Bloomberg Facebook Inc. bet early on virtual reality, buying Oculus VR 2 1/2 years ago to get its groundbreaking headset. Now it’s fighting claims that the Oculus Rift was built with stolen technology and promoted with a false origin story about a young entrepreneur tinkering in his parents’ garage. What started as a falling out between tech geeks has …

  Bloomberg Optimism among America’s small businesses soared in December by the most since 1980 as expectations about the economy’s prospects improved dramatically in the aftermath of the presidential election. The National Federation of Independent Business’s index jumped 7.4 points last month to 105.8, the highest since the end of 2004, from 98.4. While seven of the 10 components increased …

  Bloomberg Google, Facebook Inc. and other Internet companies will be covered by strict new European Union privacy rules that seek to limit access to consumers’ data. The EU proposed in a draft law unveiled in Brussels Tuesday giving online users more control of their settings and limiting the “overload of consent requests” for cookies people encounter when browsing the …