Tech company earnings reports expected to bring a flush of bad news

Some US firms have announced hiring slowdowns and layoffs in recent weeks amid fears of recession

As top tech companies prepare to release their quarterly earnings reports starting next week, investors are bracing for bad news.

Several US tech companies have announced hiring slowdowns and layoffs in recent weeks, and the difficulties are expected to continue. “It’s not a great time for tech in general,” said Paul Verna, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, a market analysis firm. “There is no question that companies are going to be spending less, cutting back budgets, and maybe implementing hiring freezes. None of that is good news for the next quarter.”

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Tech companies in spotlight as US abortion ruling sparks privacy threat

Google has acted amid fears police could use location and other data to prosecute those seeking care

In the wake of the US supreme court’s decision to end women’s constitutional right to abortion, some tech companies are moving to close loopholes that allow personal data brokers to monitor and sell information amid fears that mobile apps could be used by US states to police abortion restrictions.

Google said on Friday it would automatically delete records of user visits to sensitive locations, including abortion clinics. Privacy researchers as well as women’s rights groups welcomed the move, having warned that apps used for period tracking, pregnancy and family planning could be used to prosecute those seeking reproductive care.

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Google will delete location history data for abortion clinic visits

The company said that sensitive places including fertility centers, clinics and addiction treatment facilities will be erased

Alphabet will delete location data showing when users visit an abortion clinic, the online search company said on Friday, after concern that a digital trail could inform law enforcement if an individual terminates a pregnancy illegally.

As state laws limiting abortions set in after the US supreme court decided last month that they are no longer guaranteed by the constitution, the technology industry has fretted police could obtain warrants for customers’ search history, geolocation and other information revealing pregnancy plans.

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Australian defamation law never needed Morrison’s ‘anti-trolling’ legislation

Experts say rulings in actions involving John Barilaro and PRGuy17 demonstrate existing law already achieves aims of former government’s proposed changes

Two rulings in separate defamation cases – one involving John Barilaro, and the other targeting a pro-Labor Twitter account – show how Australia’s current laws already allow victims of online abuse to take their fight to court and win.

Google last week was ordered to pay Barilaro, the former New South Wales deputy premier, more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

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Friendlyjordies: John Barilaro to be paid $715,000 by Google over YouTube videos

Tech giant and comedian Jordan Shanks may face contempt of court charges over videos published during trial

Google has been ordered to pay former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

On Monday, federal court justice Stephen Rares ruled that Barilaro had been left “traumatised” by a campaign of “relentless cyberbullying” by comedian Jordan Shanks, who uses the nom de plume Friendlyjordies

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UK watchdog will have power to impose huge fines on big tech firms

According to the government, Digital Markets Unit will protect small businesses and consumers

A new tech watchdog will be given the power to impose multibillion-pound fines on major firms such as Google and Facebook if they breach rules designed to protect consumers and businesses.

The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will protect small businesses from predatory practices and will give consumers greater control over how their data is used, the government said.

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Alphabet revenue falls short as YouTube and TikTok battle for users

Supply issues, inflation and war in Ukraine fuel Google parent company’s first-quarter struggles

Alphabet’s first quarter revenue fell below analysts’ expectations on Tuesday, as the company confronts supply chain problems, inflation concerns, and fallout from the war in Ukraine.

In its quarterly earnings report, Google’s parent company said it had made a quarterly profit of $16.436bn, or $24.62 per share, missing expectations of $25.76 per share.

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EU agrees sweeping new digital rules in effort to curb big tech’s power

Digital Markets Act seeks to prevent the likes of Google and Facebook parent company Meta from dominating digital markets

The European Union reached an agreement on landmark digital rules to rein in online “gatekeepers” such as Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

EU officials agreed late on Thursday on wording for the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, part of a long-awaited overhaul of digital regulations with major implications for the global tech market. The act, which still needs other approvals, seeks to prevent the biggest of tech firms from dominating digital markets through the threat of fines or even the possibility of a company breakup.

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Digital code of conduct fails to stop all harms of misinformation, Acma warns

Need for damage to be serious and imminent before Facebook and Google take action means ‘chronic’ problems build, watchdog says – citing mistrust of vaccines

The code of conduct adopted by digital platforms, including Facebook and Google, is “too narrow” to prevent all the harms of misinformation and disinformation, Australia’s media regulator has warned.

