Category Archives: Big Tech

In Europe in particular, more and more measures are being taken to enforce significant technology restrictions. The power of big tech companies has seemed limitless in recent years. It now appears that it is only a matter of time before this is over, as big technology is under a magnifying glass and increasingly challenged.

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Companies like Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Meta (Facebook) are getting survey after survey. These companies have a dominant position in certain sectors and make optimal use of this as possible. You cant blame them from a business point of view, but sometimes they push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Also, terms like abuse of power have become almost weekly and agreements and rules are not always observed.

In addition to Europe, you can also see that these companies are viewed more significantly in the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Many countries are already conducting investigations and some authorities have already imposed restrictions. However, it is expected that there will be many more regulations for these types of companies in the coming years.

In these Techzine talks, were looking at what countries can do to take control of big tech and what can change.

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Is the end of big tech looming? Is regulation on the way? - Blog - Aviation Analysis Wing

Evan Guido| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Were seeing a decade-long theme play out again. Content is to tech what location, location, location is to real estate. As mega media deals like the Microsoft/Activision and Sony/Bungie combinations continue to pile up, a brief recap of thirty years of content wars might be in order.

In the first tech wave of the 1990s, the focus was on so-called killer apps, software that was so good that it drove people to buy hardware. Word processing programs ended typewriters. VisiCalc, the grandfather of Excel, brought starship level number crunching to the masses. Microsofts Access gave small companies the ability to build huge databases. And lets not forget the most lethal of killer apps, Mosaic and Netscape, the browsers that brought us that new internet thing via bleeps and blat sounds over the phone lines.

Thirty new calendars later, were reminded once again of the importance of content. Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard on Jan. 18for a whopping $69 billion dollar deal to gain control over videogame franchises Call of Duty, Diablo, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft.Less than two weeks later, Sony paid$3.6 billion for Bungie, the studio behind Halo, and would gain control over Destiny, another leading gaming franchise.

Parents despondent over their slacker gaming kids might take comfort from an observation on CNET by Wall Street analyst Michael Pachter, who pointed out that with Bungie having 900 employees, thats $4 million per software developer. Sony also mentioned there are more acquisitions in the works. Play on, kids! Get back on that couch!

Global antitrust regulators are going to scrutinize the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal closely because, hey, its Microsoft doing what it does best: seeking to dominate operating systems, in this case videogame consoles. Its also an easy argument for Microsoft to make that killer apps can pop up anywhere, and what once was killer can easily become prey.

The Aughts brought the collapse of the merger between the legendary juggernaut AOL (Youve Got Mail) and TimeWarner, whose decline hopefully wont be a foreshadowing of the decline of Meta Platforms. On Wednesday, Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced disappointing earnings, sales and holds modest expectations of the future. The companys share price dropped by as much as 20% in overnight trading when it failed to hit quarterly profit and sales expectations.

Metas customers are aging. Aging customers buy less stuff and Apple enabled privacy protection that made it more difficult for Facebook to track your every fleeting thought online. Metas pivot towards the virtual/augmented reality future (which Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple are pursuing as well) seems like the right move at the right time. But, as we see, the success depends on the execution, which will come from you guessed it a killer app.

Evan R. Guido is the founder of Aksala Wealth Advisors LLC, a 2018 Forbes Next-Gen Advisors List Member, and Financial Professional at Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Evan heads a team of retirement transition strategists for clients who consider themselves the Millionaire Next Door. He can be reached at 941-500-5122 or eguido@aksalawealth.com.Read more of his insights atheraldtribune.com/business. Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM, member FINRA, SIPC.Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory ServicesSM, insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.8225 Natures Way, Suite 119, Lakewood Ranch, FL34202.

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RETIRE ON TRACK: Content is to tech what 'location, location, location' is to real estate - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Big tech companies have integrated themselves into our lives in a way that is seamless, helping them amass influence and power that surpasses even that of governments, journalist Sara Gay Forden said on Friday at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

We cant even extract ourselves from these companies because we depend on them so much, Forden said, pointing out that though her talk was titled How to Make the Internet Less Evil, technology is not inherently wicked, and has been used for good as well.

