Policy

cop-busted-for-unauthorized-use-of-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-resigns

Cop busted for unauthorized use of Clearview AI facial recognition resigns

clearview.ai, face scans, facial recognition, law enforcement, police misconduct, police surveillance, Policy, public safety, surveillance technology / /

Secret face scans —

Indiana cop easily hid frequent personal use of Clearview AI face scans.

–

Cop busted for unauthorized use of Clearview AI facial recognition resigns

An Indiana cop has resigned after it was revealed that he frequently used Clearview AI facial recognition technology to track down social media users not linked to any crimes.

According to a press release from the Evansville Police Department, this was a clear “misuse” of Clearview AI’s controversial face scan tech, which some US cities have banned over concerns that it gives law enforcement unlimited power to track people in their daily lives.

To help identify suspects, police can scan what Clearview AI describes on its website as “the world’s largest facial recognition network.” The database pools more than 40 billion images collected from news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and other open sources.

But these scans must always be linked to an investigation, and Evansville police chief Philip Smith said that instead, the disgraced cop repeatedly disguised his personal searches by deceptively “utilizing an actual case number associated with an actual incident” to evade detection.

Smith’s department discovered the officer’s unauthorized use after performing an audit before renewing their Clearview AI subscription in March. That audit showed “an anomaly of very high usage of the software by an officer whose work output was not indicative of the number of inquiry searches that they had.”

Another clue to the officer’s abuse of the tool was that most face scans conducted during investigations are “usually live or CCTV images”—shots taken in the wild—Smith said. However, the officer who resigned was mainly searching social media images, which was a red flag.

An investigation quickly “made clear that this officer was using Clearview AI” for “personal purposes,” Smith said, declining to name the officer or verify if targets of these searchers were notified.

As a result, Smith recommended that the department terminate the officer. However, the officer resigned “before the Police Merit Commission could make a final determination on the matter,” Smith said.

Easily dodging Clearview AI’s built-in compliance features

Clearview AI touts the face image network as a public safety resource, promising to help law enforcement make arrests sooner while committing to “ethical and responsible” use of the tech.

On its website, the company says that it understands that “law enforcement agencies need built-in compliance features for increased oversight, accountability, and transparency within their jurisdictions, such as advanced admin tools, as well as user-friendly dashboards, reporting, and metrics tools.”

To “help deter and detect improper searches,” its website says that a case number and crime type is required, and “every agency is required to have an assigned administrator that can see an in-depth overview of their organization’s search history.”

It seems that neither of those safeguards stopped the Indiana cop from repeatedly scanning social media images for undisclosed personal reasons, seemingly rubber-stamping the case number and crime type requirement and going unnoticed by his agency’s administrator. This incident could have broader implications in the US, where its technology has been widely used by police to conduct nearly 1 million searches, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That told the BBC last year.

In 2022, Ars reported when Clearview AI told investors it had ambitions to collect more than 100 billion face images, ensuring that “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable.” As privacy concerns about the controversial tech mounted, it became hotly debated. Facebook moved to stop the company from scraping faces on its platform, and the ACLU won a settlement that banned Clearview AI from contracting with most businesses. But the US government retained access to the tech, including “hundreds of police forces across the US,” Ton-That told the BBC.

Most law enforcement agencies are hesitant to discuss their Clearview AI tactics in detail, the BBC reported, so it’s often unclear who has access and why. But the Miami Police confirmed that “it uses this software for every type of crime,” the BBC reported.

Now, at least one Indiana police department has confirmed that an officer can sneakily abuse the tech and conduct unapproved face scans with apparent ease.

According to Kashmir Hill—the journalist who exposed Clearview AI’s tech—the disgraced cop was following in the footsteps of “billionaires, Silicon Valley investors, and a few high-wattage celebrities” who got early access to Clearview AI tech in 2020 and considered it a “superpower on their phone, allowing them to put a name to a face and dig up online photos of someone that the person might not even realize were online.”

Advocates have warned that stronger privacy laws are needed to stop law enforcement from abusing Clearview AI’s network, which Hill described as “a Shazam for people.”

Smith said the officer disregarded department guidelines by conducting the improper face scans.

“To ensure that the software is used for its intended purposes, we have put in place internal operational guidelines and adhere to the Clearview AI terms of service,” Smith said. “Both have language that clearly states that this is a tool for official use and is not to be used for personal reasons.

Cop busted for unauthorized use of Clearview AI facial recognition resigns Read More »

musk-says-he’s-winning-tesla-shareholder-vote-on-pay-plan-by-“wide-margin”

Musk says he’s winning Tesla shareholder vote on pay plan by “wide margin”

elon musk pay, Policy, tesla elon musk / /

Tesla shareholder vote —

Court battle over pay plan will continue even if Musk wins shareholder vote.

–

Elon Musk wearing a suit and waving with his hand as he walks away from a courthouse.

Enlarge / Elon Musk.

Getty Images | Bloomberg

Elon Musk said last night that Tesla shareholders provided enough votes to re-approve his 2018 pay package, which was previously nullified by a Delaware judge. A proposal to transfer Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas also has enough votes to pass, according to a post by Musk.

“Both Tesla shareholder resolutions are currently passing by wide margins!” Musk wrote. His post included charts indicating that both shareholder resolutions had more than enough yes votes to surpass the “guaranteed win” threshold.

