legal matters."

Facebook 'gold mine' 

Other analysts point to the swift movement by tech firms to adapt their business models in contrast to the slow efforts to regulate. 

Facebook, for example, is adapting to changing conditions by moving into the "Metaverse" of virtual and augmented reality experiences, noted Ali Mogharabi at Morningstar.

Mogharabi said Facebook's vast data collected from its 2.5 billion users gives it the ability to withstand a regulatory onslaught.

"Antitrust enforcement and further regulations pose a threat to Facebook's intangible assets, data," the analyst said in a July 29 note.

"However, increased restrictions on data access and usage would apply to all firms, not just Facebook."

Independent analyst Eric Seufert said in a tweet that "regulatory changes will have a significant impact on Facebook's business, but the sheer scale of Facebook and the growth trajectory of digital advertising ameliorate that. Facebook's gold mine is far from depleted."

Newman said the large tech firms have expanded during the pandemic by delivering innovative services, extending a trend that has seen the strong get stronger.

"These platforms have created better experiences for consumers, but it is extremely difficult for new entrants," he said.

For investors, Newman added, "that means no one is creating revenue and profit growth faster." 

Agence France-Presse

  

EU antitrust regulators probes Google's data collection

BRUSSELS - EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google's collection of data, the European Commission told Reuters on Saturday, suggesting the world's most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years.

Competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetize data.

The EU executive said it was seeking information on how and why Alphabet unit Google is collecting data, confirming a Reuters story on Friday.

"The Commission has sent out questionnaires as part of a preliminary investigation into Google's practices relating to Google's collection and use of data. The preliminary investigation is ongoing," the EU regulator told Reuters in an email.

A document seen by Reuters shows the EU's focus is on data related to local search services, online advertising, online ad targeting services, login services, web browsers and others.

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has handed down fines totaling more than 8 billion euros to Google in the last two years and ordered it to change its business practices.

Google has said it uses data to better its services and that users can manage, delete and transfer their data at any time. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google, Facebook business models threat to human rights: Amnesty

SAN FRANCISCO -- The data-collection business model fueling Facebook and Google represents a threat to human rights around the world, Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday.

The organization argued that offering people free online services and then using information about them to target money-making ads imperils a gamut of rights including freedom of opinion and expression.

"Despite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook's platforms come at a systemic cost," Amnesty said in its report, "Surveillance Giants."

"The companies' surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain, whereby they are only able to enjoy their human rights online by submitting to a system predicated on human rights abuse."

With ubiquitous surveillance, the two online giants are able to collect massive amounts of data which may be used against their customers, according to the London-based human rights group.

The business model is "inherently incompatible with the right to privacy," Amnesty contended.

The report maintained that the two Silicon Valley firms have established "near-total dominance over the primary channels through which people connect and engage with the online world," giving them unprecedented power over people's lives.

"Google and Facebook dominate our modern lives -- amassing unparalleled power over the digital world by harvesting and monetizing the personal data of billions of people," said Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International's secretary general.

"Their insidious control of our digital lives undermines the very essence of privacy and is one of the defining human rights challenges of our era."

The report called for governments to implement policies that ensure access to online services while protecting user privacy.

"Governments have an obligation to protect people from human rights abuses by corporations," Amnesty maintained.

"But for the past two decades, technology companies have been largely left to self-regulate."

DISPUTE ON FINDINGS

Facebook pushed back against what it contended were inaccuracies in the report, saying it strongly disagreed with its business model being characterized as surveillance-based.

"Our business model is what allows us to offer an important service where people can exercise foundational human rights -- to have a voice (freedom of expression) and be able to connect (freedom of association and assembly)," said a letter from Facebook privacy and public policy director Steve Satterfield in an annex to the Amnesty report.

"Facebook's business model is not, as your summary suggests, driven by the collection of data about people."

Facebook spotlighted its measures implemented which limit data information used for ad targeting; controls provided to users regarding their data; and steps taken to restrict abuses by apps on the social network.

"As you correctly note, we do not sell data; we sell ads," Facebook said.

Facebook chief and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has called for governments to implement uniform rules regarding data-handling instead of leaving private companies to make crucial social decisions such as the limits of free speech.

Google did not offer a specific written response.

But the Amnesty report noted that Google announced this month it would limit data that it shares with advertisers through its ad auction platform, following the launch of an inquiry by the Irish data protection authority and had launched a new feature allowing users to delete location data.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Privacy group says tech giants not delivering on political ads pledges

Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's Google have failed to provide adequate transparency for global users around political advertising on their services, a privacy advocacy group said on Tuesday.

A report from London-based charity Privacy International said that many users around the world lack meaningful insight into how ads are targeted on social media services.

The group called Google "especially deficient" in disclosure of information about targeting, which enables advertisers to deliver tailored messages to different groups of users.

Google spokeswoman Alex Krasov said "we know there is more work to be done and we’re looking at ways to bring more political ads transparency to more regions and more types of elections."

Big internet companies have been sharing more information around political advertising following scrutiny after US intelligence agencies found that Russia had targeted American voters with social media content, including ads, to try and influence the 2016 election. Russia has denied the allegations.

