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Summary List PlacementFacebook and Amazon were the biggest spenders on lobbying in 2020, outspending companies such as AT&T and Boeing, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.  The analysis looks into reports filed by US companies with Congress under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a federal law that requires companies to disclose such expenditures. Facebook, the social media giant, spent around $20 million in 2020, an...

Summary List PlacementPrivacy has become the central battleground in the ongoing war for market share between browser makers including Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft and niche providers such as Brave. Google Chrome is the world's most popular browser on desktop and on computer, with 70% of desktop share, and 64% on mobile according to NetMarketShare. For many users, Chrome and Google are bywords for access...

Summary List PlacementVice President-elect Kamala Harris is no stranger to Silicon Valley. Before she was the senator from California, she was the state's attorney general. Before that, she was district attorney in San Francisco. When she heads to the White House in January, she will do so with more experience with Big Tech than probably anyone else ever elected to national office. For many,...

Summary List Placement If you've bought a new iPhone in the past few years, you might not think much about the fact that when you open Safari and type in a search the results you get come from Google. Most people use Google to search on the internet anyway — what you got was what you expected. It was familiar. It was also not...

Summary List PlacementSEE ALSO: A government agency subcommittee just warned this week's West Coast wildfires could spark a financial crisis. A top economist thinks the effects could linger for years. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's the shortest route for a road trip across the US to see 50 national landmarks

Summary List Placement Antitrust seems to be back in fashion as a topic of concern in Washington, DC, particularly after Congress harangued the heads of four leading tech companies earlier this summer about their alleged anticompetitive moves. But any real effort to promote competition and constrain monopolies is going to require a major reassessment — and quite possibly a revamping — of laws, policies,...

Epic Games sued Apple and Google on Thursday for booting its popular video game "Fortnite" from their app stores, accusing the companies of engaging in monopolistic behavior. It's the latest escalation in a long-running fight between the tech giants and app developers, who claim Apple and Google unfairly wield their control over mobile app marketplaces and operating systems to stifle competition. The lawsuits also...

Apple on Thursday removed the popular game "Fortnite" from its App Store, and in doing so, fell right into the trap set by the game's maker, Epic Games. Epic set its snare by intentionally breaking one of Apple's rules, offering "Fortnite" players an alternative way to pay for its virtual currency than through the App Store. Apple's response of banning "Fortnite" is likely to...

Apple refuses to allow major gaming apps from Microsoft, Google, and Facebook onto the iPhone and iPad App Store. The reason, Apple said, is because those apps provide access to games that haven't been rated by Apple's review guidelines. "Our customers enjoy great apps and games from millions of developers, and gaming services can absolutely launch on the App Store as long as they...

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, Apple's Tim Cook, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos — the leaders of tech's most powerful companies — will face questions from US lawmakers in an antitrust hearing on Wednesday. The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee is investigating whether these firms have participated in anti-competitive business practices intended to stomp out smaller rivals and maintain their monopoly on the market. The...

Hello and welcome back to Trending, Business Insider's weekly look at the world of tech. I'm Alexei Oreskovic, Business Insider's West Coast Bureau Chief and Global Tech Editor. If you want to get Trending in your email inbox every Wednesday, just click here. This week: Tim Cook takes Apple to a new frontier Apple's leadership team reported for greenscreen duty on Monday as the iPhone-maker...

The stock market's recovery following its coronavirus plunge has been led by the so-called FAANG stocks — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet — along with Microsoft. After outperforming the S&P 500 for the year, those companies now comprise more than 20% of the total market capitalization of that index. There's a good case for the run-up in the shares of Netflix,...

You can use a Chromecast-enabled device to listen to Apple Music as long as you have an Apple ID and an Apple Music subscription.  To cast your favorite Apple Music podcasts, radio channels, and curated playlists using Android devices and Chromebooks, they will need to meet model and software specifications.   Before casting your Apple Music library, make sure your smartphone or tablet with the...

Two cybersecurity researchers have identified seven security flaws in the UK government's COVID-19 contact-tracing app. The app is currently being trialed on the Isle of Wight before being rolled out to the rest of the UK population. The researchers recommend that the app switch from using a centralized approach, which pools user data in a central server, to a decentralized approach. Visit Business Insider's...

There's a power battle between the UK, Germany, and France on one side and Apple and Google on the other about coronavirus contact-tracing. Like other countries, the UK, Germany, and France are creating apps that will track people who report COVID-19 symptoms or test positive and then alert those they have had contact with. The fight centers on how much data these apps gather...

The UK has a fight on its hands to launch its official coronavirus-tracing app in the coming weeks, thanks to limits set by Apple and Google on how such apps work. The government has already announced the app and it is thought to be in advanced stages of development. But a new system announced by Apple and Google means that the app may not...

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says tech companies like Amazon have provided a "profound benefit" during the coronavirus pandemic and people should "be a little bit grateful." "Think about what your life would be like in America without Amazon," Schmidt said during a video interview hosted by The Economic Club of New York on Tuesday. Schmidt argued that having to navigate the pandemic without...

Shuttle drivers for Google, Apple, Facebook and more are being paid to stay home, but as contractors don't get a direct line to these tech companies, they're now relying on their employers and unions to fight for their wages. 'Sometimes we don't get a straight answer from our company': Drivers are worried that payments might stop if they're made to work from home into...