Welcome to the world of facts and news: March 2023

Alibaba stock is overbought as spinoff prompts $47 billion rally

The Chinese internet conglomorate’s plan to slash its empire into six units has so far added $47 billion of market value, causing a key technical indicator to flash a sell signal — little more than a week after it showed the stock was oversold.

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Elon Musk seeks to end $258 billion Dogecoin lawsuit

The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as "Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge" were too vague to support a fraud claim.

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Twitter makes some of its source code public

The company said in a blog post it uploaded the code in two repositories on code-sharing platform Github. They include the source code for many parts of Twitter, including the recommendations algorithm which controls the tweets that users see on their timeline.

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Tata Neu’s muted first year, PhonePe-ZestMoney deal called off & the week’s top tech stories

Hi Digbijay here in Bengaluru. Last month, I was in Mumbai and visited the offices of the newest ecommerce challenger in India –Tata Digital-- which runs the superapp Neu. If you’ve been reading our coverage of one of Tata’s most ambitious projects, you’ll know we’ve been on top of all the big developments, breaking the most important stories.

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Amazon must face California lawsuit claiming its prices are too high

California sufficiently alleged that Amazon's policies "have had the anticompetitive effect of raising prices on competing retail marketplaces as well as on third-party sellers' own websites," Judge Ethan Schulman in San Francisco Superior Court wrote.

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Meta defeats photo app's antitrust case in US court

US District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, New York, federal court said in her 67-page order that Phhhoto Inc had failed to timely bring its claims under relevant US antitrust law that sets a four-year window and under New York state competition provisions that have a three-year statute of limitation.

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Why PhonePe-ZestMoney deal fell through; top leadership changes at Swiggy Instamart

PhonePe has walked away from buying cash-strapped buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) startup ZestMoney amid due diligence concerns, per multiple people in the know. After breaking the story on Thursday morning, we get you details on what led to the failed transaction.

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Exclusive: Swiggy Instamart head Karthik Gurumurthy to step aside; cofounder Phani Kishan to take over biz

Typically, the campus placement process starts in July of every year, said D Ranganath, dean of placement and training at RV College of Engineering in Bengaluru. “

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Google may find ways to go around NCLAT order upholding CCI fine, say Indian startups

The appellate tribunal had set aside four directives issued by the anti-trust body, including one where CCI had asked Google to enable app developers to port their apps into different versions of the Android operating system for smartphones.

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FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to campaign finance, China bribery charges

USA-FTX's Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to campaign finance, China bribery charges

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TikTok ban legislation pushed by Missouri's Josh Hawley blocked in US Senate

​​​In trying to force a vote - a move that rarely works in the Senate, since one senator's objection can block it - Hawley called TikTok "digital fentanyl" and argued it could give the Chinese government access to data from 150 million American users.

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Exclusive: Behind Tata Neu’s muted first year performance; Gokul Rajaram on Indian startups, valuations & more

Tata Digital's much-hyped superapp Neu has had a slow start in its first year of launch. Sources told us that the platform contributed less than 10% of gross sales for two of its biggest digital assets — egrocer BigBasket and epharmacy 1mg.

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Next nine months will lead to company failures, shutdowns, down rounds: Gokul Rajaram

​​Rajaram, dubbed the ‘Godfather of Google's AdSense’, who later became product director of ads at Facebook, is also an angel investor in domestic startups with a portfolio comprising Cred, Curefit, and Whatfix.

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NXP Semiconductors urging partners like TSMC, GlobalFoundries to build in India

​​Kurt Sievers, president and CEO of the Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer said he told PM Modi that he would “strongly recommend” India as a future location for their foundry partners.

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Republican senator Rand Paul opposes TikTok ban push in Congress

A small but growing number of Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns, citing free speech and other issues and have objected to legislation targeting TikTok as overly broad.

