Chinese antitrust watchdog, State Administration of Market Supervision (SAMR), announced Tuesday it has started investigating price gouging in the automotive chip market. The regulatory body promised to strengthen supervision and punish illegal acts such as hoarding, price hikes and collusive price increases. SAMR singled out distributors as the object of its ire. In the early Read more about Chinese regulators go after price gauging in car chip industry[…]

Nvidia’s Shield TVs are some of the best streaming video boxes on the market, but following a recent update to Android TV, Shield TV users are starting to see ads on their home screen and they aren’t happy about it. The latest update to Android TV on Shield TV devices began rolling out earlier this Read more about Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV – wtf are manufacturers doing advertising on products you actually own?[…]

A Which? investigation has found that printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids consumers can purchase when bought from the big inkjet printer manufacturers – and people could save a small fortune by opting for third-party alternatives.  Which? research has uncovered that inkjet printer ink bought from the manufacturer could be up to Read more about Litre of printer ink? That’ll be £2,410 please. One of the most expensive consumer liquids on the planet – 3rd party ink much cheaper, blocked by manufacturers…[…]

You can spot a veteran of the Browser Wars a mile off. These fearsome conflicts, fought across the desktops of the world not 20 years ago, left deep scars. […] By Gen XP, it was all over and the internet desktop was under total Empire control. Then came the Rebel Alliance of Chrome and Firefox, Read more about Windows 11 reopens browser wars by including Teams[…]

The mastermind behind what the government says is one of the largest cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes prosecuted in the US has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. While crypto scams have been getting increasingly common, Swedish citizen Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson defrauded thousands of victims and stole tens of millions of dollars over a period that Read more about Major crypto scammer sentenced to 15 years in prison[…]

As expected, Google is facing a fresh legal assault regarding its Play Store, the 30 per cent cut it took from developers’ revenues via the software souk, and other rules and restrictions. In an antitrust lawsuit [PDF] filed in a federal district court in San Francisco on Wednesday, 36 US states and commonwealths, plus Washington Read more about Three-dozen US states plus DC sue Google over Play Store’s revenue cut, payment system, and more[…]

The Federal Trade Commission has filed charges against Broadcom over allegations that the chip maker monopolized the market for semiconductor components, the agency announced Friday. According to the commission’s complaint, Broadcom entered into long-term exclusivity and loyalty agreements with both original equipment manufacturers and service providers to prevent them from buying chips from Broadcom’s rivals. Read more about FTC Charges Broadcom With Monopolization of Chip Industry[…]

DAN HOWLEY: On July 5, Jeff Bezos, the richest person on Earth, will officially step down as CEO of the company he founded in 1994. Amazon will continue to exist, of course. It’s one of the wealthiest publicly traded companies in the world with a market capitalization of $1.7 trilion […] As for Bezos, he’ll Read more about Jeff Bezos Steps Down as Amazon’s CEO After 27 Years[…]

Near the end of the Epic v. Apple trial, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers had some pointed questions for Tim Cook on the state of Apple’s relationship with its developers. Citing an internal survey of developers, she noted that 39 percent of them indicated they were unhappy with the App Store’s distribution. What incentive, then, she Read more about Apple’s developer problems are much bigger than Epic and ‘Fortnite’[…]

  The Dividend Aristocrats in 2021 Legendary investor George Soros once said, “Good investing should be boring”. But an increase in volatile themes today suggests this maxim has gone ignored by at least some market participants. From a high level, we can view investments on a spectrum. Volatile assets like cryptocurrencies and SPACs are more Read more about Who Are the Dividend Aristocrats in 2021?[…]

Billionaire Peter Thiel, a founder of PayPal, has publicly condemned “confiscatory taxes.” He’s been a major funder of one of the most prominent anti-tax political action committees in the country. And he’s bankrolled a group that promotes building floating nations that would impose no compulsory income taxes. But Thiel doesn’t need a man-made island to Read more about Lord of the Roths: How Tech Mogul Peter Thiel Turned a Retirement Account for the Middle Class Into a $5 Billion Tax-Free Piggy Bank[…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Authorities in the U.K. and Japan took aim at affiliates of Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange network, in the latest regulatory crackdown on the wildly popular trade in bitcoin and other digital assets. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, the country’s lead financial regulator, told consumers Saturday that Read more about Regulators Crack Down on Crypto Exchange Binance in UK, Japan, Germany, and Ontario, Canada[…]