The Wall Street Journal notes that the “results provided by Musk are preliminary, and voters can change their votes until the polls close at the meeting on Thursday.” The shareholder meeting is at 3: 30 pm Central Time. An official announcement on the results is expected today.

Under a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk is required to get pre-approval from a Tesla securities lawyer for social media posts that may contain information material to the company or its shareholders. Tesla today submitted an SEC filing containing a screenshot of Musk’s X post describing the preliminary results, but the company otherwise did not make an announcement.

Legal uncertainty remains

The vote isn’t the last word on the pay package that was once estimated to be worth $56 billion and more recently valued at $46 billion based on Tesla’s stock price. The pay plan was nullified by a Delaware Court of Chancery ruling in January 2024 after a lawsuit filed by a shareholder.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the pay plan was unfair to Tesla’s shareholders, saying the proxy information given to investors before 2018 was materially deficient. McCormick said that “the proxy statement inaccurately described key directors as independent and misleadingly omitted details about the process.”

As the Financial Times wrote, there would still be legal uncertainty even if shareholders re-approve the pay deal today:

In asking shareholders to approve of the same 2018 pay package that was nullified by the Delaware Court of Chancery in January, Tesla is relying on a legal principle known as “ratification,” in which the validity of a corporate action can be cemented by a shareholder vote. Ratification, the company told shareholders in a proxy note earlier this year, “will restore Tesla’s stockholder democracy.”

This instance, however, is the first time a company has tried to leverage that principle after its board was found to have breached its fiduciary duty to approve the deal in the first place.

Even Tesla admits it does not know what happens next. “The [Tesla board] special committee and its advisers noted that they could not predict with certainty how a stockholder vote to ratify the 2018 CEO performance award would be treated under Delaware law in these novel circumstances,” it said in a proxy statement sent to shareholders.

The BBC writes that “legal experts say it is not clear if a court that blocked the deal will accept the re-vote, which is not binding, and allow the company to restore the pay package.”

New lawsuit challenges re-vote

The re-vote was already being challenged in the same Delaware court that nullified the 2018 vote. Donald Ball, who owns 28,245 shares of Tesla stock, last week sued Musk and Tesla in a complaint that alleges the Tesla “Board has not disclosed a complete or fair picture” to shareholders of the impact of re-approving Musk’s pay plan.

That includes “radical tax implications for Tesla that will potentially wipe out Tesla’s pre-tax profits for the last two years,” the lawsuit said. The Ball lawsuit also alleged that “Musk has engaged in strong-arm, coercive tactics to obtain stockholder approval for both the Redomestication Vote and the Ratification Vote.”

Tesla Board Chairperson Robyn Denholm urged shareholders to re-approve the Musk pay plan, suggesting that Musk could leave Tesla or devote less time to the company if the resolution is voted down.

Musk says he’s winning Tesla shareholder vote on pay plan by “wide margin” Read More »

starlink-user-terminal-now-costs-just-$300-in-28-states,-$500-in-rest-of-us

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US

Policy, starlink, Tech / /

Starlink price cut —

The $600 standard price was replaced with regional pricing of $500 or $300.

–

A rectangular satellite dish sitting on the ground outdoors.

Enlarge / The standard Starlink satellite dish.

Starlink

You can now buy a Starlink satellite dish for $299 (plus shipping and tax) in 28 US states due to a discount for areas where SpaceX’s broadband network has excess capacity.

Starlink had raised its upfront hardware cost from $499 to $599 in March 2022 but cut the standard price back down to $499 this week. In the 28 states where the network has what SpaceX deems excess capacity, a $200 discount is being applied to bring the price down to $299. It’s unclear how long the deal will last, though we can assume the number of states eligible for $299 pricing will fall if a lot of people sign up.

“In the United States, new orders in certain regions are eligible for a one-time savings in areas where Starlink has abundant network availability,” a support page posted yesterday said. “$200 will be removed from your Starlink kit price when ordering on Starlink.com and if activated after purchasing from a retailer, a $200 credit will be applied. The savings are only available for Residential Standard service in these designated regional savings areas.”

The 28 states in the “regional savings areas” are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming.

There’s one more significant price difference that applies based on location. Since early 2023, Starlink has charged $120 a month for service in areas with limited capacity and $90 a month in areas with excess capacity. So if you’re in an excess-capacity area, you can buy a $299 dish and get $90 monthly service.

Whether you pay $499 or $299 upfront, you’ll get a Wi-Fi router and the new version of Starlink’s standard residential user terminal. There is a drawback compared to the older version of the Starlink dish, which is now called “Starlink Actuated” and doesn’t seem to be available for residential orders on Starlink.com anymore.

The current standard satellite dish doesn’t have the old version’s ability to re-position itself. The new version must be positioned manually, but the Starlink app can help you find the best position.

“The ‘actuated’ part of Standard Actuated refers to the electric motors inside the antenna housing,” says an in-depth comparison of the models written by Starlink user Noah Clarke. “The motors, which are connected to the mast, can rotate and tilt the Standard Actuated dish, enabling it to self-align to the Starlink satellites. In contrast, the Standard dish has done away with the built-in mast and motors. The Standard dish must be manually rotated during the initial installation, with the help of the Starlink app.”