Im not here saying technology is evil. It has helped us stay connected, helps us work, play and shop. But just because it has given us so much that doesnt mean we cant admit this is okay and thats not okay.

The House of Gucci author, who spent 15 years reporting on the fashion industry in Milan, has been living in Washington, DC for the last decade, leading a Bloomberg News team that covers the US governments relationship with big tech companies.

Regulations are key, Forden said. Tracing back the beginnings of big techs ascent to power, she pointed out how the Clinton administration, by advocating the internets self-regulations, had essentially given fledgling companies the opportunity to grow unchecked.

Writer Sara Gay Forden leads a Bloomberg News team that covers the US governments relationship with big tech companies. Photo: EPA

In 1997, we see Bill Clinton coming up and saying we have to keep our hands off the internet and let companies figure out how to make money off of it, that the government should not stand in the way, and that this should be a free global trade zone, Forden said.

It was inconceivable at that time that these companies would have a massive power.

Twenty-five years later, the internet has become more or less personified by the big tech companies, including Facebook, Google and Amazon.

These companies are not million-dollar companies or even billion-dollar companies, she said. These are companies with hundreds of billions of dollars and some of them have even pierced the trillion-dollar mark. So they have long since learnt how to make money.

I would argue that they have more power than the government. They have so much data, she said. Forden said that efforts to regulate their growth have been scarcely effective.

A recent example is the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the small political consulting group obtained massive amounts of personal information about Facebook users from Facebook, which was then used by the Trump administration to target potential voters. The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation and though they fined Facebook a record-breaking $5million, there were no meaningful changes to how Facebook does its business.

This settlement was harshly criticised by privacy advocates, she said. My observation is that they make so much money that fines essentially become the cost of doing business.

Forden said the EU is showing leadership in trying to wrestle with these challenges. They have a very strong data privacy law, she said. However, she added that a more formidable pushback is coming not from governments but from individuals, non-profits and consumer advocates.

They are really spending a lot of time thinking about this issue, she said. People like Facebook whistleblowers and people like Neil Young, who just as a person with a body of work, doesnt want to be associated with these ideas. Its kind of exciting to see how in the absence of government regulation, how people can seize power themselves. It brings these issues to a broader public in an even bigger way than a hearing in Washington.

While regulating big tech companies may seem like an out-of-reach prospect now that the horses are out of the barn, Forden said it could be helpful drawing comparisons with other industries that have been detrimental to peoples health, such as the tobacco industry.

Sometimes, it's almost hard to have your minds around how to fix things because its so nebulous, she said. It took people a long time to realise cigarettes were bad for your health and when they did, there were these steps that were taken.

Forden ended the talk on a cautiously optimistic note, saying now that we have seen what the dangers are, we can be judicious about our information, and we must teach our children.

We have to be smart, and we have to be informed.

Updated: February 13th 2022, 9:30 AM

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Sara Gay Forden on managing big tech: 'We have to be smart, and we have to be informed' - The National

Citizens try out a virtual reality experience at the opening of Cheonan Qianshu Shopping mall, Shanghai, China, On December 22, 2021. Virtual reality is a key part of the concept of the metaverse.

Xing Yun | Costfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Imagine this: the metaverse with Chinese characteristics. That's how the virtual world that everyone's talking about will likely look in the world's second-largest economy.

China's technology giants are beginning to invest in the metaverse the latest buzzword in internet technology. It's a term with no concrete definition, but largely taken to mean virtual worlds that people will be playing and living in.

Censorship will likely be rife and regulation tight as Beijing continues to keep a close check on the practices of its domestic technology firms.

U.S. firms like Facebook parent Meta are going all-in on the metaverse concept, while Microsoft has positioned its proposed acquisition of gaming company Activision as a play on this theme.

Chinese firms are taking a more cautious approach. So what are they up to and how will regulation play out?

In China, the total addressable market for the metaverse could be 52 trillion yuan, or around $8 trillion, Morgan Stanley said in a note published last month.

Companies like Tencent, NetEase, TikTok owner ByteDance and Alibaba could be the front-runners in this space among China's internet companies.

