Application Platform News
Our latest news and commentary on applications, covering closed development platforms, SaaS vendors and related online services.
Workplace app Slack hit with outage on first Monday of 2021
Slack Technologies said its office messaging service was struck by an outage on Monday, interrupting distant work as individuals returned from the holidays.
Tencent games reinstated on Huawei app store
Tencent’s online games were removed and then reinstated on Huawei’s app store in a rolling dispute over revenue sharing by the Chinese companies.
Australian regulator rejects Google’s undertaking over Fitbit competition concerns
Australia’s antitrust regulator has refused an undertaking by Google that sought to address competition concerns over its projected $2.1 billion acquisition of gym tracker ma...
Indian TikTok clone gets significant backing in $100 million fund raise
The app, called Josh, is just one of many home-grown short-video platforms that have sprung up because India blocked the popular TikTok in June amidst a boundary crisis with China,...
Microsoft Corp says it found malicious software in its systems
Microsoft has said that it has found malicious applications from its own systems associated with a huge hacking effort disclosed by US officials this week, including a top technolo...
Facebook to test relaunched Instagram Lite in India
Facebook has said it is testing a new, less data-intensive version of its picture and video-sharing app Instagram in India, a key growth market for the US social networking giant.
EU moves to rein in tech giants with threat of fines and break-up
US tech businesses including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google face penalties of up to 10% of the annual turnover and might even be forced to divide beneath draft European Union ...
China to crank up anti-trust heat on Big Tech after unprecedented fines
China’s unprecedented anti-trust squeeze onto its technology giants isn’t only just beginning.
Big tech platforms face 6% fines if they breach new EU content rules
Significant platform businesses like Google and Facebook will face fines of up to 6% of turnover if they don’t do more to tackle illegal material and reveal more about advert...
Google removes some IAC browser extensions for ‘policy violations’
Google said on Sunday it’s removed lots of browser extensions of online conglomerate IAC/InterActive Corp for “policy violations” and is reviewing “enforcem...
Amazon and Apple stay away from French initiative for Big Tech
Amazon and Apple have not signed up to a brand new French initiative to get global tech firms to publicly commit to fundamentals including paying their fair share of taxes, governm...
Sources: Alibaba and Tencent put talks to buy iQIYI stake on hold
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd have every held separate talks with Baidu Inc to obtain a controlling stake in movie streaming service iQIYI Inc, people with kno...
UN decries police use of racial profiling derived from Big Data
Authorities and border guards have to fight racial profiling and be sure that their usage of “big data” gathered via artificial intelligence does not reinforce biases a...
France orders tech giants to pay digital tax
France’s finance ministry has sent out notices to large tech companies liable for its own digital service tax to pay the levy as planned in December, the ministry has said.