The requirement that harm from social media posts must be both “serious” and “imminent” before tech companies take action has allowed longer term “chronic harms” including vaccine misinformation and the erosion of democracy, according to the Australian Communication and Media Authority.

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Malaysian government’s ‘gay conversion’ app pulled by Google Play

App claimed that it could help LGBT+ people ‘return to nature’ but the tech company has now made it unavailable for downloads

An app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community “return to nature” has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines.

The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department. It claimed the app would enable LGBTI people to return to a state of nature or purity, and that it included an e-book detailing the experience of a gay man who “abandoned homosexual behaviour” during Ramadan.

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YouTube blocks Russian state-funded media channels globally

The Google-owned platform said the invasion of Ukraine fell under its violent events policy and violating material would be removed

YouTube announced on Friday that it had begun blocking access globally to channels associated with Russian state-funded media, citing a policy barring content that denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events.

The video platform had previously blocked the channels, specifically those of Russia Today and Sputnik, across Europe.

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Mauritius asks Google to label Chagos Islands as part of its territory

Row breaks out over Google Maps definition as UK insists it still maintains sovereignty

When you are searching online for some of the remotest islands on the planet, it helps to get the name right. But a row has broken out over the labelling of the Chagos Islands on Google maps.

The UK maintains that it still holds sovereignty over what it terms British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – one of the smallest of red dots on the traditional cartographic globe.

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Lawsuit claims Facebook and Google CEOs were aware of deal to control advertising sales

Newly revealed documents from the complaint against Google shed light on potential advertising sales manipulation

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were allegedly aware of and approved a deal to collaborate on the potential manipulation of advertising sales, according to newly revealed documents.

The documents, which came to light on Friday, were filed as part of a lawsuit against Google brought by the attorneys general of multiple US states. The lawsuit was first filed in December 2020 and claimed Google misled publishers and advertisers about the price and process of advertising auctions. At that time, many documents and parts of the lawsuit were redacted, but court rulings have since made them public.

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Russia fines Google £73m over failure to delete ‘illegal’ content

Moscow ruling is first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia and comes amid fears of internet crackdown

A Moscow court has said it is fining Alphabet’s Google 7.2bn roubles (£73m) for what it says is a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.

Moscow has increased pressure on big tech this year in a campaign that critics characterise as an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens individual and corporate freedom.

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‘It’s a fraught moment’: Omicron puts brakes on US return-to-office plans

Employers are pausing efforts to call remote workers back in amid a renewed push for strikes and unionization

Large US companies are now pulling back on plans to return to in-person work in light of the Omicron variant’s rapid spread across America.

Employers planning to call remote workers back into the office in the new year are now pausing those efforts, and they are wary of setting new return dates only to push them back once again in the face of continued uncertainty and risks from the pandemic.

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Google to pay £183m in back taxes to Irish government

Firm’s subsidiary in Ireland agrees to backdated settlement to be paid in addition to corporation tax for 2020

Google’s Irish subsidiary has agreed to pay €218m (£183m) in back taxes to the Irish government, according to company filings.

The US tech company, which had been accused of avoiding hundreds of millions in tax across Europe through loopholes known as the “double Irish, Dutch sandwich”, said it had “agreed to the resolution of certain tax matters relating to prior years”.

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Can big tech ever be reined in?

The Biden administration has shown an early determination to tackle the power of Amazon, Google, Facebook and co. But is it already too late?

When historians look back on this period, one of the things that they will find remarkable is that for a quarter of a century, the governments of western democracies slept peacefully while some of the most powerful (and profitable) corporations in history emerged and grew, without let or hindrance, at exponential speeds.

They will wonder at how a small number of these organisations, which came to be called “tech giants” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft), acquired, and began to wield, extraordinary powers. They logged and tracked everything we did online – every email, tweet, blog, photograph and social media post we sent, every “like” we registered, every website we visited, every Google search we made, every product we ordered online, every place we visited, which groups we belonged to and who our closest friends were.

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Memory lanes: Google’s map of our lives

Google’s Street View helps us navigate the world, but it’s also a portal on forgotten places and secret moments

I am leaning against a wall outside my secondary school in my home town of Canterbury, waiting for my mother to pick me up. She is late, as usual. I rest my head on the stone wall, which is obsidian smooth with the occasional sharp edge. I can feel a flinty knuckle of rock pressing into the base of my skull. I shift uncomfortably in my non-regulation high heels and watch the other parents come and go. I am irritated and worried I won’t have enough time to finish my GCSE coursework that evening. And then she arrives, and I slam the car door shut with more force than is needed.

