1. Monthly archive
  2. April 2018

April 2018

CBS Submits Initial Bid for Viacom at Price Below Market Value

Apparently CBS has made an offer to acquire Viacom and the bid is contingent on its management team being at the helm of the merged entity. The all-stock offer is below Viacom’s current market valuation of $12.5 billion. In its offer, CBS proposed that Chief Executive Leslie Moonves and President Joe Ianniello would run the combined company for the foreseeable future, which could make Viacom CEO Bob Bakish an odd man out. Both CBS and Viacom are controlled by media mogul Sumner Redstone’s holding company National Amusements, which has a nearly 80% voting stake in each firm.

Facebook CEO says not planning to extend European privacy protections globally

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network had no immediate plans to apply a strict new European Union law on data privacy in its entirety to the rest of the world, as the company reels from a scandal over its handling of personal information of millions of its users. Zuckerberg sadi that Facebook already complies with many parts of the law ahead of its implementation in May. He said the company wanted to extend privacy guarantees worldwide in spirit, but would make exceptions, which he declined to describe.

US suspects cellphone spying devices in DC

For the first time, the US government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington (DC) of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages.  The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies — which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves — have been silent on the issue until now.

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