$650 MILLION FACEBOOK PRIVACY LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT APPROVED BY JUDGE A federal judge has approved a $650Msettle- ment of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users. U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6M Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims will be affected. MICROSOFT CLOSES $7.5 BILLION BETHESDA ACQUISITION Spotlight on Innovation Head lines M icrosoft has closed it’s $7.5B blockbuster
MUSK WANTS TO CONNECT RVS AND TRUCKS TO THE INTERNET THROUGH STARLINK SATELLITES Microsoft took a different approach to Sony though, heavily marketing its Xbox Game Pass subscription service which offers players access to a library of games. Sony, on the other hand, is touting new PlayStation exclusives to attract gamers. A ccording to SpaceXCEOElonMusk, the company is working on an antenna that will connect vehicles like semi-trucks and RVs to its satellite internet network. Musk clarified that the antenna will not be for “connecting Tesla cars to Starlink,” saying that the user “terminal is much too big.” “This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks & RVs,” Musk said. acquisitionof ZeniMax, theparent company of video game publisher Bethesda making it the biggest gaming acquisition in the company’s history, eclipsing the $2.5B the firm paid to buy Minecraft developer Mojang in 2014. Microsoft confirmed rumors that some new Bethesda games would be exclusive to its Xbox console and Windows PCs, increasing the compa- ny’s competition with Sony. Both firms debuted their next-generation consoles last year, hoping to lure in gamers with the promise of big improve- ments on the older systems. Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network with thou- sands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet.
AMAZON ACQUIRES SELZ, A SHOPIFY COMPETITOR THAT HELPS SMALL BUSINESSES BUILD ONLINE STORES The lawsuit accused the social media giant of violating an Illinois privacy law by failing to get consent before using facial-recognition technol- ogy to scan photos uploaded by users to create and store faces digitally. The state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act allowed consumers to sue companies that didn’t get permission before harvesting data such as faces and fingerprints. The case eventually wound up as a class-action lawsuit in California and Facebook changing its photo-tagging system. A mazon has bought Selz, a Sydney, Australia based company that provides SME’s with a platform to launch their own online stores along with online payment options for existing websites, among other tools. The acquisition comes as Amazon’s third-party marketplace, made up of more than 2.5M sellers, continues to thrive. The segment now accounts for more than half of Amazon’s e-commerce sales and has helped Amazon bring in record revenue. Amazon has had his eyes on Shopify, an e-com- merce enabler that has seen its business sky- rocket during the pandemic as consumers have turned to online retailers for both essential and non-essential goods.
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MARCH 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021
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