In the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump’s Facebook campaigns "were more complex than [Hillary] Clinton’s and better leveraged Facebook’s ability to optimize for outcomes," according to an internal Facebook paper obtained by Bloomberg. The paper was reportedly referenced in a memo from a former Facebook employee to the office of the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee this year.
The big picture: Trump campaign staffers have been touting their digital prowess ever since their candidate upset Clinton. And Brad Parscale, the leading force behind Trump's digital media campaign strategy in 2016, has already been named as the president's 2020 campaign manager.
A shooting at YouTube's San Bruno, Calif. headquarters has resulted in at least three people being taken to the hospital. San Bruno police chief Ed Barberini said the extent of the injuries are unknown. Meanwhile police said that a woman — who may have been the shooter — is dead from a self-inflicted wound.
The latest: Three victims were taken to San Francisco General Hospital, according to KCBS News. In a statement posted on Twitter, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees, "The best information we have is that the situation is contained. We are very actively monitoring and working with local authorities and hospitals."
Apple has hired top Google executive John Giannandrea as it looks to boost its work in artificial intelligence, according to the New York Times. Google confirmed on Monday that Giannandrea was stepping down but did not say where he was headed.
Why it matters: AI is a key strategic area with Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and others all looking to outflank their rivals.
Facebook said Tuesday it had removed more accounts operated by the infamous Russian troll farm that allegedly ran a widespread online campaign to interfere with the 2016 president election on the platform.
The big picture: Details of the Internet Research Agency's manipulation efforts on Facebook are still emerging many months after the platform first disclosed it had bought ads during the election, accelerating a reckoning for the company that could end in new regulation.
A potentially landmark Supreme Court case on digital privacy is likely going to disappear. Microsoft and the Justice Department had been fighting over U.S. law enforcement’s access to emails stored on overseas servers; but both parties have now asked the high court to pull the plug on their lawsuit.
Between the lines: Microsoft and the Justice Department say a new law — which Congress passed after oral arguments commenced — has rendered their legal dispute moot. Some of the justices were already inclined to kick the issue back to Congress. When both sides agree the controversy here has been resolved, it’s unlikely the court will disagree.
Apple has found that, due to more men in senior roles, women at its UK operations make 5% less than men. Apple's report comes as a new British law requires companies to publish such information.
Why it matters: Tech companies have been examining their pay practices both in the U.S. and globally and looking at closing the pay disparities that exist. The fact that there are more men in senior positions often leads to an overall pay imbalance even when men in the same job make no more than female counterparts.
Spotify stock closed its first day of trading at $149.01 per share, giving the music streaming giant a market cap of around $26.6 billion. That's well off Spotify's opening price of $165.90 per share, but we didn't see the up-and-down volatility spikes that some had anticipated given that this was a direct listing rather than a traditional IPO.
Bottom line: The process appears to have gone smoothly, which could prompt other well-known private companies to pursue direct listings. It also is the second "unicorn" in the past month to go public at a valuation higher than what it received in the private markets, following Dropbox.
It's an open question whether all the talk of a backlash against Big Tech leads to any meaningful change in how the tech giants operate. With midterms coming up, there's little chance of new legislation, and historically privacy scandals tend to lead to lots of intense outrage but not systemic change.
Yes, but: The anger is real and, especially if Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders perform poorly in coming hearings, there certainly could be a push for legislation, even if it ends up being narrowly tailored. And this is an area of rare bipartisanship, as the tech giants now have critics on both the far right and far left.
Democratic senators Edward J. Markey and Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday sent a letter to the CEO of Grindr, demanding answers to questions about Grindr's privacy policies. The LGBTQ dating app came under fire this week for sharing users' HIV status with third-party vendors. A Grindr spokesperson told Axios: "We welcome the questions about our policies and always look for opportunities to improve."
The backstory: Axios reported Monday that Grindr has stopped sharing the HIV status data. BuzzFeed News first reported that Grindr has been sharing personal and sensitive information about approximately 3.6 million active daily users without their consent with two business partners, Apptimize and Localytics.
Spotify stock began trading on Tuesday afternoon at $165.90 per share, following its highly-anticipated direct listing, giving it an initial market cap of around $29.55 billion.
Big picture: This is higher than Spotify stock ever traded on private market exchanges, and all eyes now will be on volatility.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's government approved a law banning the malicious spread of false news reporting on Monday, instituting penalties of up to six years in prison and $125,000, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: Fake news — the term used in the law — is an international concern after its starring role in the 2016 U.S. elections. This is an early post-2016 attempt to regulate a potential scourge.
Anyone following Facebook’s recent woes with Cambridge Analytica might be surprised to hear that there's a civil liberties argument for swiping data from websites, even while violating their terms of service. In fact, there's a whole world of situations where that thinking could apply: bona fide academic research.
What's new: On Friday, a judge in a D.C. federal court ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union-backed case trying to guarantee researchers the ability to break sites' rules without being arrested could move forward, denying a federal motion to dismiss.
Spotify shares are indicated to begin trading at between $145 and $155 per share, according to Reuters. This would give the company an initial market cap of between $25.8 billion and $27.6 billion.
Update: Reuters has now raised the range to $150-$160 per share.
Why it matters: This is higher than the NYSE reference price of $132 per share, which also was near the highest that Spotify shares had traded on private secondary exchanges through March 14. It also could be rich enough that several "on-the-fence" sellers will jump.
New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley told CNBC this morning that Spotify's price discovery process could be lengthy, and that first trades may not come until "noon or even after 1 o'clock."
Farley adds that there already are thousands of buy orders.
For years, people didn't mind handing their personal information over to social networks so they could chat with friends or take fun quizzes. That's changing in the wake of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.
What's next: There are lots of signals thatdata privacy rules of some sort are on the way — including congressional hearings and Mark Zuckerberg's acknowledgment that regulations may not be such a bad thing. The social network also faces state and federal investigations. Look for proposals on data portability, transparency and new opt-in rules. New privacy rules in Europe are also a template.
/2018/03/29/1522351848131.gif?w=3840)