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FTC fines kids' app developer HyperBeard $150K for use of third-party ad trackers

The company's applications had been downloaded more than 50 million times on a worldwide basis to date, according to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. A complaint filed by the Dept. of Justice on behalf of the FTC alleged that HyperBeard had violated COPPA by allowing third-party ad networks to collect personal information in the form of persistent identifiers to track users of the company’s child-directed apps.

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  Facebook adds labels identifying state-controlled media

  TechCrunch
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  All Facebook users can now access a tool to port data to Google Photos

  TechCrunch

Amazon reportedly considering $2 billion stake in Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel

Amazon .com may follow its American peer Facebook's footsteps in securing a slice of India’s booming telecom market. The e-commerce giant, which has invested over $6.5 billion in India, is in early-stage talks to buy a 5% stake worth at least $2 billion in Bharti Airtel, the third-largest telecom operator in India, according to unnamed sources cited by Reuters. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

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  India's Reliance Jio Platforms to sell $1.2 billion stake to Mubadala

  TechCrunch
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  Amazon Eyes $2 Billion Stake in Bharti Airtel: Report

  Bloomberg

OPEC+ Set to Extend Cuts After Breakthrough With Iraq

(Bloomberg) -- OPEC+ is set to extend production cuts to prop up the oil market after a breakthrough in high-stakes negotiations, and the cartel could meet as soon as this weekend to sign off on the deal.After almost a week of wrangling, OPEC+ leaders Russia and Saudi Arabia clinched a tentative deal with holdout member Iraq, according to a delegate. The pair were pushing Iraq to stop shirking its share of cuts and even to compensate for failure to comply with cuts in the past.The agreement -- though still to be ratified -- means OPEC+ will extend its record production curbs for another month until the end of July. Russia’s Tass news service reported Friday that the OPEC Secretariat has scheduled a June 6 ministerial meeting, citing a source participating in the negotiations. Brent crude, the global benchmark, edged higher and rose above $40 a barrel.The 23-nation partnership between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major producers has helped engineer a doubling in Brent prices since April. The oil price surge has revived the fortunes of major energy companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and reduced the fiscal hole in the budgets of oil-rich nations.Failure to reach an agreement this month could have brought millions of barrels of oil onto the market, undermining a tentative recovery as the coronavirus lockdown eases. With U.S. shale production starting to come back online, OPEC’s careful management of the demand recovery is crucial.The kingdom and the Kremlin, who were on opposite sides of a vicious price war until a peace deal in April, are now united against those in OPEC who have consistently failed to shoulder their share of the burden. Russia, a habitual laggard, has complied punctiliously with the historic deal brokered by President Donald Trump in April, and wants to make sure others are too.“Reunited in leadership of OPEC+ and grimly facing many more months, if not years, of oversupply, Russia and Saudi Arabia had little to lose and much to gain by imposing concrete measure to improve compliance by the laggards, especially Iraq,” said Bob McNally, founder of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official.The details of the deal between OPEC+ and Iraq on compliance weren’t clear late on Thursday. A delegate said countries were waiting for a formal letter from Baghdad spelling out the details before calling for an official meeting. OPEC+ is used to dramatic glitches endangering deals at the last minute, so delegates said nothing would be agreed until formal communications take place.Tougher conditions will be difficult for Iraq to accept. It made less than half of its assigned cutbacks last month, so compensating fully would require it to slash production by a further 24% to about 3.28 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg calculations.For a country still rebuilding its economy following decades of war, sanctions and Islamist insurgency, that’s a tall order. The government risks a backlash from parliamentarians and rival political parties by acceding to foreign pressure and foregoing crucial oil sales.Three other nations -- Angola, Kazakhstan and Nigeria -- also produced above their OPEC+ quotas in May. The three had earlier on Thursday already agreed to bring their production in line with the agreement.The DealEnforcing better compliance among OPEC+ nations has been a motif since Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was appointed.In his first public outing after becoming energy minister, in Abu Dhabi last September, the prince was literally applauded for securing loud pledges of atonement from Iraq and Nigeria.His tenure has also been stormy. In March, the prince’s attempt to force Russia to make deeper output reductions backfired spectacularly, splintering the entire alliance and igniting a destructive price war.Two months ago, Prince Abdulaziz’s achievement in successfully restoring the OPEC+ coalition and forging an agreement for historic production cuts was overshadowed -- and delayed -- by a spat over Mexico’s contribution.The final deal in April set out historic cuts of 9.7 million barrels a day, or roughly 10% of global oil supplies, to offset the unprecedented collapse in demand caused by the virus lockdowns. Then a few weeks later, Saudi Arabia and its closest allies in the Persian Gulf promised additional supply restraint of 1.2 million barrels a day in June.If a new accord is signed this weekend, the impact on the oil market could be dramatic. After the massive oversupply earlier this year, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak predicts there could be a supply deficit of 3 million to 5 million barrels a day next month, Interfax reported. That’s roughly in line with projections from an OPEC committee that met on Wednesday, a delegate said.That would provide a stronger foundation for the crude price recovery, and also allow the cartel to start chipping away at the billion-barrel stockpile that’s built up during the crisis.Separately, OPEC+’s technical committee and the ministerial monitoring committee are set to meet on June 17-18, according to Tass.(Updates with June 6 meeting from Tass report in third paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  OPEC+ keen to keep U.S. shale in check as oil prices rally

