Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 39

Users are already bombarded with advertisements every day in almost every area of their phones, and now according to an email obtained by MacRumors, Apple is preparing to roll out even more ads.

In an email sent out to developers this week from Apple, the company is planning on rolling out more app-related advertisements throughout the App Store. These new advertisements will be featured in the 'Today Tab as well as the 'You Might Also Like' section. According to the email, these new advertising increases will begin rolling out to the App Store on October 25 in every country except for China.

Notably, Apple's website states the following, "With a Today tab ad, your app can appear prominently on the front page of the App Store - making it some of the first content users see when they begin their App Store visit." These changes from Apple mark the very first time advertisers will be able to run ads for their apps within the Today tab as well as the 'You Might Also Like' section. Previously, ads were restricted to the "Suggested" section of the Search tab.

The parent company behind one of the biggest fashion brands in the world has decided to cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, following several comments the rapper made on social media.

The news broke when Kering, Balenciaga's parent company, released its third-quarter results on Thursday, where it stated that Balenciaga would no longer be working on any new or current projects with Ye. The news was confirmed by Kering, who said in response to a question by WWD that "Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist". Notably, Ye only recently collaborated with Balenciaga for a Yeezy Gap line earlier this year.

Furthermore, Gap announced a 10-year deal with Ye for the Yeezy Gap brand in 2020, but that deal has seemingly been thrown out the window after Ye announced that the partnership between him and Gap would end over "substantial noncompliance." Mark Breitbard, president and CEO of Gap Brand, wrote in an email that it decided to "wind down the partnership" because their "vision is not aligned." Gap and Balenciaga aren't the only two prominent brands moving away from Ye, as Adidas has also said that it's reviewing its partnership with the rapper.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance has been busted for using TikTok's location data to plan to spy on US citizens' physical locations.

According to newly surfaced documents obtained by Forbes, a team of Chinese-based members of ByteDance have been caught planning to spy on American citizens using TikTok's location data, which the company claims is only used to show relevant content and necessary advertising to users of the app.

Forbes reports that the team was going to use TikTok's location data to monitor the personal locations of specific Americans and that the team behind the project is ByteDance's Internal Audit and Risk Control department, which is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports directly to ByteDance's cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang. Notably, the Internal Audit team primarily conducts investigations into former employees that have potentially performed misconduct at the company.

A SpaceX worker has had his skull fractured after an accident that occurred while he was testing a part of the company's rocket.

The SpaceX worker was Francisco Cabada, a father of three children from Los Angeles, according to a former SpaceX intern that spoke with BusinessInsider. Cabada, an integration engineer, suffered a head injury on January 18, and according to the Occupation Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) accident investigation summary, Cabada was conducting checks on SpaceX's Raptor V2 engine when a valve exceeded its maximum pressure and snapped off the plate it was attached to, smacking the integration engineer in the head, knocking him to the ground.

The OHSA accident report details two violations, the first was over SpaceX's accident prevention program, the second was servicing multi-piece and single-piece rim wheels on large vehicles, which was deemed category 10 on the summary. SpaceX was fined $18,475 for the violations. Cabada "suffered a skull fracture and head trauma and was hospitalized in a coma for months."

Royal Caribbean International has unveiled what is now considered to be the world's largest cruise ship that is expected to set sail soon.

The announcement found on the Royal Caribbean International website showcases a set of renders of the new cruise ship called 'Icon of the Seas'. The cruise ship measures in at a staggering 1,198 foot-long and is capable of accommodating 7,600 guests across its 2,805 staterooms. The Royal Caribbean has also taken to its YouTube channel to upload a series of videos that showcase the different areas of the cruise ship, such as Thrill Island, Surfside, Chill Island, AquaDome, and much more.

The Icon of the Seas features seven pools, three of which are on the Chill Island, which is a three-deck "slice of paradise", with each deck being curated for different needs. One of the decks contains the Royal Bay Pool, the largest pool at sea, per Royal Caribbean International. The 20-deck cruise ship began construction in 2021 and is expected to begin sailing sometime in 2024, with bookings from Miami to the Caribbeans to open soon.

Elon Musk is currently wrapping up his deal to purchase the world's second-largest social media company, Twitter.

According to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post, Elon Musk has big plans for Twitter once the acquisition is finalized and he officially owns the company, with one of the first moves being to remove at least 75% of Twitter's staff at the company which equates to a staggering 7,500 employees.

The Post reports that even if Musk doesn't fulfill the purchase of Twitter for whatever reason, at least a quarter of Twitter's employees would still be getting the sack as current management plans to reduce the company's payroll by approximately $800 million by 2023.

The world's second-richest individual has decided to sell his private jet after he found out it was being tracked by people on Twitter.

Reports indicate that Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the world's largest luxury goods company LVMH, or more commonly known as Louis Vuitton, has sold the private jet linked to his company after Twitter climate activists began tracking its location and tallying up its carbon emissions. Arnault spoke to France's Radio Classique and said that the group that owned the plane, which was associated with his company, has now sold, which has resulted in no one being able to "see where I go".

The Twitter accounts that were tracking private jet flights and measuring carbon emissions have been doing so for six months, with both accounts generating more than 100,000 followers each. Two Twitter accounts, @i_fly_Bernard, and @laviondebernard tracked the billionaire's flights, with the bio of the I Fly Bernard account stating that "63 French billionaires emit as much CO2 as 50 percent of the population".

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is acquiring the free speech platform Parler.... and this is huge news, given how strongly Ye feels about free speech, civil rights, free speech, and everything in between.

In a recent interview with Chris Cuomo, who was fired from CNN last year where 2021 was a troubling year for the Cuomo family (as well as drama with his brother in New York), we have Ye explain the last couple of years of his life, his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, and Cuomo trying to pin him for being "anti-semitic" as Ye calls out the Jewish media. Check out that video below.

The billionaire, inventor, and soon-to-be Parler owner talk about a bunch of topics during his "interview" with Chris Cuomo, but the biggest news is that he has acquired Parler. Ye wants to stand up and defend free speech, and stop the censorship of Big Tech on huge platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.

The saga of Elon Musk purchasing the world's second-largest social media platform continues with a new court filing revealing that Musk is now under federal investigation.

In a new court filing that was made public on Thursday, Elon Musk, who is currently moving forward with purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, now is now being looked into by federal authorities. Notably, the filing didn't specify what Musk was under investigation for exactly. Twitter moved to sue Musk back in July in an attempt to force the Tesla CEO to close the $44 billion acquisition, with Twitter's lawyers saying that Musk's legal team claimed "investigative privilege" when it was asked for specific documents.

Musk's legal team eventually provided Twitter with a "privilege log" that identified documents that would be withheld. Twitter said that Musk's privilege log referenced an email that was sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) along with a slide presentation that was sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In a turn of events, one of Musk's lawyers, Alex Spiro, spoke to Reuters and said that Twitter's recent filing was a "misdirection... It is Twitter's executives that are under federal investigation."

Alex Jones, the host of InfoWars, has been ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages over his comments on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that happened on December 14, 2012.

A Texas jury ordered Jones on Friday to pay $965 million to the victims' families and an FBI over causing years-long trauma by publicly claiming that the entire school shooting was a hoax. Jones claimed that the entire event was faked by the US government in an attempt to take guns away from Americans, a claim that has been proved to be false by the court, resulting in Jones becoming liable for damages, etc.

Jones claimed on multiple occasions over the years that the event never happened and that the individuals involved were hired crisis actors involved in a plot to remove guns from Americans. Jones wasn't present in court to hear the verdict but reacted to the reading on his InfoWars show, describing the entire court process as a "show trial" and saying that it's "all made up".