Russia state TV rejects luxury claims, airs ‘Putin palace’ footage
MOSCOW: Russian state television on Friday rejected opposition claims that a Black Sea property allegedly owned by President Vladimir Putin was a luxurious palace by airing footage of it under construction. The Russian leader has come under pressure after opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team released an investigation into a seaside complex it said belonged to Putin. The report, which has garnered more than 100 million views on Youtube, has helped spur the largest street protests in Russia in years.
SYDNEY: US tech giant Google stepped up its public relations campaign against Australian regulation on Friday, presenting all search users Down Under with a “proposal” to water down planned rules.
Australians searching for any term were presented with a pop-up setting out the company’s opposition to proposed legislation that would force them to pay news companies for content.
Google and Facebook have vehemently opposed the proposed rules, which are designed to rebalance the relationship between long-struggling news companies and tech giants that dominate the online advertising market.
Under the new laws, the firms would be required to compensate Australian media outlets ranging from Rupert Murdoch’s giant News Corp to public broadcaster ABC - for publishing snippets of their content in search results or news feed.
The rules are being closely watched around the world, as governments consider how to better regulate online media companies that have become some of the biggest and most influential entities on Earth.
Google has deployed hardball tactics to try and gut the legislation, threatening to pull its search service from Australia altogether and carrying out an “experiment” that blocked Australian news sites from some users. But Friday’s action marked a new stage in the campaign, one focused on winning over internet users to Google’s cause.
Facebook-apple fued intensifies
SAN FRANCISCO: A feud between tech giants heated up on Thursday as Apple’s chief executive implied Facebook’s business model promotes disinformation and violence, while the social network reportedly prepares an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
The suit accuses Apple of abusing control of its app store by requiring outside app developers, such as Facebook, to abide by rules not applied to its own apps.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook seemed to take aim at Facebook when he blasted “disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms” during a virtual data privacy conference in Brussels on Thursday, media reports said.