  Reuters
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  Oil Prices Reverse As Saudi-Russian Deal, Surprise Data Stoke Volatility

  Investor's Business Daily

Amazon Eyes $2 Billion Stake in Bharti Airtel: Report

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is in preliminary talks to buy a stake in No. 2 Indian carrier Bharti Airtel Ltd. for at least $2 billion, Reuters reported, joining Facebook Inc. and other U.S. giants in betting on one of the world’s fastest-growing internet arenas.The U.S. online retailer is in early-stage discussions to buy about a 5% stake in the Indian wireless operator, Reuters said, citing anonymous sources. A deal will help Amazon access Bharti’s 300 million subscribers -- a user base akin to the entire U.S. population. On Friday, the Indian carrier said in a statement it wasn’t considering any proposal to sell a stake to Amazon, referring to reports as “speculative.”American technology and investment giants have been buying stakes in Indian companies to build their presence in Asia’s second-most populous nation. Facebook agreed to invest about $5.7 billion into a unit of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. in April, while Microsoft Corp. is reportedly considering a stake in the same company.Amazon already has deep roots in India, where Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has visited and vowed to build one of his biggest e-commerce operations outside of the U.S. Bezos, now the world’s richest man, said during a trip in January that his company would invest another $1 billion on top of the billions it’s shelled out to bring small and medium-size businesses online. Amazon is now vying with Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart to tap an increasingly affluent population adopting smartphones at a rapid clip.Read more: Jeff Bezos’s India Visit Marked by Probe and ProtestsAn Amazon spokeswoman in India declined to comment. “We routinely work with all digital and OTT players and have deep engagement with them to bring their products, content and services for our wide customer base. Beyond that there is no other activity to report,” a Bharti spokesperson said.An influx of capital would be welcome to New Delhi-based Bharti Airtel, which has come under pressure to beef up its offerings ever since Ambani’s technology venture went on a deal spree to secure about $10 billion in investment from Facebook to KKR & Co. Airtel’s billionaire Chairman Sunil Mittal may be looking to leverage the diverse businesses in his empire just as Ambani goes into overdrive to transform his oil-and-petrochemicals company into an Indian e-commerce and digital payments titan with Jio Platforms.Read more: How Facebook’s Reliance Deal Upends a $1 Trillion Digital ArenaIn its 25 years of operations, Bharti Airtel has survived frequent policy changes in one of the world’s toughest telecommunications markets. It lost its position as India’s largest wireless carrier last year to Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which debuted in 2016 and shook up the industry with free calls and cheap data. The most recent blow to Bharti Airtel came in October, when the nation’s top court in a shock ruling ordered it to pay $3 billion in back fees.The technology ambitions of Ambani, Asia’s richest man, have turned the spotlight on his telecommunications rivals, including Vodafone Idea Ltd., the struggling Indian business of British operator Vodafone Group Plc. The Financial Times reported May 28 that Alphabet Inc.’s Google is considering acquiring a stake in that venture. Vodafone Idea said it isn’t currently considering any such proposal.Besides telecommunications, Mittal’s Bharti Enterprises has businesses spanning insurance, real estate, education and farm food.(Updates with Bharti Airtel’s comment from the second paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

