In this week’s digital digest we look at Amazon’s entry into the PCR test market and Walksafe, the app keeping women safe on the streets.
We then take a look at big tech as the CMA takes on Apple and Google, allegations Huawei is helping the Chinese state with domestic surveillance, and US Department of Labour investigates Apple.
Closer To Home
Big Tech
Apple and Google’s ‘vice-like grip’ on smartphone markets harms consumers, warns watchdog
The Competition and Markets Authority warns of a duopoly that pushes consumers towards the two firms’ search engines and app stores, harming innovation and consumer choice. The CMA wants to make it easier for consumers to switch between platforms with a wider choice of search engine on their smartphones and tablets. Consumers can only download apps via the App Store on Apple phones which the CMA accuses of being a “total monopoly” while alternative ways to download Apps do exist on Google phones. This comes off the back of increased intervention into technology companies by the CMA as it investigates Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. The tech giants have responded, citing “extraterritorial overreach” by the regulator. Both Apple and Google have claimed that opening up their app store monopolies could be harmful to consumers, exposing them to viruses. The CMA’s final decision should be published next summer. Huawei ‘helped create’ tech for China’s state surveillance and ‘re-educating’ of Uighurs
An investigation by the Washington Post has alleged that Chinese tech giant Huawei has developed mass surveillance programmes for Beijing. Technology was reportedly pitched to Chinese government officials using the company logo appearing to be intended for police or government authorities.
Huawei is reported to have helped develop a prison management system to help oversee ideological reeducation classes of detainees, including Uighur Muslims, in the Xinjiang region. It has also been alleged to have pitched facial and voice recognition AI systems in order to track political targets as well as a ‘corporate monitoring’ system for employers in order to map employees’ movements and take action if they are found to be sleeping, playing on their phones or absent from their desk. Apple faces probe over whether it retaliated against whistleblower
Apple is being investigated by the US Department of Labour following a complaint from whistleblower Ashley Gjøvik.
Gjøvik was fired from her job back in September in what she claims was retaliation for reporting concerns about environmental and health safety issues at the Sunnyvale, California office where she worked.
The Labor Department investigation is yet more evidence of the growing tension between Apple and its workforce. In recent months, employees have broken the company’s legendary culture of secrecy to speak out on controversial hiring decisions, alleged pay disparities and remote work policies in an employee movement that has come to be known as #AppleToo.
Also In the News
Apple poised to become the first $3 trillion company as it emerged a secret deal with China helped fuel the company’s growth in recent years. See here.
Microsoft’s $20bn acquisition of an AI company used by the NHS is under investigation by the CMA after complaints from rivals. See here.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan bans electric scooters on public transport due to battery fires. See here.
Chinese state backed entities among hackers who launched more over a million attacks to mine cryptocurrency and become part of botnets See here.
The Guardian hits 1m paying digital readers, including 500,000 outside the UK. See here.
Worth A Read
Wired: Tech’s Center of Gravity is Shifting Away From Silicon Valley
Press Gazette: Former BBC editor Sarah Sands tells Lords broadcaster is ‘institutionally statist’
The Drum: Blocklists are still failing advertisers and minority media
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