Bloomberg Facebook Inc acquired a small video-shopping startup earlier this year to help build a live shopping feature inside the company’s Marketplace product, according to a person familiar with the plans. The social media company bought Packagd, a five-person company founded by Eric Feng, a former partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and most of the startup’s team joined ...
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Google fined $167mn in France amid crackdown on online advertisement
Bloomberg Google was fined 150 million euros ($167 million) in a French antitrust case involving online advertising as regulators throughout Europe criticise the tech giant’s business practices. The French authority found Google abused its dominant position in search when it set “opaque and difficult to understand operating rules†for its Google Ads advertising platform that it applied unfairly and randomly. ...
Read More »Year’s best US IPO is a little-known biotech with 420% surge
Bloomberg Karuna Therapeutics Inc may not be the year’s best-known initial public offering, taking a back seat to names like Beyond Meat Inc and Uber Technologies Inc. But for those on the hunt for generous returns, early bets on the mid-cap drugmaker paid off handsomely. Thanks to some positive study results in November, Karuna is 2019’s best-performing US IPO. Early ...
Read More »UAE, China set to cooperate in sustainable agriculture
FUZHOU / WAM The UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE), and China’s National Engineering Research Centre for Juncao on Saturday inked a letter of intent to promote cooperation in sustainable agriculture with the aim of enhancing food diversity through leveraging agritech for desert farming. The signing took place on the sidelines of a four-day official visit of a UAE ...
Read More »Gargash, UN official discuss ways to boost values of tolerance
Abu Dhabi / WAM Dr Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, recently met with Miguel Angel Moratinos, United Nations High Representative of the Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC). During the meeting, they discussed a number of international dossiers and ways to enhance the values of tolerance, coexistence, and peace. Moratinos praised the UAE’s efforts to strengthen tolerance, ...
Read More »UAE Nation Brand attracts 1.5m votes from 130 nations
Dubai / WAM Since public voting opened last Tuesday, the UAE Nation Brand has attracted a whopping 1.5 million votes from 130 countries and 2,000 cities to select one of three logos that will represent the UAE globally. People from the age group 25-34 years old cast over a third of votes (33.5 percent), while the highest participation rates were ...
Read More »Over 300mn gallons of water saved, says Dewa
DUBAI / WAM The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) announced on Saturday that its smart response initiative for technical notifications has saved up to 300 million gallons of water and more than AED17 million. Customer service satisfaction rates also reached 91 percent since the initiative’s launch in July 2019, the authority added. The ‘Smart Response Service’ has several features ...
Read More »Google, Facebook advertising models under fire in house privacy proposal
Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc would face limits on the online tracking and data sharing that power their advertising businesses under a bipartisan House proposal to establish the nation’s first federal privacy law. The draft legislation from the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees online privacy issues, could diminish companies’ ability to monitor users across the web ...
Read More »Uber asked to suspend service in Colombia
Bloomberg A judge ordered Uber Technologies Inc’s operation in Colombia to suspend its ride-hailing business after a technology platform presented a lawsuit claiming the company was providing the service through unfair competition. A judge at the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, which regulates the market, ruled that Uber’s app violated competition norms, the regulator said. Cotech SA, a taxi-service platform, ...
Read More »Modi tries to curb media coverage of India protests
Bloomberg India’s federal government has warned television stations not to broadcast images of protests against a new religion-based citizenship law, as it intensifies attempts to quell growing anger over what demonstrators say is an attack on the country’s secular constitution. At least 18 people have been killed over the last week as police cracked down on demonstrators and more than ...
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