China’s JD.com Said to Open Books For Hong Kong Listing

(Bloomberg) -- China’s No. 2 online retailer JD.com Inc will start taking investor orders Friday for its second Hong Kong listing, according to people familiar with the matter, hot on the heels of NetEase Inc.’s $2.7 billion share sale in the city, as the U.S.-listed firms seek a foothold closer to home amid rising U.S.-China tensions.JD.com filed a preliminary prospectus on Friday with the Hong Kong stock exchange, which doesn’t contain any share sale details. The company could raise at least $2 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. The filing comes on the same day online gaming firm NetEase told prospective investors it was planning to price its Hong Kong listing at HK$123 each.A company spokesperson declined to comment on whether it planned to begin taking orders Friday.Escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing are increasing risks for Chinese companies like JD and NetEase who seek to broaden their investor base. U.S. capital markets are becoming frosty toward Chinese firms, and there have been fears over the impact of national security legislation set to be imposed on Hong Kong, including the resumption of protests in the city.The twin debuts would follow Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $13 billion Hong Kong stock sale last year, hailed as a homecoming for Chinese companies and a win for the Hong Kong stock exchange, which lost many of the largest tech corporations to U.S. bourses because it didn’t allow dual-class share voting at the time -- a requirement that’s since been relaxed.Bank of America Corp., UBS Group AG and CLSA Ltd. are joint sponsors of JD’s Hong Kong share sale.(Updates with details of Hong Kong listing in first paragraph and spokesman response in third paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  HKEX says many U.S.-listed Chinese firms plan Hong Kong listings

  Reuters
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  Most U.S. Firms in Hong Kong Say China’s Security Law Will Hurt Business

  The Wall Street Journal

Ambani’s Jio Platforms Sells $1.2 Billion Stake to Mubadala

(Bloomberg) -- Reliance Industries Ltd. added to the roster of marquee backers piling into its digital upstart Jio Platforms Ltd. with a $1.2 billion investment by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co.The deal gives the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund a stake of 1.85% at an equity value of $65 billion for Jio Platforms, the Mumbai-based company said Friday in a statement. Reliance, backed by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, is also in advanced talks with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News this week.The Mubadala agreement adds to the $10 billion that Jio Platforms has raised in recent weeks as it starts early preparations for an overseas stock listing. High-profile backers from Facebook Inc. to KKR & Co. are betting on Jio’s access to India’s 1.35 billion people as the country’s No. 1 wireless carrier and its potential to use online services to grow in industries including retail, entertainment and payments.Read more: Asia’s Richest Man Takes on the Comeback Kid After Wireless WarThe string of investments will go toward Ambani’s stated goal of slashing net debt to zero at Reliance Industries, an oil refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications conglomerate that’s India’s largest company. The outside money has also helped set a valuation for Jio as it prepares for a listing. The Mubadala deal gives Jio an enterprise value of $68 billion, according to Reliance.Also, the string of deals have sent Reliance Industries shares soaring 80% since late March.Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Jio in April for a roughly 10% stake. The vast social media network is looking to build a commerce business for its WhatsApp messaging service and was eager to work with Jio to take advantage of the company’s JioMart e-commerce platform and its relationship with Indian merchants. Facebook has a massive presence in India, with more than 400 million WhatsApp users alone, and the two sides had worked together previously when Facebook built a version of its WhatsApp messaging product for a Jio phone in 2018.Read more: Zuckerberg Just Gave Asia’s Richest Man a Sorely Needed WinMubadala, which has offices outside Abu Dhabi in San Francisco, New York, Moscow and elsewhere, made a $15 billion commitment to the SoftBank Vision Fund and launched a number of tech funds in the U.S., Europe and its home base. The fund, which has $229 billion in assets, has also been divesting some of its technology and other assets to redeploy proceeds to new investments. Last year, it sold 34.9 million shares in Advanced Micro Devices Inc. In March, Mubadala helped lead a $2.25 billion investment in Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car unit.(Updates with Reliance Industries share gains in fifth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  Amazon Eyes $2 Billion Stake in Bharti Airtel: Report

  Bloomberg
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  Reliance Industries closes $7 billion rights issue, India's largest ever