Only I am no longer a sullen teenager and I am not in Canterbury. I am on my sofa in south London, walking the streets of my former home town on Google Street View. I drag and drop Pegman, the Street View icon, outside my old school. He flails for a moment before freefalling feet-first, and then I am a teenager, walking the passageways of my youth. I can feel the cold stones under my hand as I trace my palm along the wall. I spent so many afternoons waiting for my mother in this spot that it feels as if there is an imprint of me forever leaning there, a ghostlike presence for today’s students to bustle past.

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Will Ireland’s corporation tax rise see tech companies leave Dublin?

Analysts question if Dublin’s reputation as a leading tech hub could be undermined by new 15% tax rate

Ten years ago Dublin was nicknamed Silicon Valley’s “home from home” with tech superstars including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk queueing up to snap up office space, avail themselves of local Irish hospitality and low tax.

But while the decision of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, eBay, Amazon and more recently TikTok to locate their European headquarters in the Irish capital helped cement its reputation as one of the region’s leading tech hubs, questions are now being asked about whether they will stay.

Earlier this month Ireland signed up to landmark reforms for a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, up from the current level of 12.5% set by Dublin, in the biggest shifts for the country’s tax system in almost 20 years.


Some analysts argued the nation’s economic model could be badly undermined, while the Irish finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, said earlier this year that up to €2bn (£1.7bn) a year in tax revenue could be lost by 2025. However, there are hopes the changes might not prove as existential as they first seem.

“In the short to medium term, no, there won’t be an exodus, the change from 12.5% to 15% is not that significant,” said Seamus Coffey, an economist at University College Cork and former chair of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.

Ireland had played hardball in global tax talks taking place between 140 countries at the OECD in Paris, following almost a decade of failure among world leaders to agree reforms that would equip the taxation regime for the digital age.

Dublin refused to join an accord earlier this year, and only relented earlier this month at the 11th hour of negotiations after securing a key concession – earlier plans calling for a minimum rate of “at least” 15% were dropped, giving the government more certainty that it would not be ratcheted higher in future.

However, the reality is that many big tech firms never paid the 12.5% headline rate set by Ireland in the first place.

A Bloomberg investigation in 2010 showed how Google had cut its overseas tax rate to just 2.4% using an aggressive avoidance scheme dubbed the “Double Irish, Dutch sandwich” to effectively shuffle revenues made across Europe offshore to places like Bermuda, where the tax rate was zero.

Those schemes were outlawed in 2015, giving companies five years’ notice to comply.

However, while such arrangements undoubtedly helped attract Google and Facebook to Ireland in the noughties, they were merely the latest in a wave of more than 1,500 foreign firms – 800 of them American – lured in by the low-tax ethos of the country’s Industrial Development Agency since its foundation in 1949.

Before them IBM, Intel, Pfizer and Apple were shown the red carpet. For at least a decade Allergan has been making the world’s supply of Botox in Westport, County Mayo, on the country’s windswept Atlantic coast.

“The low tax rate started in the 1960s at zero and then went to 10%,” said Coffey. “The point of it was never to generate corporate tax revenue, but to use relatively low corporate tax to attract the companies to set up in Ireland and let them build big factories and facilities. And then we have employment.”

There are other factors tempting in multinationals. Chinese-owned TikTok set up its Dublin HQ in 2018 long after the writing was on the wall for the tax avoidance loophole.

“Young companies focus on things that will either kill them or help them scale in the near future. Corporate tax isn’t one of them,” said Stephen McIntyre, former head of Twitter in Ireland and a partner in Frontline Ventures, a venture capital firm in Dublin and London set up to help US tech firms expand in Europe.

Joe Biden and the OECD want to promote this idea of competing on grounds other than tax, viewing the reforms as ending the “race to the bottom” between countries.

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Donald Trump asks Florida judge to force Twitter to reinstate account

The request follows the former president suing Twitter, Facebook and Google in July accusing them of censoring conservative voices

Donald Trump, the former US president, has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to reinstate his account.

In July Trump sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, as well as their chief executives, alleging they unlawfully silence conservative viewpoints.

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