Month: November 2021

Enlarge / An Amazon warehouse in Germany on April 2, 2020. (credit: Patrick Pleul | picture alliance | Getty Images)

A regional official at the National Labor Relations Board has called for a new union election at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, fulfillment center following recommendations issued in August by a hearing officer. The Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which seeks to represent workers in the Bessemer warehouse, filed 23 objections disputing the fairness of the election shortly after votes were tallied back in April. 

No date has been set for the new election, and Amazon could still appeal the decision to the full National Labor Relations Board.

The decision to call a new election hinges primarily on a mailbox that Amazon installed in the warehouse’s parking lot to collect ballots. According to the NLRB's report (PDF), the mailbox was installed without the approval of the NRLB, creating the impression that the box was being surveilled and that Amazon, not the NLRB, was conducting the election. Amazon also installed a tent over the mailbox with Amazon’s anti-union campaign messaging “printed on at least one side,” and the company conducted “mandatory small group meetings” where it provided anti-union campaign materials to employees.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Microsoft is taking a lot of flak for planning to integrate a short-term financing app into the company’s Edge browser. The app would allow users to make purchases immediately and pay for them at a future date.

In recent years, Edge has built a following of users attracted to the security of the Microsoft browser, in addition to features including immersive reading, collections (which saves webpages or notes to categorized notebooks), vertical tabs, and the ability to take screenshots directly from a webpage.

​​Two weeks ago, Microsoft said it planned to bake an app called Zip directly into Edge. The so-called “buy now, pay later” app, which used to be known as Quadpay, lets shoppers break purchases into equal installment payments so they get their merchandise upfront, rather than having to wait until it’s paid in full. It didn’t take long for the howling and gnashing of teeth to begin.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Anadolu Agency )

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today ordered Facebook owner Meta to sell Giphy, saying the merger "would reduce competition between social media platforms and that the deal has already removed Giphy as a potential challenger in the display advertising market."

Facebook bought Giphy in May 2020 for a reported $400 million "but has been required to hold the businesses separate" since June 2020, when the CMA imposed an Initial Enforcement Order (IEO), the UK government body said in a summary of its final report today. After the 17-month investigation, "we have decided that the only effective way to address the competition issues that we have identified is for Facebook to sell Giphy, in its entirety, to a suitable buyer," the CMA wrote.

The CMA said it found that "Facebook would be able to increase its already significant market power in relation to other social media platforms by denying or limiting other platforms' access to Giphy GIFs, driving more traffic to Facebook-owned sites—Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram—which already account for 73 percent of user time spent on social media in the UK" and by "changing the terms of access by, for example, requiring TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat to provide more user data in order to access Giphy GIFs."

Enlarge / Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc., arrives at federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, November 23, 2021.

In a day of intense and emotional testimony, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes told the court of the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse she said she suffered at the hands of company president and chief operating officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani and others.

Balwani was Holmes’ boyfriend for more than a decade, much of it during their time leading Theranos, the failed blood-testing startup. The pair hid their relationship from investors and Theranos employees. Balwani has pleaded not guilty to the same fraud and conspiracy charges Holmes faces. His trial begins next year.

Holmes’ attorneys said she met Balwani in 2002 on a language-immersion trip in China. She was 18 years old at the time and a senior in high school. He was in his late 30s and pursuing an MBA at the University of California, Berkeley.