(Reuters) – Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) said on Wednesday it will test new features early this year that would allow users to control who can reply to their tweets, as it looks to limit abuse and harassment on the platform. Social media firms are under pressure to ad... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc on Wednesday said it would remove “deepfake” and other manipulated videos from its website to combat the spread of false information ahead of the 2020 presidential race, but lawmakers said those and other changes it has rece... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – From Harley Davidson to Colgate-Palmolive, U.S. companies are flocking to borrow in euros and their record issuance is breathing life into a market where yields have been hammered by the European Central Bank’s renewed stimulus push. Offshor... More »
SEATTLE/CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Boeing Co’s (BA.N) stunted Friday debut of its astronaut capsule threatens to dent the U.S. aerospace incumbent’s self-declared competitive advantage of mission reliability against the price and innovation strengths of “new s... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Weeks after U.S. authorities brought a spying case against three Saudi nationals for digging up dissidents’ personal data at Twitter, the company suspended tens of thousands of accounts that appear to be linked to one suspect’s compan... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Trade union Verdi called for workers at a key Amazon (AMZN.O) logistics center in Germany to go on strike over the crucial final shopping days before Christmas, demanding better pay and conditions for workers there. Unions have staged repeat... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chair of a U.S. congressional panel wrote to Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google and to Apple (AAPL.O) on Friday to ask what if any disclosures mobile apps are required to make regarding overseas ties, a concern that follows reports of Chine... More »
(Reuters Health) – Adolescents who are active on social media may be more likely to exercise excessively, skip meals or develop other forms of disordered eating, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers surveyed 996 seventh- and eighth-graders, age 13 on average, ab... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A prominent group of researchers alarmed by the harmful social effects of artificial intelligence called Thursday for a ban on automated analysis of facial expressions in hiring and other major decisions. The AI Now Institute at New Y... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Google, Alibaba and other “Big Tech” companies could be forced to share data on financial services customers with banks and financial technology firms to prevent unfair competition. As Facebook’s plan for its Libra “stablecoin” faces scrutin... More »
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos said it would support the U.S. Department of Defense as technology companies vie for more defense contracts and the Pentagon seeks to modernize itself. “We are going to support the Department of... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk emerged victorious on Friday from a closely watched defamation trial as a federal court jury swiftly rejected the $190 million claim brought against him by a British cave explorer who Musk had branded a “pedo gu... More »
((This December 6 story is refiled to fix typo in quote in paragraph nine)) By Tom Hals (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s daring has left its mark on electric cars and rockets, and now experts say the entrepreneur may have reshaped U.S. defamation law with his willingne... More »
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc said on Friday it would open a new office in New York’s Manhattan to house its consumer and advertising teams. The office will open in 2021 and accommodate more than 1,500 employees, the company said. In February, Amazon scrapped its... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A U.S. District Court jury in Los Angeles on Friday found in favor of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) boss Elon Musk in the defamation lawsuit brought against him by a British cave explorer who Musk had branded a “pedo guy” on Twitter. The verdict w... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s collection of data, the European Commission told Reuters on Saturday, suggesting the world’s most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years.... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Facebook (FB.O) said on Saturday it had issued a correction notice on a user’s post at the request of the Singapore government, but called for a measured approach to the implementation of a new “fake news” law in the city-state. “Facebook... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – The apparent suicide of a second K-pop artist in a month has cast renewed focus in South Korea on vicious personal attacks and cyber bullying of vulnerable young stars, and how it mostly goes unpunished. The police consider cyber violence a s... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – First the bad news for your wallet: Americans are slated to spend more than they ever have this holiday season – around $730 billion in November and December, according to the National Retail Federation. Online shopping alone is expected t... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc on Monday said it will open a pop-up store on Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo Inc that will run until the end of December and carry a selection of about 1,000 products from overseas. The move, which was initially repor... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bloomberg News said on Sunday it will not investigate its founder and former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, after he launched his candidacy for the Democratic primaries, continuing a policy of limiting coverage of its top executive. Bl... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – A former member of South Korea’s top K-pop girl group was found dead on Sunday, the country’s Yonhap news agency reported citing police. The body of Koo Hara, 28, was discovered at her home in southern Seoul, Yonhap said. Police were not imme... More »