Starlink offers mounting hardware as optional accessories during the checkout process. There’s a pivot mount for $74, a wall mount for $67, a pipe adapter for $38, and a 45-meter cable for $115. The optional cable is three times longer than the one that comes with the standard terminal.

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US Read More »

musk’s-x-demands-money-from-laid-off-employees,-claims-they-were-overpaid

Musk’s X demands money from laid-off employees, claims they were overpaid

elon musk x corp, Policy / /

Math is hard —

Laid-off Aussies reportedly got up to $70K extra from currency-conversion error.

–

An app icon and logo for Elon Musk's X service.

Getty Images | Kirill Kudryavtsev

Elon Musk’s X Corp. is reportedly demanding money from at least six Australians who were laid off, saying the company accidentally overpaid them. The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that “X is threatening to take some former Australian employees to court, demanding they return entitlements it claims were overpaid to them after it bungled the currency conversion from US to Australian dollars on the payments.”

Emails sent this year by X’s Asia Pacific human resources department to the laid-off employees said there was “a significant overpayment in error in January 2023.” The alleged overpayments ranged from $1,500 to $70,000 for each employee.

So far, none of the former employees have repaid the money, The Sydney Morning Herald was told. One Australian dollar is currently worth $0.67 in US currency.

“The company said the overpayment was related to ‘deferred cash compensation,’ in the form of employee shares issued to the staff when they joined Twitter,” the article said. “These shares were valued at $US54.20 ($82) each, the price at which Musk bought Twitter in 2022, and the total number of shares acquired by an employee was based on the length of their tenure at the company.”

X reportedly made the currency conversion errors “when employees were paid their entitlements once they were made redundant… According to one account, X paid out the share entitlements at a conversion rate 2.5 times the value of the shares.”

X asked the laid-off employees for repayment “at your earliest convenience” and said the company reserved the right to seek the return of the money plus interest in court, the report said.

In US, ex-workers still fighting for severance

Employment law specialist Hayden Stephens was paraphrased in the report as saying that the ex-X workers may be forced to return the money, but they should first “ask X to clearly explain how the error occurred and ask for supporting documentary evidence.” He said that if there was a genuine mistake, “there is usually an obligation to repay that money” under Australian employment law.

X has not responded to a request for comment from Ars today.

X overpaying laid-off employees is the opposite of what allegedly happened to many former US-based workers. X was served with lawsuits and arbitration claims from about 2,000 ex-employees who were fighting to receive severance. Settlement talks in multiple severance cases ended without deals, court filings state.

X is also facing a lawsuit from four former Twitter executives who say they were cheated out of more than $128 million in severance when Musk fired them immediately after buying the firm. The lawsuit was filed by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett. The plaintiffs proposed a trial date in November 2025.

Musk also refused to pay a variety of Twitter vendors after taking over, leading to a deluge of lawsuits seeking compensation.

Musk’s X demands money from laid-off employees, claims they were overpaid Read More »

adobe-to-update-vague-ai-terms-after-users-threaten-to-cancel-subscriptions

Adobe to update vague AI terms after users threaten to cancel subscriptions

adobe, Adobe Firefly, AI training, firefly ai, generative ai, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Policy / /
Adobe to update vague AI terms after users threaten to cancel subscriptions

Adobe has promised to update its terms of service to make it “abundantly clear” that the company will “never” train generative AI on creators’ content after days of customer backlash, with some saying they would cancel Adobe subscriptions over its vague terms.

Users got upset last week when an Adobe pop-up informed them of updates to terms of use that seemed to give Adobe broad permissions to access user content, take ownership of that content, or train AI on that content. The pop-up forced users to agree to these terms to access Adobe apps, disrupting access to creatives’ projects unless they immediately accepted them.

For any users unwilling to accept, canceling annual plans could trigger fees amounting to 50 percent of their remaining subscription cost. Adobe justifies collecting these fees because a “yearly subscription comes with a significant discount.”

On X (formerly Twitter), YouTuber Sasha Yanshin wrote that he canceled his Adobe license “after many years as a customer,” arguing that “no creator in their right mind can accept” Adobe’s terms that seemed to seize a “worldwide royalty-free license to reproduce, display, distribute” or “do whatever they want with any content” produced using their software.

“This is beyond insane,” Yanshin wrote on X. “You pay a huge monthly subscription, and they want to own your content and your entire business as well. Going to have to learn some new tools.”

Adobe’s design leader Scott Belsky replied, telling Yanshin that Adobe had clarified the update in a blog post and noting that Adobe’s terms for licensing content are typical for every cloud content company. But he acknowledged that those terms were written about 11 years ago and that the language could be plainer, writing that “modern terms of service in the current climate of customer concerns should evolve to address modern day concerns directly.”

Yanshin has so far not been encouraged by any of Adobe’s attempts to clarify its terms, writing that he gives “precisely zero f*cks about Adobe’s clarifications or blog posts.”

“You forced people to sign new Terms,” Yanshin told Belsky on X. “Legally, they are the only thing that matters.”

Another user in the thread using an anonymous X account also pushed back, writing, “Point to where it says in the terms that you won’t use our content for LLM or AI training? And state unequivocally that you do not have the right to use our work beyond storing it. That would go a long way.”

“Stay tuned,” Belsky wrote on X. “Unfortunately, it takes a process to update a TOS,” but “we are working on incorporating these clarifications.”

