Britain’s new regulator for tech giants Facebook Inc and Google was launched yesterday with an initial remit to see if a code of conduct could improve the balance of power between the platforms and news publishers.
The Digital Markets Unit (DMU), based in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has been set up to stop big tech companies abusing their market dominance after the competition regulator said existing rules were not enough.
The power and reach of big tech have grown faster than governments’ ability to keep them in check.
A row, now resolved, between Facebook and the Australian government in February over payment for local news highlighted the disparity.
The tech company blacked out news content in response to planned legislation, a move condemned by publishers and politicians in multiple countries.
British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden said that he had asked the DMU to look at how a code could govern the relationships between platforms and content providers, such as news publishers, to ensure they were as fair and reasonable as possible.
“The Digital Markets Unit has launched and I’ve asked it to begin by looking at the relationships between platforms and content providers, and platforms and digital advertisers,” he said in a statement.
“This will pave the way for the development of new digital services and lower prices, give consumers more choice and control over their data, and support our news industry, which is vital to freedom of expression and our democratic values,” he said.
The unit was set up after the CMA concluded last year that Google had significant market power in search and in search advertising, and Facebook had significant market power in social media and in display advertising.
Britain said the unit would coordinate with international partners that are also grappling with tech regulation.
Dowden is to host digital and tech ministers this month to discuss coordination on information sharing, and joining up regulatory and policy approaches, the government said.
The DMU is awaiting government legislation to give it the powers it requires.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained