LONDON: Russia’s competition watchdog fined Alphabet’s Google 2 billion roubles ($34.2 million) on Tuesday for abusing its dominant position in the video hosting market, the regulator said in a statement. The decision is the latest multi-million dollar fine as part of Moscow’s increasingly assertive campaign against foreign tech companies. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said the company had “abused its dominant position in the YouTube video hosting services market,” without providing additional details. “We will study the text of the official decision to define our next steps,” Google said in a statement to Reuters. Google must pay the fine within two months of it entering into force, the FAS said. Russia has slapped Google’s Russian subsidiary with numerous fines in recent months. Last week a court ordered it to pay 21.1 billion roubles ($358.7 million) over what prosecutors said were repeated refusals to remove content Russia deems illegal, such as “fake news” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since Moscow launched what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, it has also accelerated attacks on Western tech companies at home in a push to exert more control over the online space, including through supporting domestic players to oust their Western rivals. Gazprom Media — a media conglomerate linked to state-controlled gas giant Gazprom — has been heavily promoting RuTube, its Russian alternative to YouTube, which has seen a sharp uptick in traffic since February. YouTube, which has blocked Russian state-funded media globally, is under heavy pressure from Russia’s communications regulator and politicians. Google stopped selling online advertising in Russia in early March but has kept some free services available. Its Russian subsidiary officially filed for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and vendors.
JAKARTA: Indonesia has blocked several popular tech websites including search engine Yahoo and e-payment provider PayPal, an official confirmed on Saturday. The sites have been blocked because of their parent companies’ failure to comply with the country’s licensing rules.
Since November 2020, tech companies in Indonesia have been required to register their platforms with the Ministry of Communication and IT. The licensing rules give authorities the power to order companies to remove content or apps deemed “unlawful” or “disruptive of public order,” among other offenses.
Major social-media platforms including Meta Platform Inc’s Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as Alphabet Inc’s Google search engine, had rushed to register just days before the government’s July deadline, after the ministry warned that failure to comply could lead to sites being blocked.
Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, director general of information and technology at the Ministry of Communication, told Arab News that eight websites had yet to register by the extended deadline of July 29, including Yahoo, PayPal, and mainstream gaming sites Steam and Epic Games.
He confirmed that the ministry had blocked those platforms.
“If PayPal sees Indonesia as their market and they care about their consumers, they should have registered,” Pangerapan said.
“We have given them a chance that they did not use. We sent them a letter, and they ignored us.”
PaypPal and US game developer Valve Corporation, which runs Steam, Dota, and Counter-Strike, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The measures to cut off access are not permanent, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the licensing rules are intended to protect internet users.
The move sparked a backlash on social media, with hashtags like #BlokirKominfo (block the communications ministry) trending on Twitter and many Indonesians chiding the government’s move as hurting the local online gaming industry and freelance workers, many of whom rely on PayPal.
“I’m disappointed with the government. They said they are supportive of the creative industry, which, as it turns out, is just hogwash,” Kaito, a creative freelancer based in East Java, told Arab News.
Nenden Arum from digital rights group the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network told Arab News the ministry’s move to block these platforms is a violation of rights.
“Ideally, any process to block websites should involve a trial, but the communications ministry can do this instantly (because) the platforms did not register. But we see clearly how it impacts and hurts the public,” Arum told Arab News.
“This regulation harms the public — (it does not take into account) the public interest,” Arum continued.
The world’s fourth most-populous country is home to an estimated 191 million social-media users, according to Statista, making it a significant market for most tech platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Bytedance’s TikTok. There are also over 170 million gamers in Indonesia, according to a 2021 report published by the communications ministry.
WILMINGTON, Delaware: Elon Musk countersued Twitter Inc. on Friday, escalating his legal fight against the social media company over his bid to walk away from the $44 billion purchase, although the lawsuit was filed confidentially. While the 164-page document was not publicly available, under court rules a redacted version could soon be made public. Musk’s lawsuit was filed hours after Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered a five-day trial beginning Oct. 17 to determine if Musk can walk away from the deal. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Also on Friday, Musk was sued by a Twitter shareholder who asked the court to order the billionaire to close the deal, find that he breached his fiduciary duty to Twitter shareholders and award damages for losses he caused. Musk owes a fiduciary duty to Twitter’s shareholders because of his 9.6 percent stake in the company and because the takeover agreement gives him a veto of many of the company’s decisions, according to the lawsuit, which seeks class status. The lawsuit was filed by Luigi Crispo, who owns 5,500 Twitter shares, in the Court of Chancery. Musk, the world’s richest person and chief executive of Tesla Inc, said on July 8 he was abandoning the takeover and blamed Twitter Inc. for breaching the agreement by misrepresenting the number of fake accounts on its platform. Twitter sued days later, calling the fake account claims a distraction and saying Musk was bound by the merger contract to close the deal at $54.20 per share. The company’s shares ended on Friday at $41.61, the highest close since Musk abandoned the deal. McCormick fast-tracked the case to trial last week, saying she wanted to limit the potential harm to Twitter caused by the uncertainty of the deal. Twitter has blamed the court fight for slumping revenue and causing chaos within the company. The two sides had basically agreed to an Oct. 17 trial, but were at odds over the limits of discovery, or access to internal documents and other evidence. Musk accused Twitter this week of dragging its feet in response to his discovery requests, and Twitter accused him of seeking huge amounts of data that are irrelevant to the main issue in the case: whether Musk had violated the deal contract. The chief judge in her order on Friday appeared to anticipate discovery disputes to come. “This order does not resolve any specific discovery disputes, including the propriety of any requests for large data sets,” said McCormick. Musk also faces a week-long trial in Wilmington, Delaware, beginning Oct. 24. A Tesla shareholder is seeking to void as corporate waste and unjust enrichment the CEO’s record-breaking $56 billion pay package from the electric vehicle maker.
LONDON: Coleen Rooney, wife of former England soccer captain Wayne, emerged victorious in her high-profile libel match with the spouse of an ex-teammate after a High Court judge agreed that Rebekah Vardy had leaked stories about her to the press. In a case that has gripped the public with its mix of glamor, soccer, and amateur sleuthing, the judge backed Rooney’s public assertion that Vardy had spilled private details about her to the Sun tabloid, leaving Vardy “devastated.” The intrigue began almost three years ago when Rooney grew suspicious about stories in the Sun and turned detective to try to find the culprit. She said she blocked everyone from viewing her Instagram account except one person and then posted a series of false stories to see whether they leaked out, which they did. Rooney wrote on her social media accounts that only one person had viewed the false stories, concluding with the dramatic revelation: “It’s ... Rebekah Vardy’s account.” Vardy, 40, sued Rooney and the feud was dubbed the “WAGatha Christie” case after the “WAG” moniker given to a group of footballers’ wives and girlfriends, and the renowned author of detective novels in honor of Rooney’s sleuthing. The judge, Justice Karen Steyn, said Rooney proved her allegation was “substantially true.” She concluded that Vardy knew and condoned details being leaked to the Sun by her agent Caroline Watt. “It was not a case I ever sought or wanted,” Rooney said in a statement. “I never believed it should have gone to court at such expense ... when the money could have been far better spent helping others,” she added. Any decision over who foots the legal fees will be settled at a future hearing. British media have speculated the trial cost millions of pounds. “Although I bear Mrs.Vardy no ill-will, today’s judgment makes clear that I was right in what I said in my posts of October 2019,” Rooney said. Vardy said she was “extremely sad and disappointed at the decision.” “It is not the result that I had expected, nor believe was just. I brought this action to vindicate my reputation and am devastated by the judge’s finding,” she said in a statement. “(The judge) got it wrong and this is something I cannot accept.”
