Planning for the uncertain future of work

In a recently published, roughly 75-page report, British non-profit organization The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts (RSA) outlined several scenarios for how the UK labor market will be impacted by frontier technologies such as automation, AI, AVs and more. The analysis titled “The Four Futures of Work” was conducted in collaboration with design […]

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Facebook staff raised concerns about Cambridge Analytica in September 2015, per court filing

Further details have emerged about when and how much Facebook knew about data-scraping by the disgraced and now defunct Cambridge Analytica political data firm. Last year a major privacy scandal hit Facebook after it emerged CA had paid GSR, a developer with access to Facebook’s platform, to extract personal data on as many as 87M […]

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Keatz, a European ‘cloud kitchen’ startup, raises further €12M

Keatz, one of a growing number of so-called “cloud kitchens” — delivery only restaurant brands running on the rails of Deliveroo and UberEats — has raised €12 million in new funding. Backing the round are existing investors Project A Ventures, Atlantic Labs, UStart, K Fund and JME Ventures, who are joined by RTP Global. It […]

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Tech regulation in Europe will only get tougher

European governments have been bringing the hammer down on tech in recent months, slapping record fines and stiff regulations on the largest imports out of Silicon Valley. Despite pleas from the world’s leading companies and Europe’s eroding trust in government, European citizens’ staunch support for regulation of new technologies points to an operating environment that […]

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Paris to tax scooter and bike services

According to the City of Paris, there are 15,000 free-floating vehicles of all forms and shapes in the city, from electric scooters to fluorescent bikes and motorcycle-like scooters. And the City of Paris announced today that companies that operate free-floating services will have to pay a tax depending on the size of their fleet. If […]

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Guesty, a tech platform for property managers on Airbnb and other rental sites, raises $35M

The growth of Airbnb — and likewise other platforms like Booking.com, VRBO and Homeaway for listing and renting short-term accommodation in private homes — has spawned an ecosystem of other businesses and services, from those who make money renting their homes, to cleaning companies that make properties “Airbnb-ready”, to those who help design listings that […]

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Nigerian fintech startup OneFi acquires payment company Amplify

Lagos based online lending startup OneFi is buying Nigerian payment solutions company Amplify for an undisclosed amount. OneFi will take over Amplify’s IP, team, and client network of over 1000 merchants to which Amplify provides payment processing services, OneFi CEO Chijioke Dozie told TechCrunch. The move comes as fintech has become one of Africa’s most […]

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Google hit with $1.7 billion fine for anticompetitive ad practices

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The EU is making Google pay for its anti-competitive practices.

On Wednesday, the European Commission ordered Google to pay a huge €1.49 billion antitrust fine (roughly $1.7 billion USD) for “abusive practices in online advertising.”

The Commission determined that Google had engaged in illegal conduct to “cement its dominant market position” with its Adsense program, which had a market share of more than 70 percent from 2006 to 2016 in Europe.

Hundreds of Google’s advertising agreements with major websites were reviewed by the commission, which discovered numerous restrictive clauses that blocked the company’s advertising rivals from competing in the market. Read more…

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Google fined $1.49BN in Europe for antitrust violations in search ad brokering

The European Commission has just announced another antitrust fine for Google . The latest fine — $1.49BN — relates to its search ad brokering business which competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager noted today is “by far” the company’s main source of revenue. “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its domiance to stop website’s using brokers […]

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Tandem Bank launches ‘Autosavings’ account

Tandem Bank, the U.K. challenger bank, is launching a new savings account powered by its “Autosavings” feature designed to make it easier to save. Paying 0.5 percent interest, the Tandem Autosavings account is effectively a flexible savings bank account built on top of Tandem’s existing bank account aggregation app and the various credit cards it […]

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