Belsky co-authored the blog this week announcing that Adobe’s terms would be updated by June 18 after a week of fielding feedback from users.

“We’ve never trained generative AI on customer content, taken ownership of a customer’s work, or allowed access to customer content beyond legal requirements,” Adobe’s blog said. “Nor were we considering any of those practices as part of the recent Terms of Use update. That said, we agree that evolving our Terms of Use to reflect our commitments to our community is the right thing to do.”

Adobe to update vague AI terms after users threaten to cancel subscriptions Read More »

ai-trained-on-photos-from-kids’-entire-childhood-without-their-consent

AI trained on photos from kids’ entire childhood without their consent

AI, ai dataset, ai deepfakes, Artificial Intelligence, children's online privacy, generative ai, LAION, LAION-5b, online child safety, openai, Policy / /
AI trained on photos from kids’ entire childhood without their consent

Photos of Brazilian kids—sometimes spanning their entire childhood—have been used without their consent to power AI tools, including popular image generators like Stable Diffusion, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Monday.

This act poses urgent privacy risks to kids and seems to increase risks of non-consensual AI-generated images bearing their likenesses, HRW’s report said.

An HRW researcher, Hye Jung Han, helped expose the problem. She analyzed “less than 0.0001 percent” of LAION-5B, a dataset built from Common Crawl snapshots of the public web. The dataset does not contain the actual photos but includes image-text pairs derived from 5.85 billion images and captions posted online since 2008.

Among those images linked in the dataset, Han found 170 photos of children from at least 10 Brazilian states. These were mostly family photos uploaded to personal and parenting blogs most Internet surfers wouldn’t easily stumble upon, “as well as stills from YouTube videos with small view counts, seemingly uploaded to be shared with family and friends,” Wired reported.

LAION, the German nonprofit that created the dataset, has worked with HRW to remove the links to the children’s images in the dataset.

That may not completely resolve the problem, though. HRW’s report warned that the removed links are “likely to be a significant undercount of the total amount of children’s personal data that exists in LAION-5B.” Han told Wired that she fears that the dataset may still be referencing personal photos of kids “from all over the world.”

Removing the links also does not remove the images from the public web, where they can still be referenced and used in other AI datasets, particularly those relying on Common Crawl, LAION’s spokesperson, Nate Tyler, told Ars.

“This is a larger and very concerning issue, and as a nonprofit, volunteer organization, we will do our part to help,” Tyler told Ars.

Han told Ars that “Common Crawl should stop scraping children’s personal data, given the privacy risks involved and the potential for new forms of misuse.”

According to HRW’s analysis, many of the Brazilian children’s identities were “easily traceable,” due to children’s names and locations being included in image captions that were processed when building the LAION dataset.

And at a time when middle and high school-aged students are at greater risk of being targeted by bullies or bad actors turning “innocuous photos” into explicit imagery, it’s possible that AI tools may be better equipped to generate AI clones of kids whose images are referenced in AI datasets, HRW suggested.

“The photos reviewed span the entirety of childhood,” HRW’s report said. “They capture intimate moments of babies being born into the gloved hands of doctors, young children blowing out candles on their birthday cake or dancing in their underwear at home, students giving a presentation at school, and teenagers posing for photos at their high school’s carnival.”

There is less risk that the Brazilian kids’ photos are currently powering AI tools since “all publicly available versions of LAION-5B were taken down” in December, Tyler told Ars. That decision came out of an “abundance of caution” after a Stanford University report “found links in the dataset pointing to illegal content on the public web,” Tyler said, including 3,226 suspected instances of child sexual abuse material.

Han told Ars that “the version of the dataset that we examined pre-dates LAION’s temporary removal of its dataset in December 2023.” The dataset will not be available again until LAION determines that all flagged illegal content has been removed.

“LAION is currently working with the Internet Watch Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Stanford, and Human Rights Watch to remove all known references to illegal content from LAION-5B,” Tyler told Ars. “We are grateful for their support and hope to republish a revised LAION-5B soon.”

In Brazil, “at least 85 girls” have reported classmates harassing them by using AI tools to “create sexually explicit deepfakes of the girls based on photos taken from their social media profiles,” HRW reported. Once these explicit deepfakes are posted online, they can inflict “lasting harm,” HRW warned, potentially remaining online for their entire lives.

“Children should not have to live in fear that their photos might be stolen and weaponized against them,” Han said. “The government should urgently adopt policies to protect children’s data from AI-fueled misuse.”

Ars could not immediately reach Stable Diffusion maker Stability AI for comment.

AI trained on photos from kids’ entire childhood without their consent Read More »

isps-ask-fcc-for-tax-on-big-tech-to-fund-broadband-networks-and-discounts

ISPs ask FCC for tax on Big Tech to fund broadband networks and discounts

big tech, Policy, Universal Service Fund / /
Illustration of $100-dollar bills being sucked into a broadband network.

Internet service providers are again urging the Federal Communications Commission to impose new fees on Big Tech firms and use the money to subsidize broadband network deployment and affordability programs. If approved, the request would force Big Tech firms to pay into the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF), which in turn distributes money to broadband providers.

The request was made on June 6 by USTelecom, a lobby group for AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink/Lumen, and smaller telcos. USTelecom has made similar arguments before, but its latest request to the FCC argues that the recent death of a broadband discount program should spur the FCC to start extracting money from Big Tech.

“Through focusing on the Big Tech companies who benefit most from broadband connectivity, the Commission will fairly allocate the burden of sustaining USF,” USTelecom wrote in the FCC filing last week.

The USF spends about $8 billion a year. Phone companies must pay a percentage of their revenue into the fund, and telcos generally pass those fees on to consumers with a “Universal Service” line item on telephone bills.

The money is directed back to the telco industry with programs like the Connect America Fund and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which subsidize network construction in unserved and underserved areas. The USF also funds Lifeline program discounts for people with low incomes.

USTelecom cites death of discount program

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn’t stated any intention to expand USF contributions to Big Tech. Separately, she rejected calls to impose Universal Service fees on broadband, leaving phone service as the only source of USF revenue.

The USTelecom filing came in response to the FCC asking for input on its latest analysis of competition in the communications marketplace. USTelecom says the USF is relevant to the proceeding because “the Universal Service Fund is critical for maintaining a competitive marketplace and an expanded contributions base is necessary to sustain the fund.” No changes to the USF would be made in this proceeding, though USTelecom’s comments could be addressed in the FCC’s final report.

Some people have called for the USF to be expanded in order to revive the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided $30 monthly discounts until Congress allowed funding to lapse. That program reduced the price of broadband for people with low incomes while providing more revenue to ISPs. USTelecom’s request for payments from Big Tech argues that the ACP’s lapse is a reason to impose fees on Big Tech.

“Expanding the contributions base to include Big Tech would not only sustain the current USF programs, but would also fund affordability efforts like the ACP long term,” USTelecom wrote. Payments from Big Tech could “enable a permanent Affordable Connectivity Program,” the group said.

In other news related to the Universal Service Fund, the US Supreme Court today rejected a challenge to the fund’s legality that was brought by the conservative Consumers’ Research group. The group challenged the FCC’s authority to raise revenue for the fund but previously lost at the appeals court level, and the Supreme Court declined a petition to take up the case.

ISPs ask FCC for tax on Big Tech to fund broadband networks and discounts Read More »

some-company-heads-hoped-return-to-office-mandates-would-make-people-quit,-survey-says

Some company heads hoped return-to-office mandates would make people quit, survey says

Policy, return-to-office, work from home / /

HR study —

1,504 workers, including 504 HR managers questioned.

–

Man and woman talking at an office water cooler

Enlarge / RTO mandates can boost workers’ professional networks, but in-office employees may also spend more time socializing than remote ones.

A new survey suggests that some US companies implemented return-to-office (RTO) policies in the hopes of getting workers to quit. And despite the belief that such policies could boost productivity compared to letting employees work from home, the survey from HR software provider BambooHR points to remote and in-office employees spending an equal amount of time working.

BambooHR surveyed 1,504 full-time US employees, including 504 human resources (HR) workers who are a manager or higher, from March 9 to March 22. According to the firm, the sample group used for its report “The New Surveillance Era: Visibility Beats Productivity for RTO & Remote” is equally split across genders and includes “a spread of age groups, race groups, and geographies.” Method Research, the research arm of technology PR and marketing firm Method, prepared the survey, and data collection firm Rep Data distributed it.

Trying to make people quit

Among those surveyed, 52 percent said they prefer working remotely compared to 39 percent who prefer working in an office.

A generation-based breakdown of respondents who prefer remote work. BambooHR's report didn't specify how many respondents it surveyed from each category.

Enlarge / A generation-based breakdown of respondents who prefer remote work. BambooHR’s report didn’t specify how many respondents it surveyed from each category.

Despite an apparently large interest in remote work, numerous companies made workers return to the office after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted. The report suggests that in at least some cases, this was done to get workers to quit:

Nearly two in five (37 percent) managers, directors, and executives believe their organization enacted layoffs in the last year because fewer employees than they expected quit during their RTO. And their beliefs are well-founded: One in four (25 percent) VP and C-suite executives and one in five (18 percent) HR pros admit they hoped for some voluntary turnover during an RTO.

It’s hard to get a firm understanding of the effectiveness of RTO policies, as 22 percent of HR professionals surveyed said that their company has no metrics for measuring a successful RTO. The report points to a “disconnect between stated goals for RTO and actually measuring the success of those goals.”

The report also found that 28 percent of remote workers fear they will be laid off before those working in the office. While BambooHR’s report doesn’t comment on this, some firms have discouraged employees from working remotely. Dell, for example, told remote workers that they can’t be promoted.

“By using RTO mandates as a workforce reduction tactic, companies are losing talent and morale among their employees,” BambooHR’s report says. The report notes that 45 percent of people surveyed whose companies have RTO policies said they lost valued workers. The finding is similar to that of a May study of Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX that suggested that RTO mandates drove senior talent away.

In BambooHR’s survey, 28 percent said they would consider leaving their jobs if their employer enacted an RTO mandate.

Productivity

A frequently cited reason for in-office mandates is to drive teamwork, collaboration, and productivity. BambooHR’s data, however, doesn’t support the idea of RTO mandates driving productivity.

According to the report, regardless of whether they’re working in their home or in an office, employees work for 76 percent of a 9-to-5 shift. The report adds:

When it comes to who’s more productive overall, in-office workers spend around one hour more socializing than their remote counterparts, while remote workers spend that time on work-related tasks and responsibilities.

Despite this, 32 percent of managers said that one of the main goals of their firm implementing an in-office policy was to track employee working habits, with some companies tracking VPN usage and company badge swipes to ensure employees are coming into the office as expected.

RTO works for some

Although the majority of people surveyed prefer working from home, the survey also highlighted some perceived benefits of working in the office. For example, 48 percent of the people surveyed said “their work results have improved” since returning to the office, per the report. And 58 percent said they have a “stronger professional network” since going back, BambooHR reported.

Preferences for working from home or in an office can vary by various factors, like age. This points to the benefits of building RTO strategies around worker feedback and needs.

“The mental and emotional burdens workers face today are real, and the companies who seek employee feedback with the intent to listen and improve are the ones who will win employee loyalty and ultimately customer satisfaction,” Anita Grantham, head of HR at BambooHR, said in a statement.

Some company heads hoped return-to-office mandates would make people quit, survey says Read More »

google-avoids-jury-trial-by-sending-$2.3-million-check-to-us-government

Google avoids jury trial by sending $2.3 million check to US government

Google, google antitrust, Policy / /

Judge, no jury —

Google gets a bench trial after sending unexpected check to Justice Department.

–

At Google headquarters, the company's logo is seen on the glass exterior of a building.

Getty Images | Justin Sullivan

Google has achieved its goal of avoiding a jury trial in one antitrust case after sending a $2.3 million check to the US Department of Justice. Google will face a bench trial, a trial conducted by a judge without a jury, after a ruling today that the preemptive check is big enough to cover any damages that might have been awarded by a jury.

“I am satisfied that the cashier’s check satisfies any damages claim,” US District Judge Leonie Brinkema said after a hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday, according to Bloomberg. “A fair reading of the expert reports does not support” a higher amount, Brinkema said.

The check was reportedly for $2,289,751. “Because the damages are no longer part of the case, Brinkema ruled a jury is no longer needed and she will oversee the trial, set to begin in September,” according to Bloomberg.

The payment was unusual, but so was the US request for a jury trial because antitrust cases are typically heard by a judge without a jury. The US argued that a jury should rule on damages because US government agencies were overcharged for advertising.

The US opposed Google’s motion to strike the jury demand in a filing last week, arguing that “the check it delivered did not actually compensate the United States for the full extent of its claimed damages” and that “the unilateral offer of payment was improperly premised on Google’s insistence that such payment ‘not be construed’ as an admission of damages.”

The government’s damages expert calculated damages that were “much higher” than the amount cited by Google, the US filing said. In last week’s filing, the higher damages amount sought by the government was redacted.

Lawsuit targets Google advertising

The US and eight states sued Google in January 2023 in a lawsuit related to the company’s advertising technology business. There are now 17 states involved in the case.

Google’s objection to a jury trial said that similar antitrust cases have been tried by judges because of their technical and often abstract nature. “To secure this unusual posture, several weeks before filing the Complaint, on the eve of Christmas 2022, DOJ attorneys scrambled around looking for agencies on whose behalf they could seek damages,” Google said.

The US and states’ lawsuit claimed that Google “corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry” in a plan to “neutralize or eliminate ad tech competitors, actual or potential, through a series of acquisitions” and “wield its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products while disrupting their ability to use competing products effectively.”

The US government lawsuit said that federal agencies bought over $100 million in advertising since 2019 and aimed to recover treble damages for Google’s alleged overcharges on those purchases. But the government narrowed its claims to the ad purchases of just eight agencies, lowering the potential damages amount.

Google sent the check in mid-May. While the amount wasn’t initially public, Google said it contained “every dollar the United States could conceivably hope to recover under the damages calculation of the United States’ own expert.” Google also said it “continues to dispute liability and welcomes a full resolution by this Court of all remaining claims in the Complaint.”

US: We want more

The US disagreed that $2.3 million was the maximum it could recover. “Under the law, Google must pay the United States the maximum amount it could possibly recover at trial, which Google has not done,” the US said. “And Google cannot condition acceptance of that payment on its assertion that the United States was not harmed in the first place. In doing so, Google attempts to seize the strategic upside of satisfying the United States’ damages claim (potentially allowing it to avoid judgment by a jury) while at the same time avoiding the strategic downside of the United States being free to argue the common-sense inference that Google’s payment, is, at minimum, an acknowledgment of the harm done to federal agency advertisers who used Google’s ad tech tools.”

In a filing on Wednesday, Google said the DOJ previously agreed that its claims amounted to less than $1 million before trebling and pre-judgment interest. The check sent by Google was for the exact amount after trebling and interest, the filing said. But the “DOJ now ignores this undisputed fact, offering up a brand new figure, previously uncalculated by any DOJ expert, unsupported by the record, and never disclosed,” Google told the court.

Siding with Google at today’s hearing, Brinkema “said the amount of Google’s check covered the highest possible amount the government had sought in its initial filings,” the Associated Press reported. “She likened receipt of the money, which was paid unconditionally to the government regardless of whether the tech giant prevailed in its arguments to strike a jury trial, as equivalent to ‘receiving a wheelbarrow of cash.'”