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Saturday warned regional countries of consequences if it is proven that they meddled to stoke recent unrest in Iran. “Some countries in the region should know that they will not have an easy life in t... More »
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri on Saturday warned regional countries of unspecified dire consequences if it is proven that they meddled to stoke unrest in Iran, the semi-official news agency Fars reported. “Some countries in the regio... More »
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc filed a lawsuit in a federal U.S. court on Friday contesting the U.S. Defense Department’s decision last month to award a Pentagon cloud computing contract worth up to $10 billion to rival bidder Microsoft Corp. The complaint and sup... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. Army cadets were this week instructed not to use China-owned social media app TikTok while representing the military, an Army spokeswoman said on Friday, amid concerns over the app’s handling of user data. The directive comes after Chuck Schum... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Some are backed by dollars. Others by gold. But this “stablecoin” isn’t tied to any major asset – it’s backed by another cryptocurrency. Stablecoins, such as Facebook’s (FB.O) Libra, are a new breed of cryptocurrencies that aim to escape the... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Microsoft said on Monday it was updating the privacy provisions of its commercial cloud contracts after European regulators found its deals with European Union institutions failed to protect data in line with EU law. The EDPS, the EU’s dat... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The international police organization Interpol plans to condemn the spread of strong encryption in a statement Monday saying it protects child sex predators, three people briefed on the matter told Reuters. At the group’s conference i... More »
SEATTLE (Reuters) – Seattle voters, in a rebuke to heavy corporate campaign spending by Amazon.com, have kept progressives firmly in control of their city council, reviving chances for a tax on big businesses that the tech giant helped fend off last year. Amaz... More »
HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Chinese retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Monday that sales for its annual Singles’ Day shopping blitz crossed the $30 billion mark at 4:31 p.m. (0831 GMT), putting the event on track to set a record in its 11th year. The f... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Olajide “KSI” Olatunji prevailed in a split decisionover Logan Paul in a boxing bout between YouTube celebrities on Saturday at Staples Center in Los Angeles. In a slugfest between the two inexperienced fighters, Briton KSI got the deci... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Woody Allen has ended his $68 million lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc for backing out of a four-picture production and distribution agreement and refusing to distribute a film he had finished. Allen and Amazon notified the federal court in ... More »
NEW YORK/BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co’s $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, according to three people familiar with the matter... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – Short video-sharing app TikTok has become the latest Chinese firm caught in U.S. regulatory crossfire, with Washington launching a national security review of its $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly. The review of Tik... More »
MILAN (Reuters) – UniCredit (CRDI.MI) said on Monday its cyber security team had identified a data breach involving a file created in 2015 and containing approximately 3 million records, all regarding Italian clients. Italy’s biggest lender by assets said no b... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British regulators should impose higher levies on banks if they need more resources to stop big IT glitches and should consider regulating cloud service providers such as Google, UK lawmakers said in a review on Monday. The review was launch... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) has won the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud computing contract, the Defense Department said on Friday, beating out favorite Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The contracting process had long been mired in conflict of interes... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) has won the U.S. Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud-computing contract, the Defense Department said on Friday, beating out favorite Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The contract, called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructu... More »
(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) said in a statement on Saturday that the company appreciates being chosen by the U.S. Defense department (DoD) for the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract. “We look forward t... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – (This October 22 story has been refiled to correct headline to say software rather than robotics, first paragraph to clarify that the Olis software would run on a Maxar robotic arm, paragraphs 2 and 3 to state that the robotic arm belong... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Air Force is using SpaceX’s fledgling satellite network to test encrypted internet services for a number of military planes, the space company’s president said on Tuesday, detailing results for the first customer of Elon Musk’s plann... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Gojek CEO and co-founder Nadiem Makarim said on Monday he had resigned to join Indonesia’s cabinet, and the ride-hailing and payments company said two senior officials would jointly take over running operations of the $10 billion firm. Pres... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Business software group SAP said on Monday it had reached a three-year deal with Microsoft to help its large enterprise customers move their business processes into the cloud. The partnership, called “Embrace”, will help clients to run opera... More »
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc (FB.O) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday defended the social media company’s light regulation of speech and lack of fact checking on political advertising, while citing China’s censorship as a roadblo... More »
WUZHEN, China (Reuters) – A “Cold War mentality” and “bully behavior” are hindering mutual trust in cyberspace, China’s propaganda chief said on Sunday at the start of the World Internet Conference in the eastern Chinese town of Wuzhen. Huang Kunming, head of ... More »
WUZHEN, China (Reuters) – Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp plans to launch more than 10 5G phones in 2020, CEO Lei Jun said on Sunday, speaking at the World Internet conference in the eastern Chinese town of Wuzhen. Lei’s remarks come as the company faces ... More »
(Reuters) – HBO Max, the forthcoming streaming service from AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia, will screen films from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation producer behind the Academy Award-winning movie “Spirited Away”. This is the first time a streaming provider has ob... More »
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – India is deliberating potential censorship on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, a senior government source told Reuters. While film and TV certification bodies already moderate public content in India, the... More »
(Reuters) – Streaming video leader Netflix Inc is planning to release around 62 new original productions, including films, series, documentaries, and comedy specials, from October to December as it braces for the debut of rival services from Apple Inc and Walt... More »
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – U.S. astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will make history on Friday when they conduct the first ever all-female spacewalk to replace the power source on the International Space Station (ISS). The pair will exit the... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government is looking into whether hefty discounts offered on Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon.com during their online festive sales violate foreign investment rules, a commerce ministry official told Reuters. India introduced... More »
(Reuters) – LeBron James weighed in on the controversy between China and the NBA on Monday, saying that Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey “wasn’t educated” when he sent a tweet in support of protesters in Hong Kong this month. Morey’s tweet of suppor... More »
LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Backers of Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Libra cryptocurrency project pledged to forge ahead after selecting a five-member board on Monday, shrugging off the latest member defection by online travel company Booking Holding earlier in t... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. payments processor PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) said on Friday it was leaving Libra Association, the entity managing the Facebook-led effort to build global digital currency Libra, making it the first member to exit the group. PayPa... More »
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – The United Kingdom will leave the European Union on Oct. 31, hopefully with a deal, finance minister Sajid Javid said on Monday. “Hopefully we leave with a deal,” Javid told ITV. “If we cannot strike a deal, I think it is import... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British-based digital banking app Revolut is set to hire around 3500 staff as it expands into 24 new markets thanks to a new global deal with payments giant Visa Inc, the two companies said on Monday. Revolut, one of a breed of new digital-o... More »
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – British finance minister Sajid Javid said on Monday the country could take advantage of record low interest rates to borrow to invest in infrastructure. Javid will later use his speech at the governing Conservative Party’s annua... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) Just a few years ago, Democratic politicians were debating whether to accept cuts to Social Security benefits. No more: the only Social Security reform debate w... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you are seriously ill and homebound, or starting to be prone to forgetfulness, do you have someone you trust with your ATM code to run out and get you some cash? Are you really sure? Elder financial abuse runs the gamut from stranger da... More »
