FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2020 file photo, a view of the TikTok app logo, in Tokyo. Popular short-video Chinese app TikTok is cutting its workforce in India after with hundreds of millions of its users dropped it to comply with a government ban on dozens of Chinese apps amid a military standoff between the two countries. AP
The big money guns of big tech
Technology companies are bracing for a new administration and new scrutiny of their businesses with a time-tested strategy: opening their pocketbooks. Facebook and Amazon topped all other US companies in federal lobbying expenditures last year. IT was the second straight year they outspent all other companies, including stalwarts such as AT&T and Boeing. Facebook, facing federal and state antitrust lawsuits as well as a series of hearings summoned CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Washington, spent nearly $20m in 2020, up nearly 18pc from the previous year. Amazon, which saw CEO Jeff Bezos testify before Congress for the first time and continu
The logo for Fitbit appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Google has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit. It’s a deal that could help the internet company grow even stronger while US government regulators pursue an antitrust case aimed at undermining its power. Last week the completion of the acquisition comes 14 months after Google announced a deal that immediately raised privacy alarms. AP
Using carbon to pump crude oil
Deep in the Permian Basin, America’s biggest oilfield Occidental Petroleum plans to build a facility that it believes could change the way the world thinks about fossil-fuel emissions. The globe’s first large-scale direct air capture plant will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and pump it deep underground, where it will remain for millions of years. The process would essentially be the reverse of what oil and gas companies do today. The goal is to lower emissions of the primary gr