Metaverse is the future of social network. All China's tech giants have to embrace it to find new ways to engage the youngest generation of internet users...

Winston Ma

managing partner, CloudTree Ventures

That comes down to the type of applications that could be part of the metaverse. Analysts say that virtual reality, gaming and social media could be some of the early applications.

This may include things like buying virtual items in games or creating digital avatars of yourself to participate in meetings.

"Metaverse is the future of social network. All China's tech giants have to embrace it to find new ways to engage the youngest generation of internet users, which is critical at the time when their business models on smartphones and mobile internet are matured," Winston Ma, managing partner at CloudTree Ventures, told CNBC.

In an earnings call in November, Tencent CEO Pony Ma said the metaverse will be an opportunity to add growth to existing industries such as gaming. Tencent is the world's largest gaming company with a strong portfolio of PC and mobile games.

Tencent also owns WeChat, a messaging service with over a billion users that has social media aspects.

Ma said the company has "a lot of the technology and know-how building blocks" to explore and develop the metaverse.

Meanwhile, ByteDance has made an aggressive expansion into gaming over the last year. In August, the company acquired virtual reality headset maker Pico. ByteDance also owns TikTok, the short-form video app, and its Chinese equivalent Douyin. The Beijing-headquartered firm has laid foundations in VR, social media and gaming.

Alibaba this year said it plans to launch augmented reality glasses for virtual meetings. Augmented reality refers to virtual images overlaid on the real world. Again, this could be a play on the metaverse. The e-commerce giant launched a "virtual influencer" named Dong Dong for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The digital avatar can be found on Alibaba's Taobao shopping app and provides facts about the Olympics and also promotes items related to the Games.

NetEase, another one of China's gaming giants, has set up a base in the southern province of Hainan focused on the development of metaverse applications, local media reported last year.

Search giant Baidu launched a metaverse app last year called XiRang, a sort of virtual world that can hold up to 100,000 people at once. Baidu executives, however, downplayed expectations of the app at its launch and said many aspects were not yet up to par. Ma Jie, a vice president at Baidu, said it could be another six years until a full launch.

Still, there are signs that China's biggest technology names are beginning to experiment and lay the groundwork for future applications.

"Similar to the pitch we've seen from Meta, the metaverse concept may at first involved VR/AR-supported games and social interactive environments," Charles Mok, the founder of Tech For Good Asia, told CNBC.

"These will obviously be the areas that China big tech players will follow first, with features that are advanced in China such as payment, and WeChat-like integrated online services that can be extended and built into the metaverse."

The metaverse push by Chinese tech firms comes after an intense year of regulatory scrutiny on the country's tech sector.

New anti-monopoly laws for internet platforms were proposed, while a landmark personal data protection law has been passed. Beijing has also cut the amount of time children under 18 years of age are allowed to play online games.

Analysts said these existing pieces of legislation will likely be used to regulate metaverse applications as well, even as new ones are developed.

"The sheer diversity of metaverse applications means developing a 'one-fits-all' set of policies will not be feasible for Beijing," Hanyu Liu, China market analyst at Daxue Consulting, told CNBC.

"Each specific application would receive its own unique set of regulations that builds upon existing legislature."

[China] knows just when and where it needs to stay its hand; close enough so that it can keep a careful watch, but not to the point where it would cause irreversible harm to the industry.

Hanyu Liu

China market analyst, Daxue Consulting

China also continues to censor content on its tightly controlled internet.

"We should also expect to see strict censorship, meaning there will most likely be an isolated, Chinese metaverse that is separate from the international," Liu said.

There are more specific pieces of regulation that analysts said could be used to manage the metaverse.

In January, authorities passed a set of regulations that governs how internet firms can use recommendation algorithms. That was followed by draft rules regarding so-called "deep synthesis" technology. This relates to software that could be used to generate or edit voices, video or images or virtual settings. The two rules overlap.

"This overlap with the recent algorithm rule as specifically required by the new rule would have important impact on Metaverse companies in China," Ma said.

