The EU lands Google with another fine—but will Google change?

Zain Ali   The EU gets it when it comes to fines. Rather than the paltry US$17 million certain US states’ attorneys-general stung Google with some years ago for hacking Iphones, they’ve now fined the search engine giant €4,340 million, on top of its earlier fine of €2,420 million over anticompetitive behaviour.    That US$17 […]

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Cambridge Analytica is merely Facebook’s ‘smaller, less ambitious sibling’

Beyond all that had gone on with AIQ and Cambridge Analytica, a lot more has come out about Facebook’s practices, things that I always suspected they do, for why else would they collect data on you even after you opted out?    Now, Sam Biddle at The Intercept has written a piece that demonstrates that […]

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How my Dad called the primary and the election for Donald Trump ages ago

FJM88NL, licensed under Creative Commons I’ve had a phone call and a lot of comments on this in the last couple of days: my Dad, who is 81 with early-stage Alzheimer’s, called the US presidential election for Donald Trump months ago. I posted it on my social networks the day he made his definitive call, […]

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There can be only one, unless you forget to register your design: the Range Rover Evoque and the copycat Landwind X7

The stunning original: the Range Rover Evoque. There has been a lot of ongoing press about Landwind’s copy of the Range Rover Evoque (a road test of the Evoque comes next week in Lucire, incidentally), one of my favourite Sloane Ranger SUVs. There’s no way Landwind would have come up with the design independently, and, […]

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The fall of Facebook advertising and the rise of something else

I remember when Michael Wolff was very bullish about the internet in the 1990s, so when he starts sounding warning bells, we had better take heed.    The way Michael paints Facebook—and a belief that its advertising model will eventually collapse for being so limited—is not unfamiliar to anyone who ever wondered, during the dot-com […]

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Cringely gives Facebook till 2014 to peak—and he may be right

Bob Cringely wrote (found via Stowe Boyd): Facebook is a huge success. You can’t argue with 750 million users and growing. And I don’t see Google+ making a big dent in that. What I see instead is more properly the fading of the entire social media category, the victim of an ever-shortening event horizon.   […]

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Saab to get €245 million if Pang Da and Youngman deal approved

Today, from Saab: Swedish Automobile N.V. (SWAN) and Saab Automobile AB (Saab Automobile) today announced the signing of final agreements with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co., Ltd. (Pang Da) and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co., Ltd. (Youngman), thereby converting the non-binding memorandum of understanding relating to the equity investment of Pang Da and Youngman … […]

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Chloé chief sees China moving to more understated luxury—or is it?

Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye of Chloé believes the mainland Chinese market is moving toward more understated luxury.    I believe there’ll always be a mixture. The understated buyer is emerging probably because of saturation by more extrovert brands—and often, buyers want to get something different, rather than conform.    And the top-end luxury brands have […]

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How will Chevrolet go down in Korea?

Last week, GM announced it would drop the Daewoo marque, as it has done through Europe, in its native Korea, in favour of Chevrolet.    The company will also be renamed GM Korea, a name it once had nearly four decades ago.    While most will think this makes sense, so GM can concentrate on […]

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Opel is not a snob brand

Arthur Daley, Opel’s last New Zealand spokesman: ‘Never mind the Capri, Tel: I sell Opels now.’ In the Fairfax Press, General Motors has apparently confirmed it will bring in Opel-branded cars to sell alongside Holden-branded ones.    It’s an obvious move. For years, a good part of Holden’s range was Opel-designed. Like Vauxhall, the model […]

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