We’ve written so many stories about how you don’t own what you’ve bought any more due to software controls, DRM, and ridiculous contracts, and it keeps getting worse. The latest such example involves Peloton, which is most known for its extremely expensive stationary bikes with video screens, so that you can take classes (usually on Read more about You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Peloton Treadmill Edition[…]

A pair of South African brothers have vanished, along with Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion from their cryptocurrency investment platform. A Cape Town law firm hired by investors says they can’t locate the brothers and has reported the matter to the Hawks, an elite unit of the national police force. It’s also told crypto exchanges across Read more about South Africa Africrypt Bitcoin Scam? Cajee Brothers Missing Along With Billions – second huge scam in SA[…]

Hyundai this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of Boston Dynamics. The deal, which values the innovative robotics company at $1.1 billion, was announced in late-2020. The companies have not disclosed any future financial details. The South Korean automotive giant now owns a controlling interest in Boston Dynamics, previously belonging to SoftBank. The Read more about Hyundai completes deal for controlling interest in Boston Dynamics (walking robodog maker)[…]

With graphics cards seeming harder to get than ever, China’s stricter measures against Bitcoin mining have led to lower prices online in the country. In Yunnan, the country’s fourth-largest Bitcoin-producing province, authorities have been investigating illegal electrical power use tied to Bitcoin mining and are threatening to cut power to those involved in the practice. Read more about China Bitcoin Crackdown Leads To BTC Price Plummet and also Cheaper Graphics Cards[…]

[…] The U.S. is dominated by anticompetitive giants in banking, telecom, insurance, health care, air travel, and countless other sectors. And generally, we’ve historically encouraged them by underfunding our regulators, steadily weakening antitrust enforcement, rubber stamping merger after terrible merger, and replacing competent Judges with bobble head dolls. All under the pretense that doing anything Read more about Recent US Antitrust Push Is Weirdly Narrow, Pretends Telecom And Banking Don’t Exist[…]

Google and Apple Inc. face a sweeping probe into the “duopoly” power of their mobile ecosystems, in the U.K. antitrust watchdog’s latest attack on Silicon Valley. The increasingly tech-focused Competition and Markets Authority opened a 12-month market study into broad aspects of the iOS and Android systems, saying it feared the companies’ dominance is stifling Read more about Android, Apple Mobile Ecosystems Face UK Antitrust Probe Amid Competition Fears[…]

This week, ProPublica released a massive scoop—a treasure trove of financial records showing how some of the U.S.’s wealthiest billionaires scamper off with virtually no tax burden. And the U.S. government knows exactly what to do in response: find whoever released those embarrassing records and incarcerate the shit out of them. Priorities, people! ProPublica obtained Read more about DOJ Vows to Hunt Down Whoever Let the Public Know How Little Billionaires Pay in Taxes[…]

ProPublica says it has seen the tax returns of some of the world’s richest people, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett. The website alleges Amazon’s Mr Bezos paid no tax in 2007 and 2011, while Tesla’s Mr Musk paid nothing in 2018. A White House spokeswoman called the leak “illegal”, and the FBI Read more about US super-rich ‘pay almost no income tax’[…]

[…] A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work. The generational difference is clear: Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure was 49%, according to the poll by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News. “High-five to them,” said Sara Sutton, the Read more about Return to Office: Employees Are Quitting Instead of Giving Up Work From Home[…]

At Amazon in Spain, France and Italy, Chinese sellers already make up more than half of the largest merchants in the marketplace, says market research firm Marketplace Pulse. The Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor shows that we in the Netherlands spent 1.1 billion euros on products from abroad in 2019. Chinese online stores, such as AliExpress, are Read more about EU starts protectionist measures, increasing prices of Chinese E-Commerce imports[…]

[…] Italy’s competition watchdog has ordered Google to pay over €100 million ($123 million) for abuse of its dominant position. The regulator said Google had shut out an electric vehicle recharging app from its Android Auto infotainment platform for cars for over two years. The company at the core of the action is Enel X Read more about Italy fines Google $123 million for blocking an EV app from Android Auto[…]