Even Chinese cities and regions are looking at opportunities for the metaverse. Last year, the major city of Shanghai mentioned the metaverse in its five-year development plan for the information technology industry.

"China is extremely smart when it comes to this. It knows just when and where it needs to stay its hand; close enough so that it can keep a careful watch, but not to the point where it would cause irreversible harm to the industry," Liu said.

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China's tech giants push toward an $8 trillion metaverse opportunity one that will be highly regulated - CNBC

So, our theory is that if we want to arrive at a different type of technology, we have to start with the structure and the incentives. To us, that means being selective with funding, working slowly on research, working with an interdisciplinary team of researchers around the world who also bring the expertise of their lived experiences, and having a research process and incentive structure that doesnt drive us to publish every few months.

What is your greatest fear over how AI is being developed and what is a positive development you foresee? Related: Who are key players now in the space and how do you assess their efforts?

The biggest issue with AI is that it is being developed by a very homogeneous, privileged group of people, and being driven by either of those two goals I mentioned earlier: warfare or Big Tech.

On the warfare side, there are some truly terrifying developments. For instance, borders surveilled by drones. Warfare and tech companies are intersecting with companies like Palantir which works with ICE. And people like Peter Thiel, an Open AI funder, and Sam Altman, the current OpenAI C.E.O., are investing in companies like Brinc whose earlier demos literally had a drone that talks to a man named Jose, that then automatically tases him. While its easier to imagine how things like this are scary, my former colleague El Mahdi wrote that social media companies have more blood on their hands than any rogue drone. The recent Tek Fog investigation from The Wire shows just how much disinformation, harassment and hate speech can be disseminated, and its impacts. Our paper on large language models discusses how it can be used for this purpose this is cyberwarfare.

The positive developments I see are grassroots movements that are the antithesis to this. For instance, organizations like Masakhane NLP, EthioNLP and Ghana NLP working on natural language processing tools for African languages. Te Hiku Media working on language technology for the Maori language and rejecting an offer to be bought by an American company. And independent institutions like AI Now, Data & Society and the Algorithmic Justice League, as well as movements like Data for Black Lives, Radical AI, Black in AI, Queer in AI, Indigenous in AI, LatinX in AI. These are organizations resisting the move toward centralization and homogeneity in AI.

You told me recently you never spoke directly to Alphabet C.E.O. Sundar Pichai about what happened? What would you want to say to him now?

If it were years ago, I would schedule so many meetings with him, I would try to reason with him, I would write documents explaining the issues, send him articles, send him citations, have other people meet with him so that he understands their experiences and can empathize. Thats what I did with my leaders such as Jeff Dean, who reports to Sundar Pichai, over and over and over again. And look where I am now? Ive learned that its a better use of my time to try to figure out how to galvanize those without power rather than appeal to the good will of those in power. So, what I would say to Sundar Pichai now is that you will not escape regulation and you will not stop the tech worker movement.

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Opinion | The Pandemic Culls the Big Tech Herd - The New York Times

Last week was jam-packed with earnings results from the most popular big tech companies, leading to wild price action swings that kept investors guessing. Social media giant Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) sank by 26% the day after reporting, whereas e-commerce powerhouse Amazon caught a 13% gain.

But it was Snap (NYSE:SNAP) that stole the show, at least from a volatility perspective. Its stock fell by 23% in the trading day before reporting its full-year 2021 results, only to rocket higher by 58% once they were revealed to the market. Although the move clearly caught some investors off guard, it was well-deserved given the company's stellar operating performance for the year.

An investment thesis shouldn't be formed from one earnings report, but Snap is trending in the right direction, and it has an innovative take on the metaverse that could generate significant growth in its business. It's even catching the attention of Wall Street. Here's why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Changes to privacy rules at Apple and Alphabet, which owns the Android mobile operating system, stirred up major concerns in social media circles during 2021. The tech behemoths handed new powers to their users, allowing them to opt out of being tracked through their devices. While this is great news for privacy advocates, social media platforms like SnapChat and Facebook rely on tracking to gather data on their users to sell highly targeted advertising to businesses.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms cited significant struggles with these changes, saying they could cost the company up to $10 billion during 2022. But Snap appears to be navigating the situation far better, telling the market it has recovered quicker than anticipated. It showed in the company's results, with Snap generating 64% revenue growth in 2021, plus revealing its first-ever quarter of positive net income in Q4.