A Facebook spokesman said that the company had tightened its rules on political advertising in recent years and improved transparency on both Facebook and Instagram.

Twitter did not reply to Reuters requests for comment on the new report.

Privacy International's criticisms come ahead of the European Commission's own report, due by the end of the year, on the tech companies' commitments to its self-regulatory Code of Practice on Disinformation.

The companies and trade bodies for the advertising industry signed up to the European Commission's voluntary measures in October 2018 to ward off more heavy-handed legislation.

As part of recent transparency efforts, Facebook, Twitter and Google have all launched searchable online libraries of political ads on their platforms, but these have been criticized by researchers for being poorly maintained and failing to provide useful ad targeting information.

"Companies that rely on people's data to establish their market dominance should give all users heightened ad transparency, and transparency into the targeting and funding of ads should be meaningful," said Sara Nelson, a spokeswoman for Privacy International.

The new report singled out Google for not having defined what it considers to be "political issues," saying this rendered transparency into ads on such issues on the site less meaningful.

It also argued that as Twitter, outside of the United States, does not give the same level of transparency to "promoted tweets" as it does to political ads, these paid-for tweets run without the heightened transparency they warrant.

In the United States, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner have been pushing for the introduction of the Honest Ads Act, which would require platforms to disclose the purchasers of ads, applying the same rules that exist for TV and radio.

"A patchwork of voluntary measures from tech companies isn’t sufficient — we need to pass the Honest Ads Act," Klobuchar said in a statement last month when tech company Snap, which owns disappearing messaging app Snapchat, released its own political ad spending data last month.

Some platforms, such as Chinese company ByteDance's TikTok and photo-sharing site Pinterest, do not allow political ads on their platforms.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google wins EU fight against worldwide 'right to be forgotten'

LUXEMBOURG - Google is not required to apply an EU "right to be forgotten" to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU's top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision.

The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe's borders or not. 

The US internet giant had argued that the removal of search results required under EU law should not extend to its google.com domain or its other non-EU sites.

The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as Google must carry out "de-referencing" of links as demanded by a regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its sites, that "right to be forgotten" did not need to go further.

"There is no obligation under EU law" for search engine operators such as Google "to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine," the court said.

But it did stress that de-referencing on EU sites must include measures to "seriously discourage" a European internet user being able to get around the "right to be forgotten" by accessing unrestricted results from a search engine on a non-EU domain.

That demands "geo-blocking", which Google says it already uses effectively in Europe. 

FRANCE SEES LOOPHOLE 

But it was unclear the legal battle over the issue is entirely over.

The French data regulator CNIL, whose fight since 2014 to have Google apply the "right to be forgotten" to all its search domains sparked the EU court case, reacted by saying the ruling did not expressly prevent it demanding worldwide de-referencing.

"If EU law does not impose global de-referencing, it does not forbid it either," CNIL said in a statement.

"As a result, a regulatory authority, and therefore CNIL, is competent to demand a search engine to de-reference results on all its search engine versions if that is justified, in certain cases, to guarantee the rights of the person concerned," it said.

CNIL also said it was up to France's highest court to deem whether Google's geo-blocking technology was sufficient.

CNIL in 2016 fined Google 100,000 euros ($110,000) for not complying with its order to apply the "right to forget" everywhere. The regulator argues that, for de-referencing to be effective on the internet, it must apply to all domains wherever they are.

Google appealed to France's highest court, which in turn referred to the European Court of Justice, leading to Tuesday's ruling.

GOOGLE HAILS WIN 

The EU court case was seen as pitting individuals' rights to privacy online against freedom of information.

If France had won Tuesday, it could have deepened a rift between Europe and the United States, which is home to most of the internet's behemoths and whose President Donald Trump has railed against what he sees as EU meddling in US business.

Google hailed the decision by the EU court.

"It's good to see that the court agreed with our arguments," its lawyer, Peter Fleischer, said in a statement, adding that Google has worked "to strike a sensible balance between people's rights of access to information and privacy".

The US company and other stakeholders had warned that authoritarian countries outside Europe could abuse global de-referencing requests to cover up rights violations.

Google's position was bolstered in January by a non-binding opinion from the EU court's top legal adviser, advocate general Maciej Szpunar, who recommended judges "should limit the scope of the de-referencing that search engine operators are required to carry out, to the EU".

The case had been closely watched, especially as Europe has also already emerged as a global rule-setter in terms of data protection on the internet. 

A 2016 General Data Protection Regulation it enacted that covers all EU citizens and residents has forced many sites and companies around the globe to comply.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google to pay $170M fine for collecting YouTube data from kids

CAPTION: FILE PHOTO: People are silhouetted as they pose with laptops in front of a screen projected with a Google logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. This logo has been updated and is no longer in use. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo]


WASHINGTON - Google agreed Wednesday to pay $170 million to settle charges that it illegally collected and shared data from children on its YouTube video service, a deal critics said was too soft on the internet giant.

The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the New York state Attorney General is the largest amount in a case involving the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 federal law, officials said.