  Reuters

Broadcom Suggests New iPhone Launch Will Be Delayed

(Bloomberg) -- Broadcom Inc., a major Apple Inc. supplier, suggested the latest iPhones will be launched later than usual this year.Hock Tan, chief executive officer of Broadcom, discussed a “major product cycle delay” at a “large North American mobile phone” customer, during an earnings conference call with analysts on Thursday.Tan often refers to Apple this way. This time, the executive said the delay will mean the bump in wireless revenue experienced by Broadcom will happen one quarter later than usual this year.“We are in,” Hock said, referring Broadcom components in the iPhone. “The question is timing.”“This year, we do not expect to see this uptick in revenue until our fourth fiscal quarter,” the CEO added. “So accordingly, we expect, our wireless revenue in Q3 will be down sequentially.”Apple is planning to release its next iPhone line multiple weeks later than usual, Bloomberg News previously reported. The company typically unveils its new iPhones in the second half of September, but has occasionally, like in the case of the iPhone X in 2017, launched major new models later in the year.Phone makers usually order components months ahead of product launches. Apple typically releases new versions of the iPhone in September. If it followed that time line, Broadcom would receive orders in the current quarter, which runs through July. The chipmaker said that’s not happening this year. “Because of product cycle delays the trough for our fiscal year will be Q3. This coming quarter,” Tan said. “Nothing has changed in terms of designs, nothing has changed in terms of the content,” including more 5G components, the CEO added. The delay to the new iPhone release is due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has slowed Apple engineer travel to China to finalize the devices and required employees to mostly work from home in the early months of 2020.Broadcom’s Tan also warned about “supply constraints and an expected substantial reset in wireless” when the company’s results came out on Thursday. With much of the world’s population confined to their homes, handset demand has dropped.(Updates with CEO comment in eighth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  Broadcom's revenue forecast disappoints on possible Apple iPhone delay

  Reuters
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  Broadcom Scores Relative Strength Rating Upgrade; Hits Key Threshold

  Investor's Business Daily

Google Search a Target of U.S. Antitrust Probes, Rival Says

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. federal and state authorities are asking detailed questions about how to limit Google’s power in the online search market as part of their antitrust investigations into the tech giant, according to rival DuckDuckGo Inc.Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive officer of the privacy-focused search engine, said the company has spoken with state regulators, and talked with the U.S. Justice Department as recently as a few weeks ago.Justice Department officials and state attorneys general asked the company about requiring Google to give consumers alternatives to its search engine on Android devices and in Google’s Chrome web browser, Weinberg said in an interview.“We’ve been talking to all of them about search and all of them have asked us detailed search questions,” he added.Weinberg’s comments shine a light into how the inquiry is examining Google’s core business -- online search. Bloomberg has reported that the Justice Department and Texas are already examining Google’s dominance of the digital advertising market. The Justice Department and a coalition of states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have been investigating the company for a year, and the DOJ has begun drafting a lawsuit, which could be filed in the coming months. It would kick off one of the most significant antitrust cases in the U.S. since the government sued Microsoft Corp. in 1998.The investigations have been wide-ranging and are looking into various parts of Google’s business. States including Utah and Iowa are focusing on search, according to people familiar with the matter. Texas is looking at the digital ad market and related technology.Google handles the majority of online searches in the U.S., with Microsoft’s Bing, DuckDuckGo and other providers trailing far behind. Google Search is free for users, but the company’s lead helps it charge thousands of businesses high prices for ads that run above the free web listings in results. Last year, that business generated almost $100 billion in revenue.Read more: Google Search Dominance Has Businesses Paying for Their Name“We continue to engage with the ongoing investigations led by the Department of Justice and Attorney General Paxton, and we don’t have any updates or comments on speculation,” a Google spokeswoman said. In the past, the company has said that online competition is just a click away.The Federal Trade Commission previously investigated whether Google stifled competition in the market for online search advertising, but it closed the probe in 2013 after the company agreed to relatively minor changes. However, portions of communications between FTC commissioners and staff later showed that staffers recommended bringing an antitrust lawsuit against Google.Read more: Google Should Be Afraid of Latest U.S. ScrutinyWeinberg said the questions he has fielded recently about requiring Google to present users of its tech alternatives to its own search engine suggest that’s something the government could include in a possible future settlement.“That’s one direction we think has a decent probability,” he added. The Justice Department declined to comment. Attorneys general in Utah and Iowa didn’t respond to requests for comment.In Europe, Google was fined a record $5 billion for antitrust violations in 2018. As part of that ruling, the company is required to give consumers using phones that run its Android operating system a choice of different search engines and web browsers. Competing services must bid in an auction to be included in a “choice screen.”“Could this be a precursor to similar changes in the U.S.?” Mark Shmulik, Toni Sacconaghi and other analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein, wrote in a note to investors earlier this week.Europe’s remedy has gone through various iterations and some rivals have argued that having to pay to be included in the choice screen is unfair.Read more: Google App Prompts Watched ‘Very Very Closely’ by EU’s VestagerEcosia, a not-for-profit search engine based in Germany, boycotted the auction. DuckDuckGo participated in the most recent auction, but said it may not be able to compete if prices rise.“This auction remedy, proposed by Google, was constructed to make Google money, not to provide meaningful consumer choice,” DuckDuckGo said in a blog post last week.It suggested scrapping the auction and said that an unpaid “search preference menu” has increased competition already in Russia. In 2010, Microsoft created a successful browser preference menu without an auction where the top five web browsers by market share appeared randomly, DuckDuckGo said.“While our view is that users are unlikely to switch search engines, Yandex grew their search engine share by 2,000 basis points to 58% in three years following a similar ruling in Russia,” Bernstein’s Shmulik wrote in the recent Bernstein note to investors.If the U.S. incorporates these suggestions, it could bypass Europe as the most successful regulator of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Weinberg said.“The U.S. gets criticized for being behind Europe but in reality what’s happened in Europe hasn’t worked,” the CEO added. “The U.S. not only can do it right from the start but has the opportunity to leapfrog the EU.”(Updates with analyst comment in 13th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Why Shares of General Electric Were Up Today

