Opinion

As a web developer, I remembered when I read Alistair Barr’s account of his attempt to delete his user data, under the auspices of California’s new Consumer Privacy Act. The process is so cumbersome — it takes more than two hours and requires uploading selfies and a photo ID — that it ends up having the opposite of the intended ...

Barely a year has passed since Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc listed shares in London and persuaded investors it deserved a premium valuation similar to that of Ferrari NV. The luxury carmaker’s preliminary yearly results were a reminder that its management badly misjudged both the strength of the brand and the resilience of its balance sheet. In reality Aston ...

Renault SA pledged back in February to make its 20-year-old Alliance with Nissan Motor Co. “irreversible,” after the shocking arrest of the French carmaker’s boss Carlos Ghosn on charges of financial misconduct exposed deep rifts on both sides. That goal now looks further away than ever, with Ghosn’s dramatic escape to Lebanon and his repeated denials of the charges reopening ...

For the first time in years, the government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing defense. Protests have sprung up across the country against an amendment to India’s laws — which came into effect— that makes it easier for members of some religions to become citizens of India. The government claims this is simply an attempt to protect religious ...

Managing your financial life requires following three rules: No. 1. Spend less than you earn; No. 2. Prioritise investing for your future; No. 3. Figure out what matters and spend accordingly. If you follow these simple rules, you can ignore the rest of this column. Heck, follow just the first one and you can pretty much ignore everything else. The ...

The Bank of England’s outgoing boss, Mark Carney, has long come under fire from pro-Brexit politicians for his grim predictions for the British economy outside the European Union, including the possibility of a recession. It got to the point that it looked like one of the biggest tasks for his successor, Andrew Bailey, would be to un-ruffle feathers. Yet Carney ...

The fate of government regulation — or deregulation — hangs in the balance. President Trump and his allies have vowed to dismantle much of the government’s regulatory superstructure, arguing that the costs are burdening US business and slowing economic growth. Not so, respond Trump’s critics. They argue that he’s jettisoning crucial environmental and consumer safeguards, with the savings channelled into ...

When shareholders narrowly voted to approve a possible 99 million euros ($110 million) bonus for Ryanair Holdings Plc boss Michael O’Leary in September, it seemed unlikely they’d actually have to pay him the money. The terms of the reward plan require O’Leary to get the stock price back above 21 euros, and at the time of the annual meeting it ...

Facebook says that it is banning “deepfakes,” those high-tech doctored videos and audios that are essentially indistinguishable from the real thing. That’s excellent news — an important step in the right direction. But the company didn’t go quite far enough, and important questions remain. Policing deepfakes isn’t simple. As Facebook pointed out in its announcement this week, media can be ...

Broad new horizons in key markets are opening for the world’s energy companies. Don’t expect to see a land rush any time soon. China will allow all large domestic and foreign companies to apply for oil and gas exploration licenses that were previously only open to state-owned enterprises, the country’s resources ministry said at a briefing. In India, regulators will ...