Officials said YouTube violated the law that requires child-directed websites and online services to obtain parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13 which may be used for advertising.

The company marketed itself as a destination for children and benefitted by selling advertising to toymakers and others seeking to connect with young audiences, according to the FTC.

FTC chairman Joe Simons said the settlement "prevents YouTube and Google from turning a blind eye to the existence of kids-directed content" on its platform.

Simons said the settlement makes Google liable for violations by third-party content creators, going beyond federal law that requires the platform to have knowledge that videos are directed at children.

"No other company in America is subject to these requirements," he said.


Change to business practices

Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said the deal calls for "major reforms" to YouTube's business practices in addition to the fines.

"Google and YouTube knowingly and illegally monitored, tracked, and served targeted ads to young children just to keep advertising dollars rolling in," said James. 

YouTube outlined how it would change the way it handles children's content under the agreement.

"We will treat data from anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user," YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki said in a statement.

"This means that we will limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service. We will also stop serving personalized ads on this content entirely, and some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments and notifications."

Wojcicki added that Google would create a $100 million fund "dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children's content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally."


'Insufficient' remedies

The settlement, which must be approved by a federal court, calls for the FTC to receive $136 million and New York state the remaining $34 million.

The deal was approved by a 3-2 vote of the FTC commissioners, with the two Democrats calling for tougher penalties.

The deal "repeats many of the same mistakes from the flawed Facebook settlement: no individual accountability, insufficient remedies to address the company's financial incentives, and a fine that still allows the company to profit from its lawbreaking," Democratic commissioner Rohit Chopra said in a dissent.

"The terms of the settlement were not even significant enough to make Google issue a warning to its investors."

Activists who filed a complaint last year against YouTube also said the deal falls short.

"We are gratified that the FTC has finally forced Google to confront its longstanding lie that it wasn't targeting children on YouTube," said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, one of the groups in the complaint.

The "paltry financial penalty of $170 million" is a mere slap and "sends a signal that if you are a politically powerful corporation, you do not have to fear any serious financial consequences when you break the law," Chester said.

Josh Golin of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood said it was "disappointing that the FTC isn't requiring more substantive changes or doing more to hold Google accountable for harming children through years of illegal data collection."

Simons said that it would be difficult to get a harsher penalty imposed in court, which would require proving that Google knew about its violations from third parties.

The regulatory chief added that the settlement "sends a strong signal about the importance of children's privacy."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

4 ways Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google can be reined in

The Justice Department is investigating them, as is the Federal Trade Commission. Congress and state attorneys general have their sights on the companies, too.

There is no shortage of people arguing that America’s large technology companies — namely Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google — have gotten too big and too powerful. That has helped spur the scrutiny by the government officials.

But what to do about the issue? On that, the industry’s critics are split.

Some would like to see the businesses broken up. Others want more robust regulation. And there are shades of gray on both sides. Here are four of the most prominent prescriptions being debated.

BRIGHT-LINE BREAKUPS

This is the most drastic surgery, splitting off large portions of the big tech companies.

The guiding principle is simple. If you own a dominant online marketplace or platform, you cannot also offer the goods, services and software applications sold on that marketplace.

So Amazon could not own the leading e-commerce marketplace and sell Amazon-label goods there. Or Google could not have both the dominant search engine and its Google Shopping service, which shows up in search results. Apple could own an app store that offers music services, but not also its own music service sold there. And so on.

Bundling businesses on top of a dominant platform invites conflicts of interest and discrimination against rivals, thwarting competition, proponents of this countermeasure say.

“The world is going to be better off after we break up these companies,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Open Markets Institute, a research and advocacy group.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has embraced the idea of bright-line breakups in her presidential campaign.

But such a sweeping overhaul of the tech industry could bring unknown risks for the companies and shareholders. Many economists are leery of broadly prohibiting companies from entering new businesses, fearing potential losses of efficiency and consumer welfare.

The last big government-mandated breakup targeted AT&T in the early 1980s, and that was the dissolution of a government-granted monopoly.

Still, the idea is not unthinkable. The remedy initially proposed in the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s, endorsed by three leading economists, was to split the Windows operating system business from Microsoft’s Office productivity software business. After George W. Bush was elected president, his administration settled the case without a breakup.

SELECTIVE SPLIT-UPS

This is a case-by-case approach to breakups rather than a broad rule applied to all the tech giants. A current example is a plan that would require Facebook to shed Instagram and WhatsApp. A detailed proposal on this, laying out the alleged anti-competitive conduct, was developed by two leading antitrust scholars, Tim Wu of Columbia Law School and Scott Hemphill of New York University Law School, along with Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. (Wu is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.)

The three have made their presentation to federal and state antitrust regulators and to congressional investigators. They explain that starting about 2010, when mobile computing and photo-sharing services were taking off and Facebook was lagging in those areas, the social network embarked on a years long campaign to buy nascent competitors.

The biggest purchases were of the photo-sharing service Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.

Typically, regulators challenge mergers when they give a company a big share of an established market. That was not the case when Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram, a startup with 13 employees in an emerging field.

Instead, the three argue, the strategy was to buy out budding threats. “We think that’s the better perspective of what was going on — maintenance of monopoly in the social network market,” Hemphill said.

In Facebook’s case, Wu said, “the remedy is straightforward: Unwind the acquisitions.”

But an issue in spinning off a unit like Instagram is whether doing so enhances competition. Would a stand-alone Instagram be a real rival to Facebook, or would consumers simply stay with the dominant social network, Facebook, and Instagram suffer?

A NEW TECH WATCHDOG

Getting breakups approved by the nation’s courts, which are generally conservative on economic matters, would be a stretch. Besides, some experts argue, a more comprehensive way to police the big tech companies would be with a beefed-up force of regulators.

One idea is the creation of a new regulator, a Digital Authority. It would be an expert group to supplement traditional antitrust regulators in the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. It would be able to move faster and have the expertise to constantly track the tech markets and trends.

“Its mandate would be to protect competition,” said Fiona Scott Morton, an economics professor at the Yale University School of Management.

The new regulator was the central recommendation of a recent report about the digital platforms that was sponsored by the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago. Scott Morton led a group of eight antitrust experts and technologists who worked on the study. Since the report was released in May, members of the group have made a series of presentations to policymakers.

In online markets, the flywheel of network effects — the more people who use a service, the more users, developers and advertisers it attracts — is especially powerful, creating dominant companies. Yet even in digital markets, the door to new entrants must remain open, said Scott Morton, a former senior official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

In traditional antitrust, regulators and courts move at a measured pace, slowly and often after the fact. The goal of a new digital regulator, she said, “would be to save the rival before it is killed.”

The authority, Scott Morton said, could receive a complaint from a competitor and schedule a hearing two weeks later, when both sides would present testimony.

A new regulator? It would be a tough sell in today’s political environment. But we do have specialist federal regulators in many other industries, including banking, aviation, transportation, drugs and agriculture.

Reining in the big tech companies, Scott Morton said, is increasingly becoming a bipartisan concern. “At some point, society will say this is too much power without real oversight,” she said.

UNLOCK THE DATA

There are also narrower, targeted regulatory proposals. Some of these involve rules that would loosen a dominant company’s control of user data, by either forcing that company to share the data with a smaller competitor or giving users more ability to take their data from one service and move it to a competitor. The Stigler Center study cited those data moves in a list of potential regulations and enforcement actions.

The idea, broadly, is that data can be a barrier to competition, and that freeing up the personal information collected by the tech giants could lower that barrier.

The big online platforms are data monetization machines, collecting, analyzing and exploiting information from consumers, merchants, advertisers and others. And the network effect of data is formidable. The more data the companies have, the more fuel to feed the machine-learning algorithms that power their businesses.

“Data is the real trump card these platforms have,” said A. Douglas Melamed, a professor at Stanford Law School and a member of the Stigler Center study team.

Melamed, a former senior antitrust official at the Justice Department, favors a rule that would require dominant digital platforms to give other companies access to their user data for a fee. That would help level the playing field for new entrants and other rivals, he said, but wouldn’t be free for them, either.

“You let the competitors have access to their backrooms for a reasonable fee,” Melamed said. Such a solution would require regulatory oversight to set guidelines for fair licensing terms. Data sharing would also entail some privacy risk, since no privacy-protection technique is foolproof.

A related idea is to mandate that tech companies make user data portable. That means consumers could move their information from one service to another, forcing digital businesses to compete with superior offerings rather than data lock-in.

The regulator would need the technical skills to ensure that the consumer data was handed over in a way that would let a competitor use it easily.

“The details are crucial, if you’re really going to give consumers more choice and control,” said Jamie Morgenstern, a computer scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology who worked on the study.


2019 The New York Times Company

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Consumers supporting US economy amid manufacturing slump

WASHINGTON - American consumers appear to be carrying the US economy in their shopping carts as manufacturing slumps amid President Donald Trump's trade conflict with China, and financial signals warn of a possible recession.

"The economy is phenomenal," Trump said Thursday. "We had a couple of bad days but we are going to have some very good days because we had to take on China."

But despite his cheerleading, a raft of new US data reports showed a mixed picture on the economy, leading Wall Street to post a modest recovery from its worst day of the year.

Global financial markets remain concerned about slowing European and Chinese economies, which caused a closely watched recession signal to flash red, sending stocks worldwide down two percent or more on Wednesday.

Longer term bond yields continued to fall with the 30-year US Treasury bond dropping below 2 percent for the first time ever, while the 10-year hit the lowest point in 3 years as investors sought safe havens to hedge against a possible downturn.

Trump continued to call on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, saying it made a "big mistake" by increasing too fast.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell "should be cutting rates. Every country all over the world is cutting. We want to stay sort of even," Trump told reporters.

The US manufacturing sector, which declined in the first two quarters of the year, putting it in recession, slumped again in July and is now down 1.5 percent this year, the Federal Reserve reported.

That comes on the heels of other data showing the trade war has undermined business confidence and is curtailing investment amid the uncertainty.

