US targets Google’s online ad business monopoly in latest Big Tech lawsuit
The US Justice Department sued Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of abusing its dominance of the digital advertising business and said Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, in the government’s latest jab at thwarting Big Tech’s market power.
The lawsuit tackles a business at Google that is responsible for 80 per cent of its revenue.
The Justice Department asked the court to compel Google to break up its ad technology business.
“Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the antitrust complaint said.
‘Doomsday Clock’ moves to 90 seconds to midnight as nuclear threat rises
Atomic scientists set the “Doomsday Clock” closer to midnight than ever before on Tuesday, saying threats of nuclear war, disease, and climate volatility have been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, putting humanity at greater risk of annihilation.
The “Doomsday Clock,” created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to illustrate how close humanity has come to the end of the world, moved its “time” in 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, 10 seconds closer than it has been for the past three years.
Midnight on this clock marks the theoretical point of annihilation.
Classified documents found at former US Vice-President Pence’s home
Documents marked as classified were discovered at former US Vice-President Mike Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI, his representative said in letters seen by Reuters.
Pence’s representative sent a letter to the National Archives notifying them of the documents and in a separate letter said the FBI came to the former vice president’s home to collect the documents.
The discovery puts Pence in the company of his former boss, former President Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden after documents with classified markings were found at their residences.
US police hunting gunman who killed three in Washington state
A gunman who shot dead three people in what police say was a random attack was being hunted in the western US state of Washington Tuesday.
The attack came on the heels of two mass shootings in California that have left 18 people dead as the United States grapples yet again with the horror of spiralling gun violence.
Police in the city of Yakima say a man killed three people at a convenience store overnight in an apparently unprovoked attack.
Justin Bieber sells music rights for $264 million
Pop juggernaut Justin Bieber has sold his music publishing and recording catalog shares to the Blackstone-backed Hipgnosis Songs Capital for US$200 million (S$264 million), the company said Tuesday – marking the industry’s latest blockbuster rights deal.
The sale has been rumoured for weeks, and sees the 28-year-old join a who’s who of artists who have cashed out recently on their catalogs.
Hipgnosis did not publicly disclose terms of the deal, but a source close to the matter told AFP it was worth around US$200 million.