It comes on the back of record-high 319 million daily active users in Q4, a year-over-year increase of 54 million, or 20%. Average revenue per user also rose to $4.06, helping to boost Snap's gross margin by 7 percentage points to 66%. These metrics are a recipe for a very profitable company in the future, if they continue to trend in this direction.

When social media companies were rising to prominence in the 2010s, few people expected they'd one day morph into hybrid software and hardware makers. Typically, they've built platforms to be delivered to consumers on third-party devices like Apple's iPhone -- hence Apple and Alphabet holding so much influence as discussed above. But that's all changing thanks to the metaverse.

The digital world is widely anticipated as the next generation of our online experience, and companies like Snap have been forced to build new hardware technologies to support their visions of what it could look like. While most developers of the metaverse, like Meta Platforms, are creating an immersive virtual world, Snap has taken a different approach. It sees an opportunity in intertwining digital experiences with the real, physical world, and it has created its Spectacles augmented reality (AR) glasses to facilitate it.

Snap says that by tying our physical and digital existences together, it can foster real human connections that are essential to the wellbeing of users. That's a fresh, if not drastic, approach to safety that has been absent from most social media platforms in recent years, as studies continue to show their mounting negative effects. Snap could win the metaverse race on this angle alone, which would be a lucrative result considering the opportunity might be valued at $800 billion by 2024, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

After the market digested Snap's 2021 results, its stock was rewarded with multiple upgrades on Wall Street.

Bank of America's securities division gave Snap stock a buy rating with a $55 price target, implying a potential upside of 41% from here. And Wall Street analyst firm Jefferies Financial Group lifted its price target to $60, so it thinks the stock could move 54% higher.

But Credit Suisse has set the highest mark, seeing potential for $93 in Snap's future, or a 139% return from its current price of $38.91 as of this writing.

These positive ratings are in stark contrast to Snap's key competitor, Meta Platforms, which received a flurry of downgrades from top investment banks after reporting its results. Since Meta is 10 times larger than Snap by market valuation, Snap's win (at least this time) is a testament to its innovation, especially with far fewer resources.

For investors seeking exposure to the metaverse, Snap might be one of the top picks in the sector right now.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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1 Metaverse Stock That Just Crushed Its Big Tech Rival - The Motley Fool

During the last decade, a popular narrative has sprung up telling of the grave threat that fintech startups such as Revolut, Monzo and Starling pose to traditional major players in the banking and financial-services sector. But there has long been a more ominous threat to traditional banks, in the form of Big Tech. In 2022, this threat is set to materialise as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple draw on their already overwhelming global reach and resources not to mention their abundance of consumer data to diminish the banks monopoly power.

Two things play into Big Techs hands. The first is the move towards a cashless society. It will soon become the norm to send money via smartphones to known contacts without even leaving a messaging app or logging into a bank account. Because tech is driving and enabling these advances, it will be the technology companies, rather than the banks, that are likely to be best placed to benefit, as the direct role of financial organisations is reduced.

The second is the crucial role user experience now plays in all facets of our lives. This requires the use of real-time data to capture and analyse insights and tailor recommendations to individuals. Its a process that has long been central to Big Techs operations, but requires major upgrades among traditional banks. These improvements are certainly being made and there is renewed focus in the traditional banking world on the integration of AI and machine learning to enhance customer experience. However, Big Tech has a significant head start when it comes to innovating and using their vast swathes of data to respond quickly to consumer trends, at scale.

Big Tech firms also often sweep up the brightest and best in technology talent, leaving many traditional banks struggling to recruit for the roles needed to catch up. This situation will be no different in 2022 as competition increases even more. Big Tech firms were born agile and ready to adapt. They are always thinking years ahead, and the talent they have and are able to keep attracting is key to this. Without serious culture changes internally, banks will soon find themselves so far behind they might never recover.