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EazyDiner raises Rs 40 crore in funding from DMI’s Sparkle Fund

The startup, present in India and United Arab Emirates, will utilise the capital to expand its business to 100 cities from 30 currently and for product development, founder Kapil Chopra told ET.

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Alibaba's breakup plan lifts hopes China's tech crackdown is ending

Alibaba said on Tuesday it was planning to split into six units and explore fundraisings or listings for most of them, in the biggest restructuring of the technology conglomerate in its 24-year history.

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Digital lending platform LoanTap acquires Unofin

With this acquisition, LoanTap aims to leverage Unofin's expertise in healthcare financing to expand its reach in the rapidly-growing healthcare sector in the country.

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ChatGPT powered tools for consumer complaints in the works; draft online gaming rules to be notified soon

Indian consumers will be able to register their complaints on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) with the help of a ChatGPT-powered mechanism being developed by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MCA), ET has learnt.

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ChatGPT may soon help consumers file complaints

​​ChatGPT, developed by US-based OpenAI, is a chatbot that leverages artificial intelligence to offer answers to complex queries in a conversational and simple way. It was launched in November last year.

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Microsoft introduces AI-powered cybersecurity assistant

The tool, named 'Security Copilot', is a simple prompt box that will help security analysts with tasks like summarizing incidents, analyzing vulnerabilities and sharing information with co-workers on a pinboard.

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Apple acquires AI-driven video compression startup WaveOne

Although Apple did not announce the acquisition, Bob Stankosh, WaveOne's former head of sales and business development, posted on LinkedIn about the sale of the startup to iPhone maker.

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Online shopping gathers pace in tier-II & IV cities: IIM-Ahmedabad report

Tier 2 to tier 4 cities are outpacing the tier 1 cities in online shopping. According to an Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad report, online shoppers from tier 2 to tier 4 cities spent up to 77% more than those from tier 1 cities in their last online shopping.

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Lyft picks new CEO as founders tap out amid fierce competition

The change of guard at Lyft comes after a weak quarterly forecast worsened concerns that profits would get squeezed by price cuts undertaken to keep up with bigger rival Uber - which boasts better pricing power, a global presence and a food delivery business.

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Opposition MPs flag concerns about revised Data Bill, propose 40 changes

Members have also expressed concern over a lack of attention to protecting children’s data and the impact on the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

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Alibaba founder Jack Ma returns to China for school visit: Report

The report also said the billionaire businessman, who is a former English teacher, returned to China after a brief stop in Hong Kong, where he met friends and also briefly visited Art Basel.

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Baidu scraps public launch for its ChatGPT-like product 'Ernie Bot'

The webcast, scheduled for Monday afternoon, was switched to a closed-door meeting with the first batch of companies that are testing the product, Baidu said in a statement on Monday morning.

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Black, Hispanic investors struggle with faith in crypto

Only a small minority of the US population owns cryptocurrency, but adoption increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as low interest rates made borrowing money and investing in risky assets more attractive.

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First Citizens in advanced talks to buy Silicon Valley Bank: Source

First Citizens could reach a deal as soon as Sunday to acquire Silicon Valley Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development.

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Twitter says parts of its source code were leaked online

Twitter moved Friday to have the leaked code taken down by sending a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software developers where the code was posted, according to the filing.

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Online gaming companies say TDS will cut rows, compliance load

A top executive at a fantasy sports gaming platform said initially the government had set the July deadline for TDS applicability so that companies get enough time to comply, but the presence of two different taxation systems in a single financial year would have led to compliance problems and potential tax disputes.

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India's digital public infra a story worth showcasing: Cisco India President

The Cisco India top honcho also pointed to CoWIN (the digital backbone of COVID-19 vaccination programme) and India's digital health ID mission to highlight how the country had successfully engineered and scaled digital solutions.

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Microsoft adds 'AI-generated stories' to its Bing search

According to the company, Bing will now craft AI-generated stories that provide you with multiple ways to consume "bite-sized information through text, images, video, and audio".