Shares of General Electric (NYSE: GE) gained 5% on Thursday on growing optimism about a recovery in the airline industry. GE faced a number of challenges even before the COVID-19 pandemic, but a normalization of air travel would at least provide a boost to one of the industrial conglomerate's most important business units. GE shares have lost about 70% of their value over the past five years as the company has been weighed down by debt accumulated from a number of ill-timed acquisitions.

Amazon (AMZN) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, Amazon (AMZN) closed at $2,460.60, marking a -0.72% move from the previous day.

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  Ericsson (ERIC) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

  Zacks
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  Discover (DFS) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

  Zacks

Intel (INTC) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, Intel (INTC) closed at $62.97, marking a +1.68% move from the previous day.

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  Coca-Cola (KO) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

  Zacks
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  Valero Energy (VLO) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

  Zacks

Alphabet (GOOGL) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

Alphabet (GOOGL) closed the most recent trading day at $1,414.30, moving -1.73% from the previous trading session.

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  AMC Entertainment (AMC) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

  Zacks
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  ServiceNow (NOW) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

  Zacks

Verizon Communications (VZ) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

Verizon Communications (VZ) closed at $57.22 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.69% move from the prior day.

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  AMC Entertainment (AMC) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

  Zacks
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  Raytheon Technologies (RTX) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

  Zacks

IBM (IBM) Stock Moves -0.12%: What You Should Know

In the latest trading session, IBM (IBM) closed at $128.89, marking a -0.12% move from the previous day.

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  United Parcel Service (UPS) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

  Zacks
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  Citrix Systems (CTXS) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

  Zacks

AWS and Slack Join Forces to Deliver the Future of the Enterprise Workplace

Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Slack Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: WORK) announced a new multi-year agreement to deliver solutions for enhanced enterprise workforce collaboration. Slack and AWS will strategically partner to help distributed development teams communicate and become more efficient and agile in managing their AWS resources from inside Slack. Slack will migrate its Slack Calls capability for all voice and video calling to Amazon Chime, AWS’s communications service that lets users meet, chat, and place business calls. Slack is also leveraging AWS’s global infrastructure to support enterprise customers’ rapid adoption of its platform and to offer them data residency – the ability to choose which country or region their data is stored at rest in while fulfilling compliance requirements. Slack continues to rely on AWS as its preferred cloud provider and will use a range of AWS services, including storage, compute, database, security, analytics, and machine learning, to develop new collaboration features. Additionally, AWS has agreed to use Slack to simplify the way teams at AWS communicate and work together.

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  'Stay at home stock' Slack Technologies dips ahead of report

  Reuters
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  Slack earnings beat estimates, adds 12,000 net new paid customers in fiscal Q1

  Yahoo Finance

Slack earnings beat estimates, adds 12,000 net new paid customers in fiscal Q1

Slack enjoyed a huge first quarter as people worked from home due to COVID-19. Here's what Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield told Yahoo Finance.

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  Slack tops Q1 revenue estimates, withdraws guidance for FY21 calculated billing 

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  Can Slack Zoom Like Zoom on Earnings? Check the Charts

  TheStreet.com

Facebook Begins Labeling News, Ads From State-Controlled Media

Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is following through with its vow of a few months ago, announcing it will begin labeling state-controlled media outlets that post on its platform. In a blog post, the social media giant, which has faced backlash from employees for refusing to remove inflammatory posts from President Trump regarding the murder of George Floyd in police custody and the ensuing protests, said labels will begin appearing as of Wednesday. Facebook isn't removing state-controlled news, but by labeling it, which Facebook says better equips users to understand who is behind the news.