ACCC Chair Rod Sims released the preliminary report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry into Google, Facebook and Australian media on December 10 2018.
Peter Rae/AAP
The ACCC would like closer scrutiny of digital platforms such as Facebook and Google – in particular with regards to user privacy, market power and operational algorithms.
The Competition and Consumer Commission is worried about the ability of the platforms we use to determine the news we read.
Shutterstock
Australia might become the first country in the world to submit Google and Facebook’s algorithms to a public interest test.
Research shows that so-called angel investors who write cheques to startups have a much bigger and more positive impact than governments providing ‘founding’ help to entrepreneurs.
(Shutterstock)
Without much delay, Facebook and Twitter could make significant changes to limit political manipulation and propaganda. Will they? And will users ask it of the social media giants?
Cities are the laboratories where the tech giants are exploring urban innovations.
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Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Tesla are redefining key aspects of daily life such as work, mobility and leisure, using our cities as laboratories for their innovations.
A race to dominate the emerging tech-driven mobility sector is happening in cities around the world.
Jakub Kaminski/EPA
Scholars and skeptics warned about Facebook long before its founder was even born. Technology companies keep asking for more and more data and proving they can’t be trusted.
Google employees protest outside the Google Corporate Campus Headquarters in Mountain View, California on November 1, 2018.
EPA / JOHN G. MABANGLO
Amazon, Facebook and Google have lofty goals for their effects on global society. But people around the world are still waiting for the positive results. Here’s what the tech giants could do.
Google employees protest outside the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
The walkout by thousands of Google employees around the world was historic, both because of who was protesting and what their demands were. It may even mark the start of something new.
Google employees protest outside the Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, California.
EPA-EFE/John G. Mabanglo
The rise of superstar companies that dominate their industries may be partly to blame for the lack of wage growth in the US in recent years. It could also suggest a solution.
Will people use technology, or will it use us?
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Google controls what billions of people find, see, know or even are aware of. As it gets better at delivering what it thinks people want, how will that affect humans’ perceptions of their own needs?
A scene from Doug Engelbart’s groundbreaking 1968 computer demo.
Doug Engelbart Institute
A 90-minute presentation in 1968 showed off the earliest desktop computer system. In the process it introduced the idea that technology could make individuals better – if government funded research.
A handy source of information about questions big and small.
TheDigitalWay/pixabay
Google search histories can be used to reveal how much the public knows about climate change in countries all over the world - and how ready they are to take action to guard against its effects.