Google agrees 5-year deal to pay AFP for online content: executives

Yahoo – AFP, Céline LE PRIOUX, Jules BONNARD, 17 November 2021 

Under the agreement with Google, AFP will also offer fact-checking training on
several continents (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)

Google and Agence France-Presse on Wednesday said they had signed a "pioneering" five-year deal under which the world’s biggest internet search company will pay an undisclosed sum for content in Europe. 

The agreement, following 18 months of negotiations, is the first by a news agency under the 2019 European directive on so-called neighbouring rights, at the heart of multiple disputes between web giants and the media over payment for use of online news and other content. 

"This is an agreement that covers the whole of the EU, in all of AFP's languages, including in countries that have not enacted the directive," said AFP CEO Fabrice Fries, describing the deal as "pioneering" and the "culmination of a long struggle". 

AFP produces and distributes multimedia content to its clients in six languages around the world. 

After initially being reluctant to pay French newspapers for the use of their content, Google finally signed a three-year framework agreement with some of the nation’s press in early 2021, but was fined 500 million euros ($566 million) by the competition authority in mid-July for having failed to negotiate "in good faith". 

Google has appealed, and is continuing talks to reach a new agreement. 

'Common ground' 

AFP has fought for news agencies to be fully eligible to benefit from neighbouring rights agreements, Fries said. Wednesday's deal "will contribute to the production of quality information and the development of innovation within the agency", he added. 

Google's Sebastien Missoffe (left) and Fabrice Fries reach what the AFP CEO 
described as a 'pioneering' agreement for the search giant to pay for the
news agency's content (AFP/Thomas COEX)

"This agreement with Agence France-Presse demonstrates our willingness to find common ground with publishers and press agencies in France on the topic of neighbouring rights," said Sebastien Missoffe, Google's general manager in France. The pact "paves the way for even closer collaboration", he added. 

Under the agreement AFP will also offer fact-checking training on several continents, details of which will be announced soon, the companies said in a statement. 

Global tech giants -- mostly American -- have run into a wide range of disputes with Brussels and EU member states, over taxation, abuse of their dominant market power, privacy issues and of making money from journalistic content without sharing the revenue. 

To tackle this the EU directive created the form of copyright called neighbouring rights that would allow outlets to demand compensation for use of their content. 

Facebook announced several agreements in October, including one that provides for two years' remuneration to French news media for the use of their content, as well as for their participation in Facebook News, which Facebook will deploy in France in January 2022. 

In France and Denmark, media groups joined forces to negotiate with tech giants, while in Spain Google announced on November 3 that it would reopen its Google News service in early 2022. 

In Australia, a law has been passed to oblige tech giants to pay the media for using their content.

Global tax deal backed by 130 nations

Yahoo – AFP, Jürgen HECKER, July 1, 2021 

US digital giants are the main targets of the new tax

A total of 130 countries have agreed a global tax reform ensuring that multinationals pay their fair share wherever they operate, the OECD said on Thursday, but some EU states refused to sign up. 

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a statement that global companies, including US behemoths Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple would be taxed at a rate of at least 15 percent once the deal is implemented. 

The new tax regime will add some $150 billion to government coffers globally once it comes into force, which the OECD said it hoped would be in 2023. 

"The framework updates key elements of the century-old international tax system, which is no longer fit for purpose in a globalised and digitalised 21st century economy," the OECD said. 

The formal agreement follows an endorsement by the G7 group of wealthy nations last month, and negotiations now move to a meeting of the G20 group of developed and emerging economies on July 9-10 in Venice, Italy. 

US President Joe Biden said the latest deal "puts us in striking distance of full global agreement to halt the race to the bottom for corporate taxes." 

Germany, another backer of the tax reform, hailed it as a "colossal step towards tax justice", and France said it was "the most important tax agreement in a century". 

British finance minister Rishi Sunak, whose country holds the G7 presidency, said "the fact that 130 countries across the world, including all of the G20, are now on board, marks a further step in our mission to reform global tax". 

'In everyone's interest'

But EU low-tax countries Ireland and Hungary declined to sign up to the agreement reached in the OECD framework, the organisation said, highlighting lingering divisions on global taxation. 

Both countries are part of a group of EU nations also including Luxembourg and Poland that have relied on low tax rates to attract multinationals and build their economies. 

Ireland, the EU home to tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple, has a corporate tax rate of just 12.5 percent. 

Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has warned that the new rules could see Ireland lose 20 percent of its corporate revenue. 

On Thursday, Donohoe said Ireland still "broadly supports" the deal, but not the 15-percent tax floor. 

The tax plan got a much-needed boost from Joe Bidens's administration

"There is much to finalise before a comprehensive agreement is reached", he said, adding that Ireland would "constructively engage" in further discussions. 

Also expressing concerns is Switzerland -- known for its banking secrecy laws -- which said it would support the measures despite "major reservations" and that it hoped the interests of "small, innovative countries" be taken into account. 

An agreement for the implementation of the plan is planned for October. 

Nine of the 139 participants in the talks have so far not signed on to the agreement. 

But China, whose position was being closely watched as it offers tax incentives to key sectors, endorsed the agreement. 

"It is in everyone's interest that we reach a final agreement among all Inclusive Framework Members as scheduled later this year," said OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann. 

"This package does not eliminate tax competition, as it should not, but it does set multilaterally agreed limitations on it," Cormann said, adding that "it also accommodates the various interests across the negotiating table, including those of small economies and developing jurisdictions". 

'More equitable' global economy 

Finance chiefs have characterised a minimum tax as necessary to stem competition between countries over who can offer multinationals the lowest rate. 

For Biden, a global tax agreement will help maintain US competitiveness since he has proposed hiking domestic corporate taxes to pay for an infrastructure and jobs programme with a price tag of around $2 trillion. 

Biden -- whose tax plans face a potentially uphill battle in Congress -- hailed an "important step in moving the global economy forward to be more equitable for workers and middle class families in the United States and around the world." 

He noted that those nations who signed up make up more than 90 percent of the world's economy. 

The OECD's statement said the package "will provide much-needed support to governments needing to raise necessary revenues" to fix their budgets and invest in measures to back the post-Covid recovery. 

Oxfam, a charity, meanwhile said that the deal fell short of a tax level needed to give poorer countries a sufficient share of additional tax revenue. 

Calling the deal "skewed-to-the-rich and completely unfair", Oxfam said that signatories had missed a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a profoundly more equal world".

Facebook reverses course, won't ban lab virus theory

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, May 27, 2021 

Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts suggesting Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory amid renewed debate over the origins of the virus, raising fresh questions about social media's role in policing misinformation. 

The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday on its website, highlights the challenge for the world's largest social network of rooting out false and potentially harmful content while remaining open for discourse. 

"In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps," the statement said. 

"We're continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge." 

The new statement updates guidance from Facebook in February when it said it would remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic killing more than three million. 

The move followed President Joe Biden's directive to US intelligence agencies to investigate competing theories on how the virus first emerged -- through animal contact at a market in Wuhan, China, or through accidental release from a research laboratory in the same city. 

Biden's order signals an escalation in mounting controversy over the origins of the virus. 

The natural origin hypothesis holds that it emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species. 

This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2. 

The lab-leak theory, meanwhile, is gaining increasing traction in the United States, where it was initially fueled by former president Donald Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political talking point. 

A recent Wall Street Journal report, citing US intelligence findings, said three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak. 

Pushback from the right 

Facebook's move, which could impact what some three billion users of its family of apps see, highlights the controversy over social media's aggressive efforts to root out misinformation on topics where facts may be evolving. 

The reversal may be "another exhibit for the possibility that there will be a swing back against the more heavy-handed moderation," tweeted Evelyn Douek, a Harvard University lecturer and researcher of online speech regulation. 

"When the pandemic started, there were many arguments that 'what platforms are doing for health misinfo, they should do for all misinfo all the time.' It was over-simplified then, and strikes me as untenable now." 

Facebook uses independent third-party fact checkers, including AFP, to debunk misinformation. Although the origins of the virus remain unproven, the lab leak theory has been subject to fact-checking. 

One fact checking organization, PolitiFact, reported last September that public health authorities had "repeatedly said the coronavirus was not derived from a lab" but earlier this month revised its guidance, noting: "that assertion is now more widely disputed," and saying it would continue to review the matter. 

The abrupt Facebook reversal prompted angry responses from conservatives and Trump supporters. 

"Wow! But they did suppress the story for a year, defaming Trump and Republicans for a 'conspiracy theory' blacklisting conservative press and banning us," tweeted Kelly Sadler, a blogger and former Trump aide. 

But Rebekah Tromble, director of Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University, said Facebook "is doing the right thing" by updating its guidance. 

"Information changes over time, and responsible organizations -- social media outlets and fact-checkers alike -- make decisions based on the best information available but remain open and willing to change their evaluations as new information arises," Tromble told AFP. 

"Facebook will undoubtedly receive blowback for this decision, as will fact-checkers. But that blowback will come from the same people and groups that have always been critical." 

Facebook in a separate statement said it was stepping up its efforts to curb misinformation by limiting the reach of users who "repeatedly" share false content. 

Until now, Facebook had only taken this action on individual posts, but now will clamp down on the users who are the largest spreaders of false content.

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Microsoft pledges to store European cloud data in Europe

Yahoo – AFP, May 6, 2021 

Microsoft's European clients have long been concerned over the legal status
of data they store with US companies in the cloud and the extent to which
they could be scrutinised by US authorities. 

US tech giant Microsoft on Thursday pledged to store all European cloud-based client data in Europe amid unease on the continent over the reach of US legislation on personal data collection. 

Microsoft's European clients have long been concerned over the legal status of data they store with US companies in the cloud and the extent to which they could be scrutinised by US authorities. 

Those worries came to a head last July when the European Court of Justice struck down the EU-US Privacy Shield, a framework allowing firms to transfer personal data to the United States in compliance with Brussels' General Data Protection Regulation. 

The court found the mechanism did not adequately protect EU data from US authorities over which Europe has neither control nor right of redress. 

In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith said: "If you are a commercial or public sector customer in the EU, we will go beyond our existing data storage commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU. 

"In other words, we will not need to move your data outside the EU." 

He said the commitment -- dubbed the EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud -- would apply across all of Microsoft's core cloud services -– Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365 and would take effect by the end of next year.

Bill and Melinda Gates announce divorce after 27 years

France24 – AFP, 3 May 2021 

Bill and Melinda Gates, pictured here in 2018, said they intend to keep
working together on their charitable foundation Ludovic MARIN AFP/File

Washington (AFP) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife and fellow philanthropist Melinda announced on Monday they are divorcing after a 27-year marriage. 

The announcement from one of the world's wealthiest couples, with an estimated net worth of some $130 billion, was made in a joint statement on Twitter. 

"After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," they said. 

The statement said they would continue their joint work on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the massive charity which funds programs in global health, gender equality, education and other causes. 

"We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives." 

The announcement comes two years after the divorce of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, another of the world's wealthiest people, and his wife MacKenzie. 

Bill Gates, 65, was a geeky teenager when he started what would become the world's most valuable company, and was for a time the world's richest man and most prominent philanthropist. 

He stepped down as Microsoft chief executive in 2008 to devote more time to philanthropy and later left the board, keeping only the title of "founder and technology advisor." 

Melinda Gates, 56, married her husband in 1994 when she was working at the tech firm. They have three children together.

A Multinode Quantum Network explained

 

YouTube Shorts eyes TikTok competition with 3.5 bn daily views in India

Yahoo – AFP, 27 January 2021 

YouTube Shorts are a new feature on the video-sharing site meant to
compete with TikTok

YouTube Shorts -- the video-sharing website's quick clips meant to compete with TikTok -- are racking up 3.5 billion views a day during beta testing in India, the platform's head said Tuesday. 

Susan Wojcikci explained the feature in a note laying out her 2021 priorities. 

"So far, videos in our new Shorts player - which helps people around the world watch short videos on YouTube - are receiving an impressive 3.5 billion daily views!" she said. 

"We’re looking forward to expanding Shorts to more markets this year." 

YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, unveiled Shorts in mid-September, describing the videos as "a new way to express yourself in 15 seconds or less." 

The feature, directly integrated into the existing YouTube interface, is currently only available in India as part of development work. 

The new format is seen as a way for Google to compete with Gen Z-favorite TikTok, which currently has 700 million users worldwide. 

Former president Donald Trump had threatened to ban TikTok -- owned by Chinese group ByteDance -- from the United States when he accused the company, without formal proof, of spying on behalf of Beijing. 

Facebook-owned Instagram responded to TikTok's popularity with their own short video format called Reels last August. 

And in November, Snapchat launched Spotlight, a public feed of content produced by users.