Not looking so good there.

Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca

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Alphabet: We’ll spend $500 million to revamp global compliance

Facing threats of a breakup by the U.S. government—y’know, little things—Google’s parent company says it’s willing to spend at least $500 million over the next decade to rebuild its global compliance structure.

The offer comes as part of a proposed settlement with shareholders suing the company for alleged antitrust violations.

Several courts have recently found that Google monopolized markets for search, advertising, and mobile apps.

“These reforms…constitute a comprehensive overhaul of Alphabet’s compliance function…as well as prevent future compliance and antitrust problems from arising,” read documents filed in California court and reviewed by the Financial Times. 

The changes include the establishment of a standalone Google board committee to oversee regulatory concerns, a second body composed of senior executives that reports to CEO Sundar Pichai, and a third group composed of product managers and compliance professionals.

The groups would be expected to overhaul the company’s risk assessment policies and processes. Changes would remain in place for at least four years.

The settlement—which contains no Alphabet admission of wrongdoing—requires a judge’s approval. —AN

Meta pursues AI-powered ad creation by end of 2026

What, you thought all that AI investment was for smarter Ray-Bans?

Meta—for whom advertising represents 97% of its total annual revenue—reportedly plans to use its pricey artificial intelligence prowess to help brands create ads from scratch.

The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has hardly been shy about incorporating AI into the tools that it offers advertisers. Its current tools allow for AI-powered tweaks to existing campaigns. 

But the Wall Street Journal reports that Meta plans to be far more aggressive by the end of 2026, allowing advertisers to, for example, submit a product image and let the AI create an entire campaign: text, image, and video, personalized and geolocated. 

“A person seeing an advertisement for a car in a snowy place, for example, might see the car driving up a mountain,” the Journal writes, “whereas a person seeing an ad for that same car in an urban area would see it driving on a city street.”

(We’re not saying it’s just like the billboards in the film Minority Report, John Anderton, but we’re not not saying it, either.)

The Don Drapers of the world shouldn’t be too worried. Meta’s AI ad firepower is meant to cater to the small and medium businesses that otherwise couldn’t afford the full Sterling Cooper treatment.

Still, deep-pocketed marketers do advertise on Meta’s platforms, and it should be interesting what they’re willing—and not willing—to do with such capabilities on offer. —AN

Apple says EU iOS interoperability rules are ‘unreasonable’

Apple has challenged an antitrust order from the European Union outlining how the company must make its mobile operating system more compatible with third-party products.

At the center of it all is the EU’s Digital Markets Act, whose interoperability rules are intended to limit the market power of the largest tech companies. (And large Apple is, ranking No. 7 on the Fortune Global 500 list of corporations.)

The EU listed several steps Apple should take, including giving outside software developers and device manufacturers access to previously restricted parts of its iOS operating system to, for example, allow iOS notifications to show up on a VR headset made by Google or Meta.

Apple appealed on May 30, saying the requirements would lead to “an inferior user experience” for European customers.

“The EU’s interoperability requirements threaten that foundation, while creating a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation. These requirements will also hand data-hungry companies sensitive information, which poses massive privacy and security risks to our EU users,” the company said in a statement. 

It added: “Companies have already requested our users’ most sensitive data—from the content of their notifications, to a full history of every stored WiFi network on their device—giving them the ability to access personal information that even Apple doesn’t see.”

Apple faces fines of up to 10% of its worldwide annual sales for failing to follow the rules. —AN

More tech

—Uber names COO. Longtime exec Andrew Macdonald will assume the role.

—FTC probes advertisers. Did they violate antitrust law by coordinating boycotts?

—Snowflake acquires Crunchy Data. A reported quarter of a million bucks for the cloud database company.

—Elon Musk sells $5 billion in xAI debt. Demand apparently already exceeds $3.5 billion.

—Amazon price controls may be illegal, German agency says. The Federal Cartel Office offers preliminary assessment of the company’s marketplace retailer controls.

—A facebook of hackers. Microsoft, Google, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto collab on a public glossary of state-sponsored hacking groups and their various aliases.

—Norway loves Tesla’s Model Y. Sales surge in the EV-friendly nation, even as Tesla slumps elsewhere.

—EU fines Delivery Hero, Glovo. An admitted delivery cartel. Really!

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