While the US lost its attempt to obtain more damages than Google offered, the lawsuit also seeks an order declaring that Google illegally monopolized the market. The complaint requests a breakup in which Google would have to divest “the Google Ad Manager suite, including both Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, and Google’s ad exchange, AdX.”

Google avoids jury trial by sending $2.3 million check to US government Read More »

tesla-chair-says-elon-musk-needs-$46-billion-pay-plan-to-stay-motivated

Tesla chair says Elon Musk needs $46 billion pay plan to stay motivated

elon musk pay plan, Policy, tesla elon musk / /
Elon Musk sitting down and speaking at a conference.

Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks onstage at SXSW on March 11, 2018, in Austin, Texas.

Getty Images | Diego Donamaria

Tesla Board Chairperson Robyn Denholm urged shareholders to re-approve CEO Elon Musk’s $46 billion pay package this week, saying the vote is “not about the money” while suggesting that Musk could leave Tesla or devote less time to the company if he isn’t properly compensated.

“This is obviously not about the money. We all know Elon is one of the wealthiest people on the planet, and he would remain so even if Tesla were to renege on the commitment we made in 2018,” Denholm wrote in a June 5 letter to shareholders.

Musk’s pay plan was nullified by a Delaware Court of Chancery ruling in January 2024 after a lawsuit filed by a shareholder. The ruling said that Denholm had a “lackadaisical approach to her oversight obligations” and “derived the vast majority of her wealth from her compensation as a Tesla director.” It also said most board members “were beholden to Musk or had compromising conflicts,” and that the proxy information given to shareholders before the 2018 vote was “materially deficient.”

Musk’s pay plan “is the largest potential compensation opportunity ever observed in public markets by multiple orders of magnitude—250 times larger than the contemporaneous median peer compensation plan and over 33 times larger than the plan’s closest comparison, which was Musk’s prior compensation plan,” the court ruling noted.

Tesla’s board subsequently asked shareholders to approve a transfer of Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas and to reinstate the pay plan, which was previously estimated to be worth $56 billion but was more recently valued at $46 billion. Votes can be submitted before Tesla’s annual meeting on June 13. A survey found that more than 80 percent of early votes were in favor of Musk’s pay package, despite some shareholders’ vocal opposition.

Lawsuit slams Musk’s “strong-arm, coercive tactics”

The pay plan and Texas move are also being challenged by a new shareholder lawsuit filed in the same Delaware court that nullified the 2018 pay package. Donald Ball, who owns 28,245 shares of Tesla stock, yesterday filed a lawsuit against Tesla, Musk, Denholm, and other board members.

The Ball lawsuit points to Musk’s January 2024 statement that he “would prefer to build products outside of Tesla” if he isn’t given 25 percent voting control. It also points to reports that “Musk has directed Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI, delaying Tesla’s ability to build up its data center and AI infrastructure by several months.”

“Musk has engaged in strong-arm, coercive tactics to obtain stockholder approval for both the Redomestication Vote and the Ratification Vote,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Tesla board has not “disclosed a complete or fair picture” to shareholders on the impact of re-approving Musk’s pay plan. The lawsuit said “there could be radical tax implications for Tesla that will potentially wipe out Tesla’s pre-tax profits for the last two years.”

Tesla chair says Elon Musk needs $46 billion pay plan to stay motivated Read More »

us-agencies-to-probe-ai-dominance-of-nvidia,-microsoft,-and-openai

US agencies to probe AI dominance of Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI

microsoft, microsoft ai, NVIDIA, nvidia ai, openai, Policy / /

AI Antitrust —

DOJ to probe Nvidia while FTC takes lead in investigating Microsoft and OpenAI.

–

A large Nvidia logo at a conference hall

Enlarge / Nvidia logo at Impact 2024 event in Poznan, Poland on May 16, 2024.

Getty Images | NurPhoto

The US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission reportedly plan investigations into whether Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI are snuffing out competition in artificial intelligence technology.

The agencies struck a deal on how to divide up the investigations, The New York Times reported yesterday. Under this deal, the Justice Department will take the lead role in investigating Nvidia’s behavior while the FTC will take the lead in investigating Microsoft and OpenAI.

The agencies’ agreement “allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, in the strongest sign of how regulatory scrutiny into the powerful technology has escalated,” the NYT wrote.

One potential area of investigation is Nvidia’s chip dominance, “including how the company’s software locks customers into using its chips, as well as how Nvidia distributes those chips to customers,” the report said. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by Ars today.

High-end GPUs are “scarce,” antitrust chief says

Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s antitrust division, discussed the agency’s plans in an interview with the Financial Times this week. Kanter said the DOJ is examining “monopoly choke points and the competitive landscape” in AI.

The DOJ’s examination of the sector encompasses “everything from computing power and the data used to train large language models, to cloud service providers, engineering talent and access to essential hardware such as graphics processing unit chips,” the FT wrote.

Kanter said regulators are worried that AI is “at the high-water mark of competition, not the floor” and want to take action before smaller competitors are shut out of the market. The GPUs needed to train large language models are a “scarce resource,” he was quoted as saying.

“Sometimes the most meaningful intervention is when the intervention is in real time,” Kanter told the Financial Times. “The beauty of that is you can be less invasive.”

Microsoft deal scrutinized

The FTC is scrutinizing Microsoft over a March 2024 move in which it hired the CEO of artificial intelligence startup Inflection and most of the company’s staff and paid Inflection $650 million as part of a licensing deal to resell its technology. The FTC is investigating whether Microsoft structured the deal “to avoid a government antitrust review of the transaction,” The Wall Street Journal reported today.

“Companies are required to report acquisitions valued at more than $119 million to federal antitrust-enforcement agencies, which have the option to investigate a deal’s impact on competition,” the WSJ wrote. The FTC reportedly sent subpoenas to Microsoft and Inflection in an attempt “to determine whether Microsoft crafted a deal that would give it control of Inflection but also dodge FTC review of the transaction.”

Inflection built a large language model and a chatbot called Pi. Former Inflection employees are now working on Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot.

“If the agency finds that Microsoft should have reported and sought government review of its deal with Inflection, the FTC could bring an enforcement action against Microsoft,” the WSJ report said. “Officials could ask a court to fine Microsoft and suspend the transaction while the FTC conducts a full-scale investigation of the deal’s impact on competition.”

Microsoft told the WSJ that it complied with antitrust laws, that Inflection continues to operate independently, and that the deals gave Microsoft “the opportunity to recruit individuals at Inflection AI and build a team capable of accelerating Microsoft Copilot.”

OpenAI

Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI has also faced regulatory scrutiny, particularly in Europe. Microsoft has a profit-sharing agreement with OpenAI.

Microsoft President Brad Smith defended the partnership in comments to the Financial Times this week. “The partnerships that we’re pursuing have demonstrably added competition to the marketplace,” Smith was quoted as saying. “I might argue that Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI has created this new AI market,” and that OpenAI “would not have been able to train or deploy its models” without Microsoft’s help, he said.

We contacted OpenAI today and will update this article if it provides any comment.

In January 2024, the FTC launched an inquiry into AI-related investments and partnerships involving Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

The FTC also started a separate investigation into OpenAI last year. A civil investigative demand sent to OpenAI focused on potentially unfair or deceptive privacy and data security practices, and “risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm.” The probe focused partly on “generation of harmful or misleading content.”

US agencies to probe AI dominance of Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI Read More »

canada-demands-5%-of-revenue-from-netflix,-spotify,-and-other-streamers

Canada demands 5% of revenue from Netflix, Spotify, and other streamers

netflix, Policy, streaming / /

Streaming fees —

Canada says $200M in annual fees will support local news and other content.

–

Illustrative photo featuring Canadian 1-cent coins with the Canadian flag displayed on a computer screen in the background,

Getty Images | NurPhoto /

Canada has ordered large online streaming services to pay 5 percent of their Canadian revenue to the government in a program expected to raise $200 million per year to support local news and other home-grown content. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced its decision yesterday after a public comment period.

“Based on the public record, the CRTC is requiring online streaming services to contribute 5 percent of their Canadian revenues to support the Canadian broadcasting system. These obligations will start in the 2024–2025 broadcast year and will provide an estimated $200 million per year in new funding,” the regulator said.

The fees apply to both video and music streaming services. The CRTC imposed the rules despite opposition from Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Netflix, Paramount, and Spotify.

The new fees are scheduled to take effect in September and apply to online streaming services that make at least $25 million a year in Canada. The regulations exclude revenue from audiobooks, podcasts, video game services, and user-generated content. The exclusion of revenue from user-generated content is a win for Google’s YouTube.

Streaming companies have recently been raising prices charged to consumers, and the CBC notes that streamers might raise prices again to offset the fees charged in Canada.

Fees to support local news, Indigenous content

The CRTC said it is relying on authority from the Online Streaming Act, which was approved by Canada’s parliament in 2023. The new fees are similar to the ones already imposed on licensed broadcasters.

“The funding will be directed to areas of immediate need in the Canadian broadcasting system, such as local news on radio and television, French-language content, Indigenous content, and content created by and for equity-deserving communities, official language minority communities, and Canadians of diverse backgrounds,” the CRTC said.

CRTC Chairperson Vicky Eatrides said the agency’s “decision will help ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.” The agency also said that streaming companies “will have some flexibility to direct parts of their contributions to support Canadian television content directly.”

Industry groups blast CRTC

The Motion Picture Association-Canada criticized the CRTC yesterday, saying the fee ruling “reinforces a decades-old regulatory approach designed for cable companies” and is “discriminatory.” The fees “will make it harder for global streamers to collaborate directly with Canadian creatives and invest in world-class storytelling made in Canada for audiences here and around the world,” the lobby group said.

The MPA-Canada said the CRTC didn’t fully consider “the significant contributions streamers make in working directly with Canada’s creative communities.” The group represents streamers including Netflix, Disney Plus, HAYU, Sony’s Crunchyroll, Paramount Plus, and PlutoTV.

“Global studios and streaming services have spent over $6.7 billion annually producing quality content in Canada for local and international audiences and invested more in the content made by Canadian production companies last year than the CBC, or the Canada Media Fund and Telefilm combined,” the group said.

The fees were also criticized by the Digital Media Association, which represents streaming music providers including Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify. The “discriminatory tax on music streaming services… is effectively a protectionist subsidy for radio” and may worsen “Canada’s affordability crisis,” the group said.

The Canadian Media Producers Association praised the CRTC decision, saying the decision benefits independent producers and “tilts our industry toward a more level playing field.”

Canada demands 5% of revenue from Netflix, Spotify, and other streamers Read More »