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The tech groups that challenged the law and were on the losing end of Friday's ruling include NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which count Meta Platforms' Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc's YouTube as membersA US appeals court on Friday upheld a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on "viewpoint," a setback for technology industry groups that say the measure would turn platforms into bastions of dangerous content. The 3-0 ruling by…

Photo: Alex Wong (Getty Images)Big tech companies have spared no expense gobbling up competitors in recent years even as lawmakers hammer out historic antitrust legislation intended to curb their most anti-competitive impulses. That’s according to a new report The Tech Oversight project shared exclusively with Gizmodo, which claims Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Apple combined spent at least $32 billion on acquisitions since 2019. Even if that figure sounds large, it’s almost certainly far less than the true amount tech…

WASHINGTON—Bipartisan legislation aimed at helping smaller news outlets band together to negotiate payments from big internet platforms has become tangled in partisan sniping about content moderation, potentially dimming its chances of becoming law this year.The bill, known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, would create a baseball-style arbitration process enabling smaller publishers to negotiate for compensation when technology giants such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook…

The European Union's second-highest court on Wednesday upheld the European Commission's 2018 antitrust decision against Google for using its Android mobile operating system to repeal competition. The General Court confirmed that the search giant had imposed unlawful restrictions on Android phone manufacturers to promote its search engine. The court slightly reduced its fine by 5 percent to EUR 4.125 billion (roughly Rs. 32,800 crore). Still, it is a record fine for an antitrust violation. The Alphabet-owned company,…

The case was the biggest of three antitrust fines that the Commission has levied against Google since 2017. Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press…

Alphabet unit Google will face damages claims for up to 25 billion euros ($25.4 billion) over its digital advertising practices in two suits to be filed in British and Dutch courts in the coming weeks by a law firm on behalf of publishers. Google's adtech has recently drawn scrutiny from antitrust regulators following complaints from publishers. The French competition watchdog imposed a 220-million-euro fine on the company last year while the European Commission and its UK peer are investigating whether Google's adtech…

A group of 13 companies urged the US Congress to approve a bill that would rein in giant tech companies like Alphabet's Google and Meta's Facebook. DuckDuckGo, Mozilla, Proton and other companies that advertise themselves as pro-privacy expressed support for a bill to ban self-preferencing by Big Tech platforms like Google and Amazon.com. A US congressional leader on antitrust, Senator Amy Klobuchar, has spent much of the summer urging the Senate to pass the bill to no avail. Klobuchar, a lead sponsor along with…

Even as China bars 1.4 billion citizens from Twitter, its local authorities are splurging on global advertising on the site, helping make the country the platform's fastest-growing overseas ad market and one of its largest non-US revenue sources. Budget documents and promoted tweets from 2020 to 2022 shows local authorities and Chinese Communist Party propaganda offices for cities, provinces and even districts across the country have flocked to Twitter to buy ads. The promotions, often outsourced by local governments to…

Google is reportedly facing claims for damages to the tune of EUR 25 billion, in two lawsuits set to be filed by publishers over the coming weeks. The Alphabet-owned firm will face action in a Dutch court and the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal, over the company's digital advertising practices, according to a report. Google has recently been investigated by competition watchdogs across Europe, after publishers have complained that it benefits unfairly over rivals from its adtech business. In the coming weeks, a law firm…

Apple Inc.’s AAPL 1.88% new emergency-text feature on its latest iPhones makes it a first-mover in a budding market for low-cost satellite phone connections.The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant last week said its new iPhone 14s will be able to beam short distress messages and location data from places off the cellular grid as soon as November. The service will cover the U.S. and Canada but could expand to more countries. Apple is among companies, including Google owner…