If that isnt enough to worry the traditional banking sector, the new strong customer authentication (SCA) regulations that came into force this year in the UK will also play into the hands of technology companies rather than traditional banks. Combined with the continuing advance of open banking, they will offer Big Tech an opportunity to redefine how consumers pay for things. Both Apple Pay and Google Pay are SCA-compliant solutions, making them straightforward options for businesses taking online payments to adopt. Similar regulations are appearing elsewhere around the world and, again, it is Big Tech that is best placed to benefit.

What may start as a payments war will become more existential for banks. The Big Tech companies already have global customer bases and do not need banks infrastructure or capital, eliminating the competitive edge the banks currently have over the smaller fintechs. As consumers increasingly favour the immediacy and ease of tech-enabled smart payments, both for goods, services and in-person cash transfers, the need for banks centralised pots will reduce. The likes of Amazon and Google also certainly have the cash reserves to match them.

In 2022, the traditional banking industry will be watching anxiously for technology companies to make their next move. The banks choice will be stark: whether to ignore the threat or to partner with it.

Get more expert predictions for the year ahead. The WIRED World in 2022 features intelligence and need-to-know insights sourced from the smartest minds in the WIRED network. Available now on newsstands, as a digital download, or you can order your copy online.

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Big Tech's Next Move? Taking on Big Banks - Wired.co.uk

Tech giants climate plans arent as aggressive as they sound, according to an assessment of 25 of the worlds biggest companies published on Monday. The plans many companies have put together rely too much on offsetting their emissions through unreliable methods rather than setting specific targets to prevent pollution in the first place.

We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies claims, Thomas Day, lead author of the new study released by the nonprofit NewClimate Institute, said in a statement.

The report, which includes both tech giants and other companies operating in sectors like shipping and brick-and-mortar retail, gave Amazons and Googles climate pledges a low integrity rating. Apple and Sony fared somewhat better, with moderate integrity ratings for their climate pledges. None of the 25 companies received a high integrity rating. The companies were rated based on how clear their climate goals are, how upfront they are about their emissions, and how much theyre reducing that pollution versus relying on controversial offsets. On average, the companies only have plans to reduce their planet-heating pollution by 40 percent despite pledges to reach net-zero emissions.

The word net in pledges allows companies to make their climate efforts seem more impressive than they are. Companies can reach net-zero climate goals by reducing some of their CO2 pollution and using other tactics to try to cancel out the negative effects of emissions they continue to produce. They might try to offset emissions by investing in tree farms or forests that naturally draw down CO2, even though its a strategy that has often failed to deliver long-term reductions of carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere. A separate report released last month by BloombergNEF warned that the growing popularity of offsets could threaten gains in corporate clean energy buying if companies decide to invest their money in offsets rather than in renewable energy.

Nearly half of the companies studied havent specified how much they plan to cut down on their pollution directly meaning they could rely purely on offsets.

Another problem is that some corporate pledges dont encompass all of the greenhouse gas emissions for which a company is responsible. The most ambitious climate goals tackle emissions from across a companys entire supply chain and the use of its products. For a tech company, that might include pollution from sourcing materials and building a device, from running a factory or data center, and from consumers using its products or services.

The report faults Amazon for not setting a specific target for how much of its greenhouse gas pollution it will actually cut in order to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040. After the company announced its net-zero goal in 2019, its carbon dioxide emissions grew by 19 percent the following year as its business boomed during the pandemic.

Google says that it has been neutralizing all of its carbon emissions since 2007. But it became carbon neutral through the use of offsets. By 2030, it plans to operate carbon-free. The new report gives the company some props for implementing a new strategy for matching its electricity use with renewable energy on a 24-7 basis. But the authors point out that its climate efforts could be limited by focusing too much on the companys electricity use. That wouldnt account for a majority of the companys emissions, which come from its supply chain and the use of its products and services.

Both Google and Amazon dispute the reports ratings in statements emailed to The Verge. Google notes that it has a target of reducing emissions by more than 50 percent across its operations and value chain before 2030 (compared to a 2019 baseline). In response to the reports criticism that it has not stated how much pollution it will actually cut to reach net-zero, Amazon tells The Verge that it has not made any net zero claims based on offsets.

