Bloomberg

The United Kingdom is targeting the likes of Alphabet and Facebook by introducing a digital services tax that aims to raise about $500 million a year for the government. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond unveiled the measure in his Autumn Budget. He said it was designed to hit the largest internet businesses, not start-ups. It would affect profitable companies with annual revenues that exceed about $640 million, he said.

Operatives behind Russian-linked bots used tools from US startups, including IFTTT Inc., to supercharge social-media misinformation campaigns and meddle in elections. Data disclosed by Twitter showed that hundreds of accounts affiliated with the Russia-based Internet Research Agency used services offered by IFTTT, RoundTeam Inc. and Dlvr.it Inc. to automate and disperse their divisive messages more widely. San Francisco-based IFTTT lets people connect different apps and automatically post content on multiple services.

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to reduce its reimbursement for hearing-impaired phone services that display a call’s text. The FCC could adopt a change in its reimbursement formula within 12 months, it said in the Trump administration’s fall regulatory agenda. The FCC reimburses telecom service providers for hearing- and speech-impaired telephone services. Agency officials, though, are worried that providers are marketing captioned phone services to people who could use cheaper methods, such as amplifying phones, in order to receive larger reimbursements.

AT&T chief executive officer Randall Stephenson floated the idea of selling CNN when he met with Justice Department antitrust chief Marakan Delrahim in Nov 2017 in an attempt to head off a government lawsuit challenging the company's proposed takeover of Time Warner, according to a deposition.