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the industrial sector is being dragged down by overseas developments," analysts John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics said.

Their analysis highlighted "the impact of tariffs on supply chains, and the effects of uncertainty about these policies may have had in subduing capital spending."

Although Trump has made boosting manufacturing a central focus of his economic policies, this sector makes up a dwindling share of the US economy.

CONFIDENT SHOPPERS


Even before Trump gave retailers an early Christmas bonus by delaying tariffs on more than half the $300 billion in Chinese goods targeted for new 10 percent punitive duties, Americans' spending habits were buoying the economy.

That trend continued in July, the first month of the third quarter, as retail sales jumped 0.7 percent, far more than expected, driven by e-commerce and Amazon's 48-hour prime "day," according to new data from the Commerce Department.

"The United States is now, by far, the Biggest, Strongest and Most Powerful Economy in the World, it is not even close!" Trump tweeted. "As others falter, we will only get stronger. Consumers are in the best shape ever, plenty of cash."

Walmart -- which has been beefing up its online presence to compete with Amazon -- added to the good retail news, reporting better than expected profits in the latest quarter and boosting its forecast for the year.

"Households are in good shape with spending and that should continue as long as the labor market remains healthy," National Retail Federation chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said.

But he warned that financial market volatility and "increased trade tensions in recent weeks may put a wind of caution in consumer spending as we move forward in 2019."

Trump told reporters Thursday that talks with China set for September are "still on" -- less than a week after he said they might be canceled -- and trade negotiators also have been in contact by phone.

"We're talking and they're offering things that are very good," he said, but warned that the US still has at its disposal "the ultimate form of retaliation."

By December 15 all goods imported from China will face stiff US tariffs, and markets are watching anxiously for signs of progress in the dispute.

Meanwhile, China, which has been gradually reducing its holdings of US Treasury debt, for the first time since May 2017 is no longer the biggest US creditor, according to data released Thursday. Japan retook the top spot.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

South Korea to launch world's first national 5G networks

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea launches the world’s first fully-fledged 5G mobile networks Friday, a transformational leap that already has superpowers sparring for control of an innovation that could potentially change the day-to-day lives of billions of people.

The superfast communications heralded by fifth-generation wireless technology will ultimately underpin everything from toasters to telephones; from electric cars to power grids.

But while the South has won the race to be first to provide the user experience, that is only one part of a wider battle that has pit the United States against China and ensnared giants including Huawei.

Hyper-wired South Korea has long had a reputation for technical prowess, and Seoul has made the 5G rollout a priority as it seeks to stimulate stuttering economic growth.

The system will bring smartphones near-instantaneous connectivity -- 20 times faster than the existing 4G -- allowing users to download entire movies in less than a second.

In the same way that 3G enabled widespread mobile web access and 4G made new applications work ranging from social media to Uber, 5G will herald a new level of connectivity, empowered by speed.

It is crucial for the future development of devices ranging from self-driving vehicles that send data traffic to one another in real time, industrial robots, drones and other elements of the Internet of Things.

That makes it a vital part of the infrastructure of tomorrow, and the 5G standard is expected to bring about $565 billion in global economic benefits by 2034, according to the London-based Global System for Mobile Communications, an industry alliance.

ONE MILLION DEVICES

But the implications have pitted Washington against Beijing in an increasingly bitter standoff.

The US has pressed its allies and major economies to avoid 5G solutions from Chinese-owned telecom giant Huawei, citing security risks that technological backdoors could give Beijing access to 5G-connected utilities and other components.

But Chinese firms dominate 5G technology.

Huawei, the global leader, has registered 1,529 5G patents, according to data analysis firm IPlytics.

Combined with manufacturers ZTE and Oppo, plus the China Academy of Telecommunications Technology, Chinese entities own a total of 3,400 patents, it says -- more than a third of the total. 

South Korea comes next, with its companies holding 2,051 patents.

In contrast, US firms have 1,368 altogether, IPlytics said -- 29 fewer than Finland's Nokia alone.

All three of South Korea's mobile networks -- KT, SK Telecom and LG UPlus go live with their 5G services.

"5G's hyper speed can connect one million devices within a one square kilometer zone simultaneously," KT said in a report. 

On the same day, Samsung Electronics will release the Galaxy S10 5G, the world's first available smartphone using the tech, with rival LG following with the V50s two weeks later.

COST BARRIER

More than 3 million South Koreans will switch to 5G by the end of this year, predicted KT vice-president Lee Pil-jae.

Until now, no mobile networks have offered nationwide 5G access. In the US, hotspots in a few selected cities have offered 5G speeds but over WiFi only, while Qatari firm Ooredoo says it offers 5G services in and around Doha, but does not have devices available to use them.

US network carrier Verizon will launch fifth-generation services for mobile users in Chicago and Minneapolis next week, with more than 30 cities due to follow this year. 

Japan is also expected to roll out a limited deployment in 2019 before full services start in time for next year's Tokyo Olympics. 