Apple, which scored higher in the report, has a climate goal that would reduce its emissions by 62 percent between 2019 and 2030 across its operations and value chain. The report says that Apples plans are reasonably comprehensive and already led to a significant decrease in emissions in recent years. But the company can do more to cut down on downstream emissions from the use of its products.

Sony, unlike many of its peers with the net caveat in their climate goals, has committed to zero emissions by 2050. The company launched its road to zero in 2010 and has updated its strategy every five years. Frequent interim targets, the report notes, are important for keeping companies accountable to reaching their ultimate goal. Still, Sonys progress seems to have stalled its emissions have remained largely unchanged since 2017, the report notes.

Neither Sony nor Apple provided comment to The Verge about the new report.

The reports authors call for more regulatory scrutiny of companies emissions and climate pledges to avoid greenwashing. Misleading advertisements by companies have real impacts on consumers and policymakers. Were fooled into believing that these companies are taking sufficient action, when the reality is far from it, Gilles Dufrasne, policy officer from the nonprofit Carbon Market Watch that also contributed to the report, said in a statement.

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Big Tech's climate goals are weaker than they seem, report finds - The Verge

The WGA East, decrying the negative impact the Big Tech giants are having on ad revenue for news organizations, has submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on Competition, Antitrust and Consumer Rights for its hearings on Breaking the News Journalism, Competition, and the Effect of Market Power on a Free Press.

The WGA East, which represents film and TV writers and news writers at CBS News and ABC News and numerous digital news sites, urged the subcommittee to examine the huge, negative impact of Big Tech companies on the ability of news organizations to raise enough revenue to employ professional journalists to do their essential work.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the 2020 presidential hopeful who chairs of the subcommittee and is the daughter of a newspaperman has introduced legislation to rescue the struggling local news industry. Local news is facing a crisis in the U.S., she said last week. These Big Tech companies are not friends to journalism; they are raking in ad dollars while taking in news content, feeding it to their users and refusing to offer fair compensation.

The guild noted in its statement that a Pew Foundation report found that 63% of all advertising revenue in 2020 was from digital advertising, that nearly two-thirds of all digital ad revenue went to Big Tech companies and that 55% of it went to Facebook/Meta and Google/Alphabet alone.

Noting that all news organizations face the challenge of paying for professional journalists while Big Tech takes the lions share of the advertising revenue, the guild said:

The tech platforms do not pay writers and correspondents and editors and producers and crews to investigate and report the news. They simply make money by selling ads against the stories that are created by professional journalists who are employed by news organizations.

To be clear, the news is going online, which is where the Big Tech companies take the revenues. Pew reports that in 2021 fully 84% of Americans got news from digital devices like smartphones and computers and 51% said they often got their news digitally. This is a continuing trend. As recently as 2016, only 28% of Americans said they preferred to get their news online. Thus, news organizations increasing rely on digital distribution to reach their readers and audiences, regardless of whether they are principally newspapers, broadcasters, or digital-native publications. If Big Tech continues to siphon off such a huge share of digital advertising revenue, there will be no money to pay journalists to do their work.

This is not just a matter of platform. There is nothing inherent in digital technology that would preclude news organizations from obtaining revenue by distributing their stories online. The problem is the concentration of market power by a tiny handful of Big Tech companies. Facebook and Google and to a lesser extent, at least for now, Twitter and Amazon have the market power to completely dominate the digital advertising market. News organizations simply cannot compete.

The result is predictable: Continued consolidation and cutbacks and layoffs in newsrooms across the country. Local newspapers have slashed their newsroom staffs. Local broadcasters often fill their newscasts with stories created by national chains. Even digital-native news organizations, which had been growing enormously, face severe headwinds as ad revenue gets more and more difficult to find. WGAE members have been laid off at premier digital news organizations like HuffPost, Vice, G/O media, and others. Digital-native enterprises are forced to shutter verticals and to consolidate with other digital companies just to survive in the current climate.