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran will pursue any aggressor, even if it carries out a limited attack, and seek to destroy it, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday, after attacks on Saudi oil sites which Riyadh and U.S officials blamed on Tehran. “B... More »
(Reuters) – Global regulators will question Facebook on Monday about its Libra cryptocurrency, amid concerns from European Union governments over the threat the digital currency poses to financial stability, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Officials fr... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc’s Google, widening the a... More »
(Reuters) – As U.S health officials scramble to identify the root cause of hundreds of severe lung illnesses tied to vaping, one possible culprit identified so far is a line of illicit marijuana vape products sold under the brand names “Dank Vapes” and “Chroni... More »
HELSINKI (Reuters) – France and Germany said on Friday that Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Libra currency posed risks to the financial sector that could block its authorization in Europe, and backed the development of an alternative public cryptocurrency. The criticism... More »
HAVANA (Reuters) – Jason Sanchez, 35, was able to start buying spare parts online last year for his cellphone repair shop in Havana thanks to the advent of cryptocurrency trading in Communist-run Cuba. Cuba, which in many ways remains stuck in the analogue pas... More »
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Shares in the spin-off of South African e-commerce group Naspers surged more than 25% in the first minutes of their market debut in Amsterdam on Wednesday. Prosus comprises Naspers’ global empire of consumer internet assets, with the jewe... More »
HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – A tearful Jack Ma formally left Alibaba (BABA.N) on Tuesday, donning a guitar and a rock star wig at an event for thousands of employees of the e-commerce giant he founded 20 years ago in a small shared apartment in Hangzhou city in... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The account of Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was hacked on Friday afternoon, sending public tweets and retweets including racial slurs and curse words to 4 million followers before Twitter secured the account. The s... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Activist hedge fund Jana Partners on Friday disclosed a large new stake in Outback Steakhouse owner Bloomin’ Brands Inc , returning for the second time in nearly two years to push for fresh changes after reaching a settlement in 2018. Jana, ... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Amazon.com (AMZN.O) defended its business strategies in India as it came under fire from a local trader group on Friday over discounted products on the global e-commerce giant’s website. New e-commerce foreign investment rules that took e... More »
BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) – France and the United States reached a deal to end a standoff over a French tax on big internet companies, though U.S. President Donald Trump declined to say whether his threat of a retaliatory wine tax was off the table as a resul... More »
BIARITTZ, France (Reuters) – France and the United States have reached a deal to end a standoff over a French tax on big internet companies, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to hit back with tariff act... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – China’s Huawei has begun talks with Russia about installing Russian operating system (OS) Aurora on 360,000 of its tablets to conduct Russia’s population census next year, two sources told Reuters. Huawei has been seeking alternative operati... More »
(Reuters) – Chip supplier Nvidia Corp on Monday said it was teaming up with VMware Inc and Amazon.com Inc’s cloud division to court large businesses looking to host artificial intelligence programs in Amazon’s cloud. Nvidia got its start with chips to make com... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s cartel office said on Monday it would appeal a regional court decision to suspend restrictions it had placed on Facebook’s data collection practices to the country’s highest court. A court in Duesseldorf had earlier suspended a Feb... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chair of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee said on Sunday she remained concerned about Facebook’s plans for a digital currency after meeting the government officials in Switzerland that Facebook has said will regulate it. “... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) Medicare experts often advise enrollees to re-shop their plan coverage during the annual fall open enrollment period. This is the time when you can make unlimit... More »
SEATTLE (Reuters) – The first American spacecraft expected to land on the moon in nearly 50 years will be an unmanned robotic lander built by closely held Astrobotic Technology Inc and launched in two years by United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, the compan... More »
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc on Friday defeated an appeal by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in what the online retailer has called a $1.5 billion dispute over its tax treatment of transactions with a Luxembourg subsidiary. In a 3-0 decision, the 9th U.S. Circ... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s state communications watchdog has asked Google (GOOGL.O) to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform, it said on Sunday. Tens of thousands of Russians staged what observers called the country’s biggest po... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House officials and big social media companies met on Friday to talk about how to curb extremism online after two mass shootings last weekend that killed 31 people in Texas and Ohio. After the shootings, U.S. President Donald Trump... More »
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) is in advanced talks to invest in Mexican used car platform Kavak and financial technology firm Konfio, several people familiar with the matter said, underscoring the company’s interest in Mexico as ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is turbo-charging its no-deal Brexit preparations and will be ready to leave the European Union with or without a deal on Oct. 31, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday. Raab, an avowed Brexiteer, said the “undemocratic” Iris... More »
LONDON/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Amsterdam-based online food delivery firm Takeaway.com (TKWY.AS) has agreed to buy Just Eat (JE.L) in an all-share deal valuing the combined group, which will be one of the sector’s largest, at about 8.2 billion pounds ($10.1 billi... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – When Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met entrepreneur Viktor Prokopenya in March 2017, their discussion was scheduled to last for an hour but went on for three times that long. The meeting, Prokopenya said, ended with Lukashenko as... More »
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) – Groundbreaking TV show “Transparent” will end with a musical episode in which the Pfefferman family grapples with the death of the character played by Jeffrey Tambor, the award-winning star fired after accusations of sexual mi... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump hit out at a prominent African-American critic on Saturday, calling him a “brutal bully” who should concentrate on cleaning up his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” Baltimore district rather than criticizing th... More »
WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to tax French wines on Friday in retaliation for France’s recent proposal to levy a tax aimed at big U.S. technology companies. Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron last week that h... More »
(Reuters) – U.S.-based equity funds posted more than $8.4 billion of cash withdrawals in the week ended Wednesday, following two weeks of inflows, according to Refinitiv’s Lipper. The withdrawals came ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting. In the same w... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Bitcoin slumped more than 10% over the weekend to a two-week low as fears of a crackdown of cryptocurrencies grew on mounting scrutiny of Facebook’s planned Libra digital coin. Bitcoin fell 11.1% from Friday to $9,855 early on Monday, its lo... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – More than 2,000 workers at seven Amazon (AMZN.O) sites across Germany have gone on strike over pay for at least two days, labor union Verdi said on Monday. The walkouts, under the motto ‘No more discount on our incomes”, started overnight an... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s biggest ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing will allow users of its smartphone app to access services provided by apps of three domestic auto firms and others, in a push to generate more orders. Didi said in a statement on Monday it h... More »
(Reuters) – British Airways owner IAG said on Monday the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) intends to impose a penalty of 183.4 million pounds ($229.8 million) for the theft of customer data from the airline’s website last year. The airline revealed l... More »
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos’ divorce from his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie Bezos, was finalized by a Seattle-area judge on Friday, paving the way for her to receive $38.3 billion worth of Amazon stock, Bloomberg reported. In April, Am... More »
HAVANA (Reuters) – On the run from U.S. tax authorities, tech guru John McAfee puffs a cigar aboard his towering white yacht in a Havana harbor and says he can help Cuba evade the U.S. government too – by launching a cryptocurrency that defeats a U.S. trade em... More »
(This June 28 story corrects Romaco’s nationality to German, not Italian, in paragraph 17) By Silvia Aloisi CITTÀ DI CASTELLO, Italy (Reuters) – Amazon’s new recruit comes from a medieval walled town in central Italy and can box and seal at least 600 items of ... More »
(Reuters) – Britain’s competition regulator has stepped in to pause Amazon’s (AMZN.O) deal with online food delivery group Deliveroo while it considers launching a full investigation. Amazon led a $575 million fundraising in Deliveroo in May, making what the t... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google’s bet on balloons to deliver cell service soon faces a crucial test amid doubts about the viability of the technology by some potential customers. Loon says its balloons will reach Kenya in the coming weeks for its first commer... More »
SATUN, Thailand (Reuters) – The son of a Thai fisherman, Anurak Saruethai never really took to life at sea. But seafood has been good to him. Hawking dried shrimp, squid and fish in nightly Facebook (FB.O) livestreams, Anurak, who is quick with a joke and adep... More »
