🤚 EU Restricts Meta's Ads, 🌐 ChatGPT Halts Bing Integration, ☁️ Azure Revenue Revealed

Hi, and welcome to today’s update. A little slow newsflow due to the USA holiday yesterday, but we still have found some interesting stories for you!

Top headlines for today:

• EU Restricts Meta's Personalized Ads

• Big Tech Bows to EU 'Gatekeeper' Law

• Azure Revenue Revlead

• ChatGPT Halts Bing Integration

• and more...

Today’s read time: 3.5 minutes

🌐 Tech Companies

EU Restricts Meta's Personalized Ads (3-minute read)

Facebook's parent company, Meta, must gain consent before showing personalized ads in the European Union, as dictated by the region's Court of Justice. Meta is already appealing a $425 million fine for GDPR violation involving ad-targeting data on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The ruling allows local regulators to consider GDPR compliance when assessing anti-competitive behavior.

Big Tech Bows to EU 'Gatekeeper' Law (4-minute read)

Major tech companies, including Apple, Google, and ByteDance, have acknowledged their inclusion under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) enforced by the European Union. The law, designed to level the digital playing field, demands interoperability of rival messaging apps, permits third-party app stores, and disallows favoring of own services over competitors. Firms can face substantial fines for non-compliance.

Azure Revenue Revlead (3-minute read)

According to internal documents briefly made public by US antitrust regulators, Microsoft's Azure generated only half the revenue of Amazon Web Services in the 12 months up to June 2022. The cloud unit, which Microsoft keeps secret, made $34 billion, compared to AWS's $72 billion, challenging previous market share estimates.

Insight: We believe this revelation could impact the market's perception of Microsoft's competitive positioning in the cloud industry, and potentially influence future investment decisions. This reaffirms Amazon's commanding lead in the cloud market.

Spotify, Apple Music Boast Growth (6-minute read)

In February 2023, Spotify recorded 44.4 million U.S. subscribers, while Apple Music had 32.6 million. Despite recent price increases, Amazon Music and Apple Music have seen subscriber growth.

🚀 Startup Scene

Celestial AI Secures $100M for Photonic Fabric (4-minute read)

Celestial AI has raised $100 million in series B funding to expand its Photonic Fabric technology to overcome the "memory wall" challenge in AI and cloud services. This tech offers increased bandwidth and lower latencies, enhancing AI business models and data center capabilities.

ClickUp Downsizes Workforce Ahead of IPO (3-minute read)

ClickUp, a SaaS startup valued at $4B, has laid off 10% of its workforce, about 90 employees, aiming for increased efficiency and preparing for a public listing amid a market slowdown. Impacted departments include software engineering and customer support.

🤖 AI Corner

ChatGPT Halts Bing Integration (3-minute read)

OpenAI has suspended the recently launched Browse with Bing feature in ChatGPT after users discovered a loophole allowing them to bypass website paywalls. The feature was integrated to enhance the AI chatbot's search capabilities beyond its original GPT-4 training data. The withdrawal of the feature is a preventative measure while OpenAI addresses the issue to ensure respect for content owners' rights.

💰´Markets & Money

Generative AI Reviving Tech M&A (5-minute read)

Despite a low number of M&A deals this year, the acquisition of generative AI startups is sparking renewed activity in the sector. Databricks and Thomson Reuters recently acquired MosaicML and Casetext respectively, signaling an upswing in the market. Experts predict most tech startup acquisitions in the upcoming year will involve generative AI developers, potentially driving up valuations and inspiring further innovation in the tech industry.

Tiger Global Pivots to Individual Sales (4-minute read)

Facing challenges in its pursuit of liquidity, Tiger Global has opened its entire portfolio for individual bids. After failing to secure a lead buyer for a strip sale of multiple assets, the firm is now allowing secondary investors to bid on each private company in its portfolio individually, broadening the potential buyer pool and potentially fetching higher prices.

⚡ Quick links

US Judge Stifles Gov-Tech Communication (2-minute read)

A federal judge has prohibited Biden administration officials from engaging with social media firms, responding to allegations of First Amendment violations. This may disrupt long-standing coordination efforts.

Twitter Limits to Combat Bots (2-minute read)

Twitter implemented usage restrictions to counteract bots and spam, impacting a 'small percentage' of users. The measure aims to prevent public data scraping and system manipulation, as stated by owner Elon Musk.

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