Investors don’t seem to careLETITIA JAMES, New York’s attorney-general, couldn’t be blunter in describing the antitrust case lodged on December 9th against the world’s biggest social network. “By using its vast troves of data and money Facebook has squashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats. They’ve reduced choices for consumers, they stifled…
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Its real worry remains regulationSOCIAL NETWORKS know a thing or two about virality. Still, Facebook was probably surprised by the speed at which a small protest, begun on June 17th by a collection of American civil-rights groups, has gained steam. By July 1st the #StopHateForProfit campaign, which accuses it of publishing material that incites violence,…
FEW AMERICAN companies have done as well during the covid-19 crisis as Zoom. The lifesaver of lockdown joins a small coterie of tech firms whose product, like Google’s, you no longer need to explain to grandmas. Zoom’s staggering success was made clear this month when it reported a 169% surge in year-on-year sales during the…
TENCENT, THE world’s biggest gaming company, gives away most of its video games for nothing. Lest anyone think that the Chinese tech giant, which has a market value of $580bn, has a heart of gold, think again. It makes most of its gaming sales by encouraging players to buy virtual clothing, weapons, explosives and the…
AMERICA HAS it in for Huawei—and not just because some of its politicians fear the Chinese giant’s networking gear lets spooks in Beijing eavesdrop on customers’ communications. The firm, a world leader in futuristic 5G telecoms, also symbolises China’s technological and economic ascent. President Donald Trump does not like it one bit. William Barr, his…
The deal would create a chipmaking potentateFOR WEEKS rumours have swirled that Nvidia, an American company which designs and sells computer chips, wants to buy Arm, a firm which produces the fundamental blueprints on which most such chips are built. Arm, which is based in Britain, has since 2016 been owned by SoftBank, a Japanese…
Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hubBOB CHAPEK, Disney’s boss, sounded a cheerful note as he announced the entertainment giant’s quarterly results on August 4th. Its newish streaming service, Disney+, has acquired over 60m…
What does a middle-aged tech giant want with a teenage sensation?ON JULY 29TH the bosses of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Facebook endured a five-hour videoconference with a congressional subcommittee on antitrust. Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft, America’s other technology titan, spent the day talking to investors, recruiting new hires and reviewing the latest quarterly…
IT IS SUPPOSED to be the “Tesla killer”. Volkswagen’s new ID.3 is the firm’s first mass-produced all-electric car—and the first step in the German carmaker’s attempts to reinvent itself for an electrified world. That makes it perhaps the most important model since the original Golf, launched in 1976. The ID.3 is also late. Mechanically, the…
Of America’s 50 states, 32 have at least one law that lets a firm’s fiduciaries take some non-shareholder interests into accountLAST YEAR 184 of America’s mightiest bosses vowed to manage their firms in the interest not just of company owners but also of other stakeholders—from employees to the environment. Of America’s 50 states, 32 have…