Tag: European Union

Amazon Web Services plans $8.4 billion cloud investment in Germany

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) said on Wednesday it plans to invest 7.8 billion Euros ($8.44 billion) in Germany through 2040 as it builds a cloud computing infrastructure specifically for Europe.

AWS last year announced it’s plans to store data on servers located in the European Union to protect data privacy for government and customers in highly regulated industries.

The company said it will launch several data centers in the German state of Brandenburg by the end of 2025 which will be available to all customers.

The new investment would support an average 2,800 full-time jobs in local German businesses each year, it said in a statement.

Last week AWS also said that it would help Telefonica Germany move one million 5G customers to its cloud platform from later this month.

Also Read: Coal’s share in India’s power generation capacity drops below 50% for the first time since 1960s

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

European Union says Booking must comply with strict tech rules, investigates X

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The European Commission on Monday said it had designated Booking as a so-called “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) while it also opened a market investigation into social media network X to further determine the platform’s regulatory status.

Online advertising services X Ads and TikTok Ads as such did not qualify as gatekeepers, the EU added.

The Commission said in March that Elon Musk’s X, TikTok owner ByteDance and Booking.com may meet EU criteria subjecting them to tough tech rules as so-called gatekeepers.

While the EU on Monday said Booking qualified as a gatekeeper, it had opened a market investigation to further assess the rebuttal lodged by X, opposing to such a status.

ByteDance was labelled a gatekeeper in July last year but TikTok has challenged that at Europe’s second-highest court.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is one of the most stringent regulations targeting large tech firms’ market dominance. It puts companies under tougher obligations to moderate content, allow fair competition and make it easier for consumers to switch between services.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Air France, Lufthansa Group airlines under EU investigation for greenwashing

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Air France, its Dutch arm KLM, and several Lufthansa Group airlines are among 20 carriers being investigated by the European Union for potential greenwashing, the companies told Reuters.

The Lufthansa Group airlines under investigation are Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Air Dolomiti and Eurowings, the group said on Thursday.

The EU said airlines needed to make clear to what extent claims about tackling aircraft CO2 emissions – whether by offsetting them with climate projects or using sustainable fuels – can be substantiated by sound scientific evidence.

Industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said in a statement that it recognised the importance of clear information about sustainability, but said that current regulations in the EU “vary significantly between countries and are still evolving”.

It is unclear which other airlines are being investigated. The EU has said it will not disclose the names while investigations are at a preliminary stage.

However, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), which alerted the EU to the possible greenwashing, said it targeted the following 17 airlines in its complaint: Air Baltic, Air Dolomiti, Air France, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Finnair, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Ryanair, SAS, SWISS, TAP, Volotea, Vueling and Wizz Air.

Reuters is seeking comment from the other airlines.

It is not clear how closely BEUC’s list matches the EU’s list, which contains three more airlines.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Meta risks European Union fines over Kremlin lies on Facebook, Instagram

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Meta Platforms Inc.’s social media platforms Facebook and Instagram are under investigation by the European Union amid concerns they’re failing to cull targeted disinformation peddled by Russia that aims to sow discord on the continent.

The probe targets the so-called Doppelganger campaign — a pro-Kremlin operation, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. The campaign attempts to replicate the appearance of traditional news sources while churning out content that is favourable to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies, the people said.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said in a statement that the probe, under its flagship Digital Services Act, will examine Meta’s policies and practices relating to deceptive advertising and political content on its services, in the run-up to the June European elections. It didn’t mention Russia specifically.

Under the rules, tech giants must place curbs on the spread of dangerous content or face hefty penalties, as much as 6% in certain cases.

“This commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said in the statement.

Regulators also said they are examining Meta’s policies and practices relating to giving researchers access to election-monitoring tools, particularly in the context of Meta’s “deprecation” of its real-time public insights tool CrowdTangle, without an adequate replacement.

