Prompted by concerns over privacy, “government investigation, a class-action lawsuit and regulatory woes,” Facebook is planning to “shut down its decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of more than one billion users “ worldwide. Facebook initially rolled out the software in 2010 to suggest “tags” of others in users’ digital photos, and though it reportedly did not “sell its software to third parties,” the feature” became a privacy and regulatory headache for the company” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360 and TechCrunch
After briefly crossing the 36k threshold yesterday, the Dow made history by closing above 36,000 for the first time on Tuesday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also hit new records - WSJ and MarketWatch
Charting out the tightrope Fed Chair Powell has to navigate tomorrow, when he and other Fed officials “are expected to announce a plan to wean the economy off their asset-buying program.” While a long lead on that move has meant general market acceptance, persistently high inflation has pushed the question of rate raising to the fore and could mean more landmines for Powell & friends - NYTimes and WSJ
The DOJ has sued to stop a proposed $2.18 billion of publishing house giants Penguin Random House and Simon & Shuster, the most recent in a string of enforcement actions that shows a new “view of corporate consolidation” now prevails in D.C. - NYTimes and WSJ and Law360
A battle between Apple and a group of activist employees at the company that’s been roiling just beneath the surface bubbled over this week, with one of the leaders of that activist movement accusing Apple of firing her in October in “retaliation for forming the employee group, known as #AppleToo.” That former employee, Janneke Parrish, has filed an action with the National Labor Relations Board against Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook - NYTimes
Yahoo is officially decamping from China, “becoming the second well-known U.S. technology company to downsize China operations in less than a month following the closure of Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn social-networking site.” The pullout “coincided with the implementation” of China’s new stringent privacy law “that will curb data collection by technology companies” and that took effect November 1 - WSJ and TechCrunch
In an unexpected turn, John Deere workers have rejected the revised contract proposal negotiated by the United Auto Workers union. The vote extends the weeks-long strike at plants across the Midwest - NYTimes and WSJ
Zillow’s home-flipping experiment is officially over, after a series of announcements in recent weeks that hinted at a more temporary pause. Ultimately, Zillow decided that “its pricing algorithms weren’t accurate enough to build a stable business” - Bloomberg and MarketWatch and NYTimes
Elon Musk threw a bit of cold water on the recent excitement over last week’s announcement that the e-car maker and Hertz had reached a deal that would see the rental car giant buy 100k Teslas for its fleet, tweeting that “no contract has been signed yet” in response to a posting of Telsa’s stock skyrocketing - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
The [mis]adventures of another Tatooine underworld boss—this one, clad in Beskar? Sign us up – Disney+
Stay safe, and get vaxxed,
MDR
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