Two pillars of American democracy are (1) competitive markets free from domination by a small number of giant firms and (2) a robust, free press, the guild said. Both pillars are undermined by Big Tech companies gorging on the digital ad revenues that could, and should, be used to pay professional journalists to investigate and report the news.

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WGA East Decries Big Techs Negative Impact On Journalism - Deadline

When GoFundMe shut down funding Friday for the truckers Freedom Convoy, it didnt just clobber Canadian rig drivers. It dealt a blow to the rights of Americans. Silicon Valley executives are trying to limit the causes Americans support, favoring leftist ones and canceling conservatives.

Canadian truckers launched a convoy to Ottawa last month, to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus vaccine mandate on all rig drivers. Never mind the absurdity of requiring a truck driver alone behind the wheel for 18 hours a day to be vaccinated.

The convoy set up a fundraising site on GoFundMe to pay for fuel, food and lodging. Many Americans rushed to support it. It had reached $10 million in donations when GoFundMe pulled the plug.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans donate on crowdfunding sites, according toPew Research. GoFundMe is the largest. Its the public square for fundraising, and it should be open to all, regardless of their politics.

Yet GoFundMe shuts down fundraising for causes the left doesnt like. Thats as dangerous to our democracy as when other Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook and Twitter silence viewpoints.

We Americans have a constitutionally protected right to donate money to whatever causes we choose, the Supreme Court ruled inBuckley v. Valeo. Money funds political activity, and limiting where we can donate is like gagging our speech.

The Freedom Convoy reached Ottawa Jan. 29 and has clogged the citys streets with 18-wheelers and demonstrators calling for health-care freedom and an end to overreaching government COVID mandates.

GoFundMe claims it shut down the truckers and wont release their funds to them because of reports of violence and other unlawful activityviolating the companys terms of service.

Thats a joke. Even CNN reports no bloodshed.The New York Times concedes the worst issnarled traffic and blaring truck horns.

As of Friday evening, when GoFundMe permanently shut the site down, there had beenonly three arrestsdespite thousands protesting. As of Sunday, police reported more arrests and investigations, but the number is still minuscule overall.Ottawa Mayor Jim Watsons biggest complaintis that the truckers are showing insensitivity by creating noise and turning it into a party.

Compare that with the mayhem and violence in Portland, Ore., in 2020. Truth is, GoFundMe had no problem with that disorder.The site raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Portland General Defense Committee to defend rioters who set fire to police stations, vandalized city hall, wielded weapons and injured police officers.

Even now, GoFundMe is raising money forBlack Lives Matter NYCto engage incivil disobedience and disruption. GoFundMe likes BLMs brand of civil disobedience.

The framers of the Constitution banned government from censoring, but they didnt anticipate Big Tech. Democrats are happy to deputize Silicon Valley lefties to muzzle the deplorables and prevent an exchange of ideas. And money.

Democrats in Congress insist Big Tech should stamp out misinformation. Trudeau slammed the truckers for spreading misinformation.

Who decides whats misinformation? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said the best test of truth is whether it survives in the competition of the market. Silicon Valley is snuffing out competition.

There are two remedies. The first is for Congress to regulate Big Tech like public utilities or common carriers, compelling them to serve all customers without viewpoint discrimination. Water companies and railroads cant deny service to customers with unpopular opinions. Big Tech should operate by the same rules.

Unfortunately, such legislation is unlikely to pass.About half of Democratic members stock holdings are in Big Tech, compared with only 14% for Republicans.

The second remedy is the Supreme Court. Its possible the majority will limit Big Tech censorship when a case arises.

In April 2021, Justice Clarence Thomas warned, in a concurring opinion, that the CEOs of the social-media giants a mere handful of executives have the power to exclude even a president of the United States from the digital public square.

Thomas appears poised to rule that the First Amendment bans censorship not only by government but also by social media.

GoFundMes attack on the Freedom Convoy is the latest red flag that Silicon Valleys power over us has to be stopped.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.

Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey

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GoFundMes $10M shutdown of Canadian truckers shows its time to rein in Big Tech - New York Post