The bloc’s move comes after France’s European affairs minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned that a Russian-orchestrated disinformation campaign is seeking to destabilise public opinion ahead of the June ballot. Barrot revealed that twenty-five of the EU’s 27 member states have been targeted in recent months, spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.

The DSA gives regulators new powers to take action against major tech companies for how they handle content on their platforms. Meta will be given five working days to respond to the EU’s concerns before regulators escalate the procedure.

The latest investigation follows a similar probe under the DSA launched last year into how Elon Musk’s X handles illegal content and disinformation, particularly with regard to the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Apple’s iPad hit by European Union’s digital dominance crackdown

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Apple Inc.’s iPad has been added to a list of Big Tech products and services hit by strict new European Union rules aimed at stopping potential competition abuses before they take hold.

The move means Apple has six months to make sure its tablet ecosystem complies with a raft of preemptive measures under the EU’s flagship Digital Markets Act.

The company’s iOS mobile operating system, its App Store and Safari browser are already targeted by the law — but Apple has challenged its designation for certain services to the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg, with hearings set to take place later this year.

The EU’s decision to draw iPad under the scope of the DMA will ensure that fairness and competition are preserved, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. She said that despite not meeting all the thresholds for being earmarked, an investigation showed that “iPadOS constitutes an important gateway on which many companies rely to reach their customers.”

The decision is a loss for Cupertino, California-based Apple, which will have to adapt its operating system to meet a swathe of new obligations and prohibitions, including allowing iPad users to download apps from beyond Apple’s confines as well as being able to uninstall apps preloaded onto devices.

An Apple spokesperson said that the company remains focused on delivering for European consumers, “while mitigating the new privacy and data security risks the DMA poses.”

The EU’s DMA strikes at the heart of the business models of six of the world’s most powerful technology firms deemed to be digital “gatekeepers.” Aside from Apple, Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. have all been targeted for new obligations aimed at preventing them from abusing their dominance.

Under the law — which came into full effect on March 7 — it is illegal for designated firms to favour their own services over those of rivals. They are also barred from combining personal data across their different services, prohibited from using data they collect from third-party merchants to compete against them, and have to allow users to download apps from rival platforms.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

European Union hits fast-fashion giant Shein with new digital rules

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Fast-fashion firm Shein has been drawn under the scope of flagship European Union rules designed to clamp down on illegal and harmful content online.

Shein, which was founded in China but is now headquartered in Singapore, has an average of more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, so meets the threshold to be targeted by the EU’s Digital Services Act, the European Commission said on Friday.

“Shein will have to comply with the most stringent rules under the DSA within four months of its notification,” the commission said. This includes “the obligation to adopt specific measures to empower and protect users online, including minors, and duly assess and mitigate any systemic risks stemming from their services.”

The move means Shein could be liable for fines of as much as 6% of global revenue for violating the law, designed to curtail the spread of illegal content online.

Platforms already drawn under the DSA include Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, and Elon Musk’s X. Other marketplaces like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s AliExpress and Amazon.com Inc.’s platform have also been designated, having met the criteria of having at least 45 million monthly active users in the bloc.

Leonard Lin, Shein’s global head of public affairs, said the company shares “the commission’s ambition to ensure consumers in the EU can shop online with peace of mind, and we are committed to playing our part.”

The DSA also requires online marketplaces to trace the sellers on their platform, add methods for customers to flag illegal content and randomly test for illegal products.

The EU’s move is the latest attempt from regulators to clamp down on companies with links to China. Under the same rules earlier this week, ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok was forced to halt a controversial rewards programme on its Lite app before EU watchdogs carried out their threat to temporarily ban the feature over fears it could be addictive for children.

As part of a separate legal instrument — the Foreign Subsidies Regulation — EU competition watchdogs raided the premises of Chinese security firm, Nuctech, under suspicions that it may have received subsidies that could distort competition on the EU’s prized single market.

Other recent EU probes under the FSR have similarly targeted Chinese firms, involved in clean energy and rail. The deluge of investigations is a reflection of the EU’s increasingly assertive approach to China, threatening restrictive trade measures that could result in tariffs, cutting China off from European markets, and potentially leading to a trade war.

Also Read: Spotify says Apple has rejected its app update with price information for EU users

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EU leaders back new Iran sanctions after attack on Israel

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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European Union leaders decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.

The summit in Brussels is the first meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders since Saturday’s attack, more than six months into the war between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Israel has signalled it will retaliate but has not said how. EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel’s security and called on all sides to prevent more tensions, including in Lebanon.

“We feel it’s very important to do everything to isolate Iran,” said summit chairman Charles Michel, adding the new sanctions against the Islamic Republic would target companies involved in the production of drones and missiles.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was important that Israel “does not respond with a massive attack of its own.”

Italy spoke separately ahead of G7 talks in favour of sanctions against arms suppliers linked to the attack against Israel, as well as those behind attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Iran launched its assault in response to an April 1 strike on its embassy in Damascus which it blamed on Israel. Tel Aviv started its broader military offensive in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Israel and Ukraine 

EU foreign ministers are due to continue the sanctions work on Monday as the United States and its Western allies hope new steps against Iran will help limit any Israeli retaliation.

The EU already has multiple programmes that target Iran for human rights abuses, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and Tehran’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Germany, France and several EU states are looking at expanding a scheme that seeks to curb the supply of Iranian drones to Russia to include the provision of missiles and cover deliveries to Iranian proxies in the Middle East.

Belgium backed introducing sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps but Scholz said that required further legal checks. The bloc’s top diplomat has said that could only happen if a national authority in the EU found that the group had been involved in terrorist activity.

Analysts say Iran is unlikely to face more severe economic punishment because of worries about boosting oil prices and angering top buyer China.

With the Middle East capturing much of the EU’s attention, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for more help in holding the line against Russia, which unleashed an invasion against its neighbour more than two years ago.

“Here in Ukraine, in our part of Europe, unfortunately, we do not have the level of defence that we all saw in the Middle East a few days ago,” Zelenskiy told the summit, after Israel and allies mostly shot down the incoming drones and missiles.

“It reflects our current key need – the need for air defence,” he said, according to an EU official, repeating his calls for speedier deliveries of the weapons and ammunition previously promised to Ukraine.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EU’s new tech laws are working, small browsers gain market share

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies.

The early results come after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers from a “choice screen.”

Browsers are software that help users connect to the internet and are traditionally offered by big technology companies like Apple and Google for free in exchange for tracking which websites consumers visit and selling advertisement to them.

In mobile devices that run Android, Chrome browser comes as default and iPhones with Safari, making them the dominant browsers in the market.

Cyprus-based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250% in March – one of the first companies to give monthly growth numbers since the new regulations came in.

Founded in 2016, Aloha, which markets itself as a privacy-focused alternative to browsers owned by big tech, has 10 million monthly average users and earns money through paid subscriptions, rather than selling ads by tracking users.

“Before, EU was our number four market, right now it’s number two,” Aloha CEO Andrew Frost Moroz said in an interview.

Norway’s Vivaldi, Germany’s Ecosia and U.S.-based Brave have also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation.

U.S.-based DuckDuckGo, which has about 100 million users, and its bigger rival, Norway-based Opera are also seeing growth in users, but said the choice screen rollout is still not complete.

“We are experiencing record user numbers in the EU right now,” said Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, which counts over 324 million global users.

CHOSEN ONES

Under the new EU rules, mobile software makers are required to show a choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones.

Previously, tech companies such as Apple and Google loaded phones with default settings that included their preferred services, such as the voice assistant Siri for iPhones. Changing these settings required a more complicated process.

Apple is now showing up to 11 browsers in addition to Safari in the choice screens curated for each of the 27 countries in the EU, and will update those screens once every year for each country.

