The Justice Department is suing Facebook, alleging that the tech giant discriminated against American workers by intentionally reserving more than 2,600 jobs for immigrants on H-1B visas, the department announced Thursday.
Details: The department's two-year investigation found that Facebook gave jobs to visa holders whom the company sponsored for green cards, while failing to properly advertise the open positions or consider U.S.-born workers.
Access to broadband is essential to boost telehealth, which has skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Communications commissioner Geoffrey Starks said on Thursday at an Axios virtual event on the future of broadband connectivity.
Why it matters: "Access to telemedicine and telehealth via affordable, reliable broadband is going to be extremely important to making sure that folks can safely manage their health from home," Starks said.
YouTube on Thursday introduced new measures to help combat hate speech and make the platform more inclusive.
Between the lines: The changes follow similar efforts introduced this week by Twitter and Facebook, suggesting tech companies might have waited to introduce such changes until after the election.
Broadband should be assessed as a household utility in order to improve access, DreamBox President and CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson said Thursday at an Axios virtual event on the future of broadband connectivity.
Why it matters: Broadband access has become essential as the coronavirus pandemic shifted work to home offices and classrooms became remote. Low-income households and communities that don't have reliable broadband access are at an increased risk of falling behind during the pandemic.
The U.S. government must invest in workforce development, including providing American workers with IT skills that today's tech-forward economy demands, Per Scholas President and CEO Plinio Ayala said on Thursday at an Axios virtual event on the future of broadband connectivity.
Why it matters: The coronavirus pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in the American workforce, such as the reliance on restaurant or hospitality work. But Ayala argues skills from those roles are transferable to the IT sector "if you're given the opportunity."
Zoom and Slack are very similar companies. One of them is riding high, however, while the other, beset by losses and a sluggish share price, has ended up selling itself to a strategic acquirer.
Details: Zoom and Slack are both high-profile and highly successful examples of the new breed of enterprise software. The sales technique is to create a super-popular free version that gets adopted by so many people in a company that eventually the CTO agrees to make it official and buy it.
Price discipline is dead. Long live the tech bubble.
The big picture: Determining "proper" tech startup valuations has always been subjective, but lately it's been more akin to throwing a dart at the ceiling than at the board.
A global phishing campaign has been trying to gain information from organizations working to ship coronavirus vaccines since September, IBM's cybersecurity arm said on Thursday.
Why it matters: Successfully distributing a COVID vaccine will already be challenging for the U.S. and other wealthy countries, especially to rural areas with less resources — while poorer countries are expected to have delayed access.
As problematic as the tech industry's diversity statistics are, activists say the focus on those numbers overlooks a more fundamental problem — one less about numbers than about power.
What they're saying: In tech, they argue, decision-making power remains largely concentrated in the hands of white men. The result is an industry whose products and working conditions belie the industry rhetoric about changing the world for the better.
Several Supreme Court justices Monday seemed to signal that they're interested in narrowing a landmark cybersecurity law that critics have long charged is overbroad.
Why it matters: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 has been the basis for a number of controversial criminal cases, most infamously the prosecution of activist and hacker Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide while awaiting trial after downloading a large number of academic articles. Narrowing the law could prevent overzealous prosecutors from going after internet users engaging in relatively innocuous activity.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Wednesday that he plans to move ahead with a crucial defense-spending bill without provisions that would eliminate tech industry protections, defying a veto threat from President Trump.
Why it matters: Inhofe's public rebuke signals that the Senate could have enough Republican backing to override a potential veto from Trump, who has demanded that the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Uber is in advanced talks to sell its Uber Elevate unit to Joby Aviation, Axios has learned from multiple sources. A deal could be announced later this month.
Between the lines: Uber Elevate was formed to develop a network of self-driving air taxis, but to date has been most notable for its annual conference devoted to the nascent industry.
Google broke U.S. law by spying on workers who had organized protests and firing two of them in retaliation, the National Labor Relations Board alleges in a complaint filed Wednesday, according to the Worker Agency, an advocacy group representing labor campaigns.
Why it matters: The complaint is a major rebuff to practices at Google, a behemoth that's seen its share of worker discontent over its contracts and internal policies.
The Biden administration will face a wide array of cybersecurity challenges but can take meaningful action in at least five key areas, concludes a new report by the Aspen Cybersecurity Group.
Why it matters: Cybersecurity policy is a rare refuge from Washington's hyperpartisan dysfunction, as shown by the recent work of the bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission. President-elect Joe Biden should have a real opportunity to make progress on shoring up the nation's cybersecurity and cyber capabilities without bumping up against a likely Republican-controlled Senate.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted today to advance President Donald Trump's pick for the Federal Communications Commission, setting up the Senate to potentially deadlock the communications regulator at the start of the Biden administration.
Why it matters: Nathan Simington's confirmation would mean a 2-2 commission, giving Republicans the ability to stall Democratic policy initiatives such as restoring net neutrality rules until Biden is able to get a nominee of his own confirmed by the Senate.
Companies have two basic choices when faced with an antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department: Fight or flee. Visa plans to fight.
Driving the news: The credit card giant filed its legal response to DOJ's efforts to block its $5.3 billion purchase of fintech "connector" company Plaid. Its primary arguments are that regulators gerrymandered an industry definition and conjured competition.
As with most big deals in tech, the key question to ask about Salesforce's $28 billion purchase of Slack isn't whether the price is too high or low, but whether the combination makes sense.
Between the lines: Big Tech companies have plenty of their own cash and can easily borrow more, but only a finite amount of time to innovate before rivals capture their turf.
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, one of two public companies that now bear the HP name, said Tuesday it's moving its corporate headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston.
Why it matters: The move isn't financially huge, as HPE already had a significant number of employees based in Houston, the old hometown for Compaq, which merged with HP in 2001. But the symbolism of a Silicon Valley icon picking up and leaving is not a good look for the Bay Area.
Hyundai Motor Group says it's developed the in-house technology to thrive in the emerging market for electric vehicles as they prepare to unveil a suite of new models over the next several years.
Driving the news: The company yesterday took the wraps off "E-GMP," the Korean automakers' first dedicated EV platform.
A fight over foreign countries' efforts to tax big American tech companies' digital services is likely to come to a head in January just as Joe Biden takes office.
The big picture: Governments have failed to reach a broad multilateral agreement on how to structure such taxes. That could leave the American firms that dominate consumer digital services — including Google, Facebook and Apple — stuck with massive tax bills from different countries.
Salesforce’s acquisition of work chat company Slack for $28 billion to better compete with Microsoft underscores just how hard it is for tech companies big and small to challenge today's dominant tech giants.
Flashback: Less than a year ago, Justice Dept. assistant attorney general for antitrust Makan Delrahim touted Slack’s trajectory from small VC-backed startup to publicly-traded software company as an illustration of a healthy, well-functioning market in which it's possible for newcomers to prosper independently.
President Trump tweeted Tuesday a threat to veto a must-pass end-of-year $740 billion defense-spending authorization bill unless Congress repeals a federal law that protects social media sites from legal liability.
Why it matters: Trump's attempt to get Congress to end the tech industry protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the latest escalation in his war on tech giants over what he and some other Republicans perceive as bias against conservatives.