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Elon Musk puts $20 billion value on Twitter: report

The reported valuation is less than half of the $44 billion that Musk paid to acquire the social media platform, pointing to a drop in Twitter's value.

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ETtech in-depth: Cloud kitchens change flavours as pandemic-driven sheen fades away

Cloud kitchens, which boomed during the pandemic, are slowing down. They are busy redrawing their plans to adapt to the new reality

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Twitter offers new equity grants to staff: WSJ report

According to the report, the company plans to offer a liquidity event roughly a year from now, in which employees can cash out some of their equity.

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China denies pressuring companies like TikTok to spy for China

At a news conference, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said China "has never and will not" ask companies or individuals to collect data stored in foreign countries in a way that violates those countries' laws.

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US Justice Department's Google advertising case gets fast-paced schedule

The faster pace of the litigation could put additional pressure on both sides, but particularly on Google in building its defense, based on what the company in a court filing called an "imbalance" in the proceedings.

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TikTok’s future hangs in balance amid possible US ban & other top tech stories this week

Earlier this week TikTok said it has more than 150 million monthly users (nearly half the population) in the US, up from 100 million just a year ago. However, the exponential growth of the short video platform comes at a time when it faces an existential crisis in the US as the Joe Biden administration seeks a ban or a potential sale of the platform to a local owner.

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Accenture results signal growth impact in FY24, larger firms to benefit

Most analysts expect the Indian IT sector to grow its revenue in mid- to high-single digits year on year in FY24, a steep climb down from the high growth registered in the past two years post the pandemic.

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Delhi High Court asks Google to consider softer warning for WinZO app downloads

The high court asked Google whether it can say the application is harmful when it does not know verified reports about it. “Can you say it is harmful? You can say it is unverified and download it at your own risk,” the court said, while posting the matter for further hearing on April 26.

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IT firms could buy tech captives of crisis-hit banking sector; Hindenburg accuses Jack Dorsey's Block of $1B fraud

Several analysts believe that the global capability centre (GCC) ecosystem has significantly changed since the 2008 crisis stage and that the current crisis would result in an increase in GCC investments in the country.

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Google leased 3 million square feet of office space in Bengaluru

The acquired office space, which combines flexible and traditional options, will be used to support the expansion of Google India and Google Connect Services India operations.

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IT may get to buy tech captives of crisis-hit banking, financial firms

Advantage Indian IT firms as banks need core modernisation investments, say experts

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Hindenburg takes aim at Dorsey's payments firm Block, shares plunge

The US short seller, behind a market rout of over $100 billion in India's Adani Group, said in its report that former Block employees estimated that 40% to 75% of accounts they reviewed were fake, involved in fraud, or were additional accounts tied to a single individual.

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Meta says a network fee is not the fix for European telecoms firms' financial problems

Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and other operators have lobbied for two decades for US tech giants to contribute to 5G and broadband roll-out.

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Job search platform Indeed to cut 2,200 jobs

Chief Executive Chris Hyams, who will take a 25% cut in base pay, said future job openings were at or below pre-pandemic levels and that the company was too large.

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Senior Meta advertising executive departs amid efficiency drive

Dan Levy, currently the social media giant's vice president of business messaging, said in a post to Meta's internal social network on Monday that he wanted to focus on family after losing a child to leukemia.

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Govt may make ecommerce players liable for seller frauds; Netflix India gunning for continued growth

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs is working on new rules to make ecommerce platforms Lori Amazon and Flipkart liable for fraud committed by their sellers. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

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With great ecommerce comes great responsibility for online platforms

The consumer affairs ministry is working on tightening ecommerce rules to make online retail platforms liable for fraud committed by sellers and attaching “fallback liability” to their role as intermediaries, said a senior official.

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Yellow.ai deploys 30% of global generative AI bots domestically

While markets like the US are mostly using GenAI for customer support in a bid to cut costs, India Inc. is using them as an opportunity to g...