But cost is likely to be a barrier for user uptake initially, analysts say: the cheapest version of the new Galaxy handset will be 1.39 million won ($1,200).

"While there are many cheap 4G smartphones under $300, Samsung's 5G phones are well over $1,000, which could be a major minus point for cost-savvy consumers," a KT representative told AFP. 

None of South Korea's three network operators would say how much they have invested in 5G -- but Seoul's economy minister Hong Nam-ki put it at at least $2.6 billion this year alone.

"If 5G is fully implemented," he said, "it will greatly improve people's lives". 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Some 4.5 pct of US adults identify as LGBT - study

An estimated 4.5 percent of US adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and they tend to be younger and poorer than the population at large, according to an analysis of polling data released on Tuesday.

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law examined previously released results from the Gallup Daily Tracking survey and went deeper into the data, enabling a more detailed demographic picture of the adult US LGBT population of roughly 11.3 million people.

The institute found Washington, D.C., had the highest percentage of LGBT people at 9.8 percent and North Dakota had the lowest at 2.7 percent.

The self-identifying LGBT population also skews younger. Only 23 percent are age 50 or older, compared with 47 percent of non-LGBT adults, and 56 percent of LGBT adults are under age 35 compared with 28 percent for the non-LGBT population.

"Younger people are more likely to actually live as LGBT and to identify that way because they are growing up in a time when it's more acceptable to acknowledge those feelings and to act on them," said Kerith Conron, research director at the Williams Institute.

The LGBT population is also economically disadvantaged: more likely to lack access to a sufficient nutrition or to have household incomes below $24,000, the analysis found.

Although LGBT people come from all ethnic groups, people of color represent a slightly higher percentage than they do in the general population for reasons that require more research, Conron said.

The Williams Institute, which specializes in LGBT research for law and public policy, also confirmed its previous estimate of the transgender population at 0.6 percent, or roughly 1.4 million US adults.

Conron said an apparent one-percentage-point increase in the LGBT population from 2011 was likely the result of more people feeling comfortable responding to questions about their sexual orientation.

In 2011, the Williams Institute estimated the US LGBT population at 3.5 percent based on other survey data.

Modern polls and surveys estimate the LGBT population well below a common but unattributed figure of 10 percent that sexologists link to an oversimplification of Alfred Kinsey's work some 70 years ago.

However, in surveys that are more anonymous and private, closer to 10 percent of respondents say they have some level of same-sex attraction even if they stop short of identifying themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, Conron said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fury at HIV data leak in conservative Singapore

Rico has lived with HIV for almost a decade, confiding in only a small number of people in socially conservative Singapore, fearful of the reaction. Last month, he got a phone call saying information about his condition had been published online.

Rico was one of 14,200 people whose HIV status, name and address were dumped on the internet by an American man who is believed to have obtained the confidential data from his partner -- a senior Singaporean doctor.

"The LGBT community is angry and frustrated with the entire ordeal," said Rico, who did not want to be identified by his full name.

The 31-year-old told AFP he was frightened that "the leaked information may change people's perception of me", adding that he had not told all his friends he was HIV-positive.

"Society may be tolerant to the LGBT community but I do not think they are ready to accept a gay and HIV-positive individual. Not in my lifetime," he said.

While Singapore is modern in many ways, observers say social attitudes have not progressed at the same pace as economic development and are often highly conservative, as in other parts of Asia.

Those in Singapore with HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- have long complained of prejudice and campaigners say the negative reaction to the data breach has highlighted the stigma.

A human resources manager working in the hospitality industry was quoted in local paper the Straits Times as saying she would sack any of her staff if their names were among those published.

The virus is usually transmitted through sex or sharing of needles and cannot be spread via casual contact, such as shaking hands or hugging.

Foreigners with HIV were for many years not allowed to set foot in Singapore at all. In 2015, authorities lifted the ban on foreigners with the virus making short visits but those seeking to work in Singapore must still pass a test.

The affluent city-state of 5.6 million people is home to many overseas workers, from wealthy bankers to laborers at construction sites.

WIDESPREAD CONSTERNATION

The leak, which involved the data of 5,400 Singaporeans and 8,800 foreigners, has caused widespread consternation. Sumita Banerjee, executive director of NGO Action for AIDS (AFA), said people with the virus had been calling up her group in tears.

"One of the main concerns is that employers, friends and family who were not aware might react badly," she told AFP, adding some were afraid of losing their jobs.

But according to guidelines from health authorities, there are generally no valid grounds for terminating the services of an HIV-positive employee simply due to their condition.

Singapore authorities say they have rushed to block access to the information that was dumped online, allegedly by Mikhy Farrera Brochez, although they have warned he still has it and could release it again.

Since the leak, local media has reported Brochez was arrested in the United States for allegedly trespassing in his mother's home, although the case appears unconnected to the data breach.

Speaking to the Straits Times, he protested his innocence and described reports about him as "terribly nasty and inaccurate".

HIV-positive psychologist Brochez first arrived in the city-state in 2008 and used blood samples from his boyfriend, doctor Ler Teck Siang, to pass an HIV test and get a work permit.

He allegedly obtained the data of HIV-positive people from Ler, who had access to the official HIV registry.

In May 2016, police seized documents, a laptop and mobile phones during searches of Brochez's and Ler's apartments after receiving information that the American may be in possession of confidential data.

Brochez was subsequently jailed for lying about his HIV status, using fake degree certificates to get work, and taking drugs.

He was deported from Singapore in 2018, but unknown to authorities, he was still in possession of the HIV data, which he later released.

Authorities have not offered any explanation as to why Brochez leaked the data.

The government has come under fire for the leak, the second major data breach disclosed within the space of a few months -- last year, health records of about 1.5 million Singaporeans were stolen in a suspected state-sponsored hack.

In a statement, the health ministry said that the "well being" of those affected by the HIV data leak was their "priority" and support was being offered.

But for Rico, the damage has already been done, and he fears some people with HIV will now refuse to seek treatment due to safety concerns.

"I will not be surprised if the fear drives people underground," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'We don't sell people's data,' says Facebook's Zuckerberg

SAN FRANCISCO, United States -- Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday renewed his defense of the social network's business, arguing that targeting ads based on interests was different from selling people's data.

"If we're committed to serving everyone, then we need a service that is affordable to everyone," Zuckerberg said in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal.

"The best way to do that is to offer services for free, which ads enable us to do."

Last year was a horrific one for Facebook, marked by a series of scandals over data protection and privacy and concerns that the leading social network had been manipulated by foreign interests for political purposes. 

Despite the scandals, Facebook revenue and user numbers have continued to grow.

Making ads relevant, and less annoying, involves understanding people's interests, according to Zuckerberg.

Facebook uses "signals" such as pages users "like" and what they share about themselves to target advertising.

"Sometimes this means people assume we do things that we don't do," Zuckerberg said of the business of supporting the social network with targeted ads.

"For example, we don't sell people's data, even though it's often reported that we do."

Selling user data would not only undermine essential trust in the social network, it would go against Facebook's business interests because rivals could use it to compete for advertising, he reasoned.

Facebook also provides users with controls regarding information used for ad targeting and lets them block advertisers, Zuckerberg pointed out.

Criticism of Facebook has included the social network being used as a platform to spread divisive or misleading information, as was the case during the 2016 election that put US President Donald Trump in the White House.

"Clickbait and other junk may drive engagement in the near term, but it would be foolish for us to show this intentionally, because it's not what people want," Zuckerberg wrote.

"Another question is whether we leave harmful or divisive content up because it drives engagement. We don’t."

Facebook has been investing in artificial intelligence and adding employees devoted to ferreting out content that violates the social network's rules.

The expense could weigh on its quarterly earnings, due for release next week.

"The only reason bad content remains is because the people and artificial-intelligence systems we use to review it are not perfect -- not because we have an incentive to ignore it," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Facebook gave data on user's friends to certain companies - documents

BENGALURU/SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc let some companies, including Netflix and Airbnb, access users' lists of friends after it cut off that data for most other apps around 2015, according to documents released on Wednesday by a British lawmaker investigating fake news and social media.

The 223 pages of internal communication from 2012 to 2015 between high-level employees, including founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, provide new evidence of previously aired contentions that Facebook has picked favorites and engaged in anti-competitive behavior.

The documents show that Facebook tracked growth of competitors and denied them access to user data available to others.

In 2014, the company identified about 100 apps as being either "Mark's friends" or "Sheryl's friends" and also tracked how many apps were spending money on Facebook ads, according to the documents, referring to Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

The insight into the thinking of Facebook executives over that period could invite new regulatory scrutiny into its business practices.

Facebook said it stood by its deliberations and decisions, but noted that it would relax one "out-of-date" policy that restricted competitors' use of its data.

One document said such competitor apps had previously needed Zuckerberg's approval before using tools Facebook makes available to app developers.

Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Wednesday that the company could have prevented the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal had it cracked down on app developers a year earlier in 2014.

Misuse of Facebook user data by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, along with another data breach this year and revelations about Facebook's lobbying tactics have heightened government scrutiny globally on the company's privacy and content moderation practices.

Stifel analysts on Wednesday lowered their rating on Facebook shares to "hold," saying that "political and regulatory blowback seems like it may lead to restrictions on how Facebook operates, over time."

Damian Collins, a Conservative British parliamentarian who leads a committee on media and culture, made the internal documents public after demanding them last month under threat of sanction from Six4Three.

The defunct app developer obtained them as part of its ongoing lawsuit in California state court alleging that Facebook violated promises to app developers when it ended their access to likes, photos and other data of users' friends in 2015.

Facebook, which has described the Six4Three case as baseless, said the released communications were "selectively leaked" and it defended its practices.

'WHITELISTED' FOR ACCESS TO FRIENDS DATA

Though filed under seal and redacted in the lawsuit, the internal communications needed to be made public because "they raise important questions about how Facebook treats users' data, their policies for working with app developers, and how they exercise their dominant position in the social media market," Collins said on Twitter.

Dating app Badoo and ride-hailing app Lyft were among other companies 'whitelisted' for access to data about users' friends, the documents showed. 