While DuckDuckGo and Opera are offered in Apple’s list in all 27 countries, Aloha is in 26 countries, Ecosia is in 13 and Vivaldi in 8.

Google is currently showing browser choices on devices made by the company and said new devices made by other companies running Android operating system will also display choice screen in the coming months.

A Google spokesperson said they do not have data on choice screens to share yet.

As iPhones have a bigger market share than Google-branded phones, the growth for smaller browsers is currently coming at the cost of Safari.

Opera said most of the positive trends are from people making Opera the default browser on their iPhones.

But browser companies criticized how Apple and Google rolled out the new features which they described as slow and clunky, and they believe are slowing the migration of mobile users to new browser choices.

Mozilla, which owns the Firefox browser, estimates that only 19% of iPhone users in the region received an update in a roll-out that appeared much slower than previous software updates, the company said.

In iPhones, users can see the choice screen only when they click Safari, and then users are shown a list of browsers with no additional information, said Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, CEO of Norway’s Vivaldi.

“The process is just so convoluted that it’s easiest for (users) to select Safari or potentially some other known name,” he said.

The complicated design has led European Commission to start a non-compliance investigation into whether Apple may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Amazon loses court fight to suspend European Union tech rules’ ad clause

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Amazon on Wednesday lost its fight to suspend a requirement regarding its online advertising under EU tech rules after Europe’s top court backed EU regulators, saying EU interests outweigh the US online retailer’s material interests.

Under the Digital Services Act (DSA) which kicked in last year, Amazon was designated as a very large online platform subject to tough rules to tackle illegal and harmful content on its platform.

The company subsequently challenged a DSA requirement to make publicly available a repository containing detailed information on its online advertising and also asked for an interim measure until the court rules on the case.

A lower tribunal in September agreed to its request for an interim measure to suspend the contested obligation, which prompted the European Commission to turn to Europe’s top court.

The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) set aside the suspension order and dismissed Aamzon’s application for an interim measure.

The judge said that Amazon’s argument that the obligation unlawfully limits its fundamental rights to respect private life and the freedom to conduct a business was not irrelevant.

He also said that without a suspension, it was likely that Amazon would suffer serious and irreparable harm before any judgment annulling the Commission’s decision.

However, he said a suspension could have a detrimental impact on the objectives of the DSA.

“Suspension would lead to a delay, potentially for several years, in the full achievement of the objectives of the Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services and therefore potentially allow an online environment threatening fundamental rights to persist or develop,” the judge said.

“The interests defended by the EU legislature prevail, in the present case, over Amazon’s material interests, with the result that the balancing of interests weighs in favour of rejecting the request for suspension.”

Amazon said: “We are disappointed with this decision, and maintain that Amazon doesn’t fit the description of a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (VLOP) under the DSA, and should not be designated as such.”

Also Read: Amazon makes largest three-decade external investment, adds $2.75 billion to AI startup Anthropic

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Google fined €250 million in French clash with news publishers

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Alphabet Inc.’s Google has been fined €250 million ($271 million) by France’s competition watchdog for failing to broker agreements with media outlets for publishing links to their content and for plundering press content to train its AI technology.

The move from the French authority marks another escalation in its bid to get Google to deal with the media sector more fairly, after having previously slapped the US tech giant with a €500 million fine for similar abuses.

The regulator said Wednesday that Google had failed to respect commitments to negotiate deals with press publishers in good faith, and that it had trained its “Bard” generative AI chatbot — now called Gemini — on press content, without notifying the authority or the publishers.

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The French antitrust authority has been seeking to force Big Tech firms to negotiate deals with press publishers for republishing their content. Their so-called neighboring rights were targeted as part of the European Union’s 2019 Copyright Directive.

The German antitrust authority previously ditched an investigation into Google’s News Showcase service after the company settled its concerns. In 2014, Google withdrew its News service from Spain after the country adopted laws that allow Spanish publications to charge Google for publishing snippets to their work. Google News was eventually reinstated in Spain.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow