Technology giants given cold shoulder in Davos

IT IS usually bankers who get the cold shoulder in Davos, but this year it is the technology executives being made to feel like the unacceptable faces of capitalism.

Politicians, businessmen and even some of their own lined up in the Swiss mountain resort to denounce the issues caused by the rise of the big tech giants.

Marc Benioff, the Silicon Valley billionaire, went so far as to describe technology firms as the “new banks” and compared the current crisis of trust to the financial crisis of a decade ago.

The outspoken entrepreneur accused some of the industry’s most influential bosses of “abdicating responsibility”, adding that tech bosses do not have a handle on the “nefarious” impact of their products. “I don’t think it’s so unlike the cigarette industry,” he said.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the advertising mogul, urged regulators to crack down harder on technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google.

Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, said that the increasing global flow of data presented both the biggest opportunities and the “biggest challenges”.

Ruth Porat, the finance director of Google parent Alphabet, claimed that the recent shake-up of the company “allows us to keep investing and improving the lives of billions”. Business: Pages 1, 2, 4 & 5