In case you spent the weekend in a cave or otherwise cut off from world news: a US district court judge on Friday ordered Apple to let companies in the App Store accept payments outside of Apple’s in-app purchase system, which charges a 30% commission. The change could cut billions of dollars from Apple profits. The decision is sure to be appealed but it’s still a rare victory for the rebels against Big Tech.
The new agency’s mandate would be to address unfair or deceptive data practices and to improve data security and guard against identity theft.
Microsoft is relatively benign as Big Tech overlords go, but don’t imagine it’s any less interested in grabbing your data. Its latest gambit is to purchase TakeLessons, a web marketplace for online and in-person classes. TakeLessons offers mostly consumer-oriented subjects, which expands Microsoft’s reach beyond the business-oriented classes it already offers on LinkedIn Lessons.
Salesforce’s Dreamforce mega-conference is next week and the company’s publicity elves are already working overtime. In the first of what are sure to be daily announcements this week, the company announced 100+ industry-specific prompts, data models, and AI capabilities across its fifteen industry clouds. It also launched an AI Use Case Library to house its industry-specific AI offerings.