Federal regulators are racing to try and tamp down on a glut of robocall scams taking advantage of coronavirus anxiety to push phony medical kits, duct cleaning and even free Netflix.
Why it matters: Critics already want the government to take firmer action to stem the tide of robocalls, which disproportionately victimize older Americans — who are also most at risk from the spreading pandemic.
Air CEO Shane Hegde received a frantic call last week from New York nonprofit Robin Hood (not to be confused with the brokerage app). The organization needed to immediately finish moving all its digital assets to the cloud as it was suddenly sending employees to work from home.
The only solution: He dispatched an employee to Robin Hood’s offices to pick up more than 20 hard drives and upload their contents as fast as possible.
What he said: "Please understand that you will play a major role in ultimately containing this infection by not being careless and avoiding and not listening to the recommendations of physical separation."
Big Tech companies, like other U.S. institutions, have donned a mantle of public service by mobilizing to help combat the coronavirus epidemic — but they still have big antitrust targets on their back.
The big picture: Federal and state enforcers and Washington lawmakers are all investigating potential anticompetitive practices by tech giants like Google and Facebook. The pandemic has complicated the timelines of these probes, but hasn't knocked them off their tracks.
When Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that "kids are essentially immune" from COVID-19, it seemed a pretty clear cut violation of a new coronavirus misinformation policy Twitter had put in place the day before. That statement was literally the example the platform cited to describe what would not be allowed under the new rules, but the company nonetheless decided not to remove the tweet from the Tesla founder.
Why it matters: People have already heard mixed messages about the virus, including dismissive comments from Musk himself, and misinformation can only worsen the pandemic.
Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of a 2017 lawsuit between Waymo and Uber, has pleaded guilty to one federal charge — of 33 — of stealing trade secrets from Waymo, which could lead to a prison sentence, according to a court document.
Why it matters: The year-long legal dispute, which ended with a settlement between the companies, exposed Silicon Valley's ruthless competition in the quest to build future technologies and reap their financial rewards.
Telsa announced that it will suspend production at its chief U.S. plant, located in the Bay Area, on March 23 amid the coronavirus pandemic — a week after local authorities ordered all nonessential businesses to shut down.
The big picture: Tesla has been among a small number of businesses resisting a full shutdown of operations to curb the potential spread of the virus among workers. Local law enforcement has been in discussion with the company after it told employees to keep coming to work.
"Basic operations" that fall under the shutdown order's carveout for essential business will continue "to support our vehicle and energy service operations and charging infrastructure," Tesla added.
The spread of the coronavirus will delay a House antitrust investigation into Big Tech and online markets, the Democrat leading the probe said Thursday.
Driving the news: Rep. David Cicilline, who chairs the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said the public health crisis will push back a bipartisan report detailing the investigation's findings, originally set for release at the end of this month.
Mark Zuckerberg told reporters on Wednesday that Facebook plans to pay its contract workers indefinitely, even if they aren't able to carry on their normal duties. That comes as Facebook has directed most of its full-time and contract labor force to work from home to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
What they're saying: "I don't think we see an end to that," CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters Wednesday on giving full pay to its contracted content moderators whose work can't be done remotely.
With the coronavirus pandemic putting increased attention on collaboration software, Microsoft is announcing a host of new features coming to its Teams product this year.
Why it matters: Microsoft sees Teams, which turns three years old this week, as a key growth product for the company. The product now has 44 million daily active users, up from 32 million a little over a week ago.
Snapchat will launch a new health and wellness initiative ahead of schedule Thursday in order to address its users' growing anxiety about the coronavirus. Snapchat will also introduce new features and content to help educate users about safety measures and available resources.
Why it matters: Millennials and Gen Z, the main demographics that use Snapchat, are being criticized by health authorities for not taking the virus seriously, since early health reports showed that it was less lethal for young people.
For all the recent talk about using phone location data to track the progress of the coronavirus epidemic, experts say the data is more likely to bolster longer-term research than provide much immediate help, at least in the U.S.
Driving the news: A Washington Post report Monday suggested that talks between the federal government and Facebook, Google and other tech companies could harness location data anonymously to combat the virus. But any such efforts would face major technical, practical, legal and ethical hurdles.