BOTTOM OF THE SEA During the trial in May, the court was shown message exchanges between Vardy and Watt, which included derogatory remarks about Rooney and talk of leaking stories. Rooney’s lawyer said Vardy deleted other media files and messages. Watt’s phone ended up at the bottom of the North Sea after she said she accidentally dropped it over the side of a boat. “It is likely that Ms Vardy deliberately deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms Watt, and that Ms Watt deliberately dropped her phone in the sea,” Steyn said. The judge found Rooney to be honest but said some of Vardy’s testimony was not credible and there had been “a degree of self-deception on her part regarding the extent to which she was involved.” The courtroom bust-up has attracted similar level of public attention to any of their husbands’ soccer games. Wayne Rooney holds the record for the most international goals for England, while Vardy’s husband Jamie has been one of the top scorers in the English Premier League in recent years, also playing and scoring for the national side. Both women are well-known in their own right — Coleen Rooney, 36, has 1.2 million followers on Twitter and almost 925,000 on Instagram — and the libel case lifted the lid on their glittering lifestyles, and less flattering aspects such as the Rooneys’ marriage troubles. Vardy says her family had received abuse and threats as a result of Rooney’s public accusation and Steyn agreed it was not in the public interest for the disclosure to have been made by Rooney without giving Vardy the chance to respond first. “Some members of the public have responded to the Reveal Post by subjecting Ms Vardy to vile abuse, including messages wishing her, her family, and even her (then unborn) baby, ill in the most awful terms,” Steyn said. “Nothing of which Ms Vardy has been accused, nor any of the findings in this judgment, provide any justification or excuse for subjecting her or her family, or any other person involved in this case, to such vitriol.”
NAIROBI: Kenya’s ethnic cohesion watchdog has given Meta’s Facebook seven days to tackle hate speech and incitement on the platform relating to next month’s election, failing which its operations will be suspended. East Africa’s biggest economy is in the throes of campaigning ahead of presidential, legislative and local authorities elections on Aug. 9. Advocacy group Global Witness said in a report published on Thursday that Facebook had accepted and carried more than a dozen political advertisements that breached Kenya’s rules. Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) said the report corroborates its own internal findings. “Facebook is in violation of the laws of our country. They have allowed themselves to be a vector of hate speech and incitement, misinformation and disinformation,” Danvas Makori, an NCIC commissioner said on Friday. Meta has taken “extensive steps” to weed out hate speech and inflammatory content, and it is intensifying those efforts ahead of the election, a company spokesperson told Reuters. “We have dedicated teams of Swahili speakers and proactive detection technology to help us remove harmful content quickly and at scale,” the spokesperson said. The NCIC has held talks with the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), which regulates social media firms, and it will recommend the suspension of Meta’s operations, Makori said. He accused Meta of violating Kenya’s constitution and laws governing hate speech and the use of social media platforms. “This country is bigger than a social media company or an entity. We will not allow Facebook, or any other social media company, to jeopardize security,” he said. Supporters of the leading presidential candidates, veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga and deputy president William Ruto, have used social media platforms to praise their candidates, persuade others to join them or to accuse opposing sides of various misdeeds. The NCIC is a statutory body established to foster ethnic harmony among Kenya’s 45 tribes, some of which have targeted each other during violence in past polls.
LONDON: On Thursday, Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor filed a lawsuit demanding Novaya Gazeta’s license be permanently revoked.
“Russia’s censorship agency Roskomnadzor has demanded that Novaya Gazeta’s certificate of registration be declared invalid,” the newspaper said in a statement.
“Roskomnadzor asked the court to declare the print media outlet Novaya Gazeta’s license invalid due to the editorial office not providing its editorial statute within the timeframe established by the law on media,” the agency added.
Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent media outlets in the country, decided to move its operations earlier in March after being forced to take down from its website some of the agency’s coverage of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.
In February, the newspaper, headed by Editor-in-Chief and Nobel prize winner Dmitry Muratov, moved its operation to Riga in Latvia and launched the newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe. Russia’s media regulator has blocked that website inside Russia as well.
As part of its effort to control media coverage in the country following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow introduced a new law that criminalizes the dissemination of “false” information that “discredits the armed forces.”
This move caused several independent media outlets in the country to move their operations or stop them entirely, including a radio station and TV channel.
Last week, the website of the magazine Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta, also produced by Novaya Gazeta staff, was taken down by Roskomnadzor for allegedly “discrediting the Russian armed forces.”
The agency announced it would dispute the decision in court.
“Russian legislation requires strict compliance with measures aimed at preventing the dissemination of prohibited and unreliable information. In the context of the information war unleashed by the West against our country, the protection of Russian citizens from hazardous materials should be a priority not only for Russian government agencies but also for the owners of the media and internet resources,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement on Thursday.