Lyft wanted to show carpool riders their mutual friends as an "ice breaker," even if those friends were not using Lyft, according to one email. Facebook said in an email that it approved the request because it would add to a feeling of “safety” for riders.

Facebook described such deals as short-term extensions, but it is unclear exactly when the various agreements ended.

Netflix, Airbnb, Lyft and Badoo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The documents show an exchange between Zuckerberg and senior executive Justin Osofsky in 2013, in which they decided to stop giving friends' list access to Vine on the day that social media rival Twitter Inc launched the video-sharing service.

"We’ve prepared reactive PR," Osofsky wrote, to which Zuckerberg replied, "Yup, go for it."

Twitter declined to comment.

Friends' data had stoked the growth of many apps because it enabled people to easily connect with Facebook buddies on a new service.

Facebook weighed charging other apps for access to its developer tools, including the friends lists, if they did not buy a certain amount of advertising from Facebook, according to the emails. In one from 2012, Zuckerberg wrote that he was drawing inspiration for business models from books he had been reading about the banking industry.

Facebook said it ultimately maintained free access to the tools.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Privacy watchdog probes Facebook security breach

MANILA - The National Privacy Commission said Sunday it has begun probing the security breach reported by Facebook, which logged out millions of users last Friday. 

Facebook had already posted a "security update" statement, explaining how a "security issue" affected around 50 million Facebook accounts. 

But lawyer Kiko Acero from the commission's Complaints and Investigation Division said they still need a clearer explanation on what really happened. 

"Kung ginamit siya ng isang taong may malicious intent, hinahanap namin sino yung naging pabaya sa problemang 'to… Lahat 'yan tinitignan namin," he said. 

(If it was used by a person with malicious intent, we want to know who is liable for this problem. We are looking into all of this.)

In a statement, Facebook said they took immediate measures upon learning the security issue, which caused around 90 million Facebook users worldwide to be logged out of their accounts. 

"Our investigation is still in its early stages. But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted 'View As' a feature," Facebook said. 

"This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in," it added.

Manila Bulletin technology news editor Art Samaniego said the Facebook users who were logged out of their accounts could be potential targets of hackers.

Samaniego said this may put all other social media sites and service applications connected to an account at risk because "token sessions" are involved. 

"Ito yung digital signature natin na pag nag-log in sa Facebook, malalaman ng apps and services na ikaw 'yun. Pag nag-log in ka via Facebook makukuha 'yung mga details mo," he said. 

(This is our digital signature when we log into Facebook, which lets apps and services know that it is you. When you log in via Facebook, your details will be known.)

"Ibig-sabihin pag nanakaw to (token sessions) ng mga hacker. Puwede niya ma-log in 'yun sa mga services na ginagamit mo halimbawa Instagram, WhatsApp, Tindr," he added.

(This means that if these tokens are stolen by hackers, they can log into the services you use like Instagram, WhatsApp, Tindr.)

Samaniego urged users to use two-factor authentication for their accounts. He also discouraged netizens from using the same passwords for different accounts.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

British ministers' phone numbers leaked in app flaw

LONDON - Phone numbers and other personal details of senior ministers from Britain's Conservative party were made public by an app security flaw on Saturday, including those of top Brexiteers Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.

Several top MPs reportedly received nuisance calls after their profiles were accessed on the official mobile application for the annual party conference, which kicks off this weekend.

The security breach saw members of the public able to enter the profiles using just the politicians' email addresses -- easily available online -- to view and edit the data stored within.

Former foreign secretary Johnson had his profile picture briefly swapped for pornography and his job title changed to an profane insult, according to several Twitter users.

Meanwhile Environment Secretary Gove's picture was changed to one of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, his former employer when he was a journalist.

Among the first to report the flaw was Dawn Foster, a columnist for daily The Guardian.

"The Tory conference app allows you to log in as other people and view their contact details just with their email address, no emailed security links, and post comments as them," she wrote on Twitter, using a colloquial name for the party.

"They've essentially made every journalist, politician and attendee's mobile number public. Fantastic."

A Conservative party spokesperson apologized for the breach, saying the technical issue had "been resolved and the app is now functioning securely".

Britain's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), said it was investigating the data breach related to the app, which was developed by an Australian firm called Crown Comms.

The opposition Labor Party said the blunder showed the ruling party could not be trusted in matters of security.

"They can't even build a conference app that keeps the data of their members, MPs and others attending safe and secure," said shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett.

The breach is the latest embarrassment for Prime Minister Theresa May's embattled party, whose yearly gathering begins on Sunday in the city of Birmingham in central England.

Last year's conference was peppered with mishaps, with May's attempt to move past Brexit splits marred by a protest, a collapsing set and a coughing fit.

During the 2017 event, a prankster interrupted the leader's address by handing her a P45 -- a form given to those leaving a job.

No sooner had she resumed, May began coughing uncontrollably and continued to struggle on and off throughout the rest of the speech, as 2 letters fell off the slogan on the wall behind her.

source: news.abs-cbn.com