Aussie papers go digital, downsize amid double whammy of Google-Facebook and COVID

Canberra: Australia’s largest newspaper publisher, News Corp., announced on Thursday that most of its suburban and regional mastheads across the country will become digital-only next month due to the pandemic. News Corp. Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller described the shift that will take effect on June 29 as significant and said jobs will be lost. […]

Google knows where you are even if you opt not to share location info, says lawsuit

San Francisco: The US state of Arizona filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Google of committing fraud by being deceptive about gathering location data. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich said the suit resulted from an investigation launched two years ago after a media report that Google had ways of knowing where users were even if they […]

Don’t let Big Tech turn the world into a China, Noam Chomsky warns

New York: The role of technology in helping push back against the novel coronavirus has been hailed widely. But it also means that people are constantly being watched by entities that can set the tone for public behaviour without giving a shred of consideration to people’s privacy. One of the greatest contemporary thinkers, Noam Chomsky, […]

Tech giants Facebook, Google, Twitter sell work from home as the new culture

Oakland, California: For a preview of the future of office work, watch how the biggest tech companies are preparing for a post-pandemic world. Silicon Valley and Seattle giants — Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter — were the first to send their employees home as the virus spread to the U.S. Now they’re among the last to […]

Boycott Google, Facebook to force them to pay for news, says Australian watchdog

Sydney: Australia’s competition watchdog suggested Tuesday that local media could organise a “collective boycott” of Google and Facebook to force the tech giants to pay for news they put on their platforms. The radical idea was among a series of possible bargaining tools put forward by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as it […]

Bois locker room: HC asks Google, Facebook, Twitter whether content can be removed

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought response of the Centre on a plea seeking directions to it to ensure social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram remove illegal groups such as ‘Bois Locker Room’, “for the safety and security of children” in cyberspace. A bench of Justices Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Sangita Dhingra […]

Google waives ad serving fee for 5 months for news publishers

SAN FRANSISCO: In a bid to help its news partners during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google on Friday announced to waive ad serving fees for news publishers globally on its Ad Manager for five months. Many news publishers globally use Google Ad Manager to support their digital businesses with advertising. “As the coronavirus pandemic takes a […]