French competition regulators said Tuesday they are fining Google 500 million euros, or roughly $593 million, for failing to comply with copyright rules around negotiating payment terms for news publishers.

Why it matters: It's the latest in a string of competition penalties and investigations Google has faced abroad and at home, several of which concern the way Google compensates news publishers for distributing their work.

There are emerging hubs all over the U.S. and Canada pulling tech talent away from the superstar cities — but the tech centers are holding onto their dominance, according to a new analysis from the commercial real estate firm CBRE.

The big picture: The pandemic has pushed millions of people to move out of cities, but it hasn't been enough to knock places like the Bay Area and New York out of the top spots to start tech companies.

Chinese antitrust regulators blocked the proposed $5.3 billion merger of Huya (NYSE: NUYA) and DouYu (Nasdaq: DOYU), two game streaming companies backed by Tencent.

Why it matters: This reflects how China's crackdown on local tech giants is expanding well beyond data privacy and offshore listings. It's also a big win for Amazon's Twitch, which could have faced a viable challenge from the combined Huya/DouYu.

The close relationship between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg was strained by the Trump era, the N.Y. Times' Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write in their book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination," out Tuesday.

• "She became increasingly isolated," they write in an adaptation posted by The Times Thursday. "Her role as the C.E.O.'s second-in-command was less certain with his elevation of several other executives, and with her diminishing influence in Washington."

"Oh f---, how did we miss this?" Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked, looking around at the somber faces of his top executives, the N.Y. Times' Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write in their book, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination," out Tuesday.

In an excerpt provided first to Axios, the authors write that the executives met Dec. 9, 2016, for a briefing on what Facebook's security team knew about Russian meddling on the platform during the election won by Donald Trump.

Reddit traders drove AMC's stock to meteoric heights. Now they're one reason why the theater chain tabled its latest plan to cash in on that hype.

What's new: AMC said Tuesday it's putting off a vote that could have let the company sell up to 25 million more shares next year.

Amazon wants Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan recused from any antitrust investigation targeting the company, arguing her past statements about the e-commerce giant create the appearance that she has prejudged the company.

Why it matters: Amazon's purchase of MGM will reportedly be reviewed by the FTC.

TikTok on Wednesday said it removed more than 7 million accounts "from the full TikTok experience” during the first quarter of 2021 for potentially belonging to people under the age of 13.

Why it matters: The disclosure marks the first time the tech giant has revealed the number of accounts it has had to address for possibly belonging to kids and pre-teens.

Facebook, Google and Apple take note: Microsoft is spending a fortune to bulk up its legal staff in anticipation of years of new tech regulations around the globe. And Microsoft isn't even the company in most regulators' crosshairs.

Driving the news: As first reported by Axios, Microsoft plans to increase the size of its corporate and legal affairs team by 20%.

Microsoft plans to increase its legal and corporate affairs unit by 20 percent in the coming fiscal year as it prepares for what it sees as a years-long wave of tech regulation across the globe, Microsoft president Brad Smith told Axios.

The big picture: Smith individually, and Microsoft as a company, have plenty of experience with tech regulation — most notably, from a decade-long fight with regulators on both sides of the Atlantic over antitrust issues beginning in the late '90s.