Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., left, arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission proposed on Wednesday barring Facebook parent company Meta from monetizing kids’ data after it says the company violated a 2020 privacy order.
According to the FTC, an independent assessor found “several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program” that posed “substantial risks to the public.”
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The company had agreed to independent assessments of its updated privacy program as part of the 2020 settlement, under which Facebook paid a $5 billion civil penalty following an FTC investigation around the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The FTC alleges Facebook also violated an earlier 2012 order by continuing to allow app developers access to private user information. Facebook allowed third-party apps to access user data until mid-2020 in some cases, the FTC alleges.
The FTC is also accusing Meta of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule by misrepresenting parental controls on its Messenger Kids app. The COPPA Rule requires parental consent for websites to collect personal information from kids under 13. The FTC alleged that while the company marketed that the app would only allow kids to talk with contacts their parents approved, children were able to communicate with additional contacts in group chats or group video calls in some circumstances.
As a result, the FTC is proposing to strengthen the terms of the 2020 agreement to put additional restrictions on the company, which would apply to all of Meta’s services including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. The proposed terms include a blanket ban on monetizing data from users under 18. That means any data collected from these users could only be used for security reasons and any data collected while users are under age could not be later monetized once they turn 18.
The FTC also seeks to impose a pause on the company’s ability to launch new or modified products or services until the independent assessor confirms in writing that Meta’s privacy program is in full compliance with the terms of the agreement. Compliance with the 2020 order would also extend to any companies Meta acquires or merges with.
The proposal would also require Meta to get affirmative consent from users for future use of facial recognition technology.
The agency gave Meta 30 days to respond to the FTC’s findings. After Meta responds, the Commission will decide whether updating the 2020 order “is in the public interest or justified by changed conditions of fact or law.”
The Commission, which currently has no Republicans serving in what is usually a five-member panel due to recent resignations, voted 3-0 to approve the order to show cause.
Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, a Democrat, released a statement saying that while he voted to order Meta to show cause for why the FTC need not modify its 2020 agreement, he has concerns about whether the alleged violations warrant a change, especially the blanket monetization ban.
“There are limits to the Commission’s order modification authority,” Bedoya wrote, adding that there needs to be “a nexus between the original order, the intervening violations, and the modified order.”
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone called the FTC’s move a “political stunt.”
“Despite three years of continual engagement with the FTC around our agreement, they provided no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory,” Stone said. “We have spent vast resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy program under the terms of our FTC agreement. We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail.”
Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro Computer shares jumped more than 30% on Tuesday after the embattled server maker said it named BDO as its new auditor and submitted a plan to Nasdaq detailing its efforts to regain compliance with the exchange.
The stock has now climbed more than 50% over the last two trading days on optimism that it will keep its Nasdaq listing. Still, the company has lost about three-quarters of its value since its stock peaked in March, a decline that’s wiped out roughly $54 billion in market cap.
Super Micro is late in filing its 2024 year-end report with the SEC, and said earlier this month that it was looking for a new accountant after its previous auditor, Ernst & Young, stepped down in October. Ernst & Young was new to the job, having just replaced Deloitte & Touche as Super Micro’s accounting firm in March 2023.
Super Micro said in a statement late Monday that it told Nasdaq that the company it believes it will be able to file its annual report for the year ended June 30, and quarterly report for the period ended Sept. 30. The company said it will remain listed on the Nasdaq pending the exchange’s “review of the compliance plan.”
Analysts at Mizuho, who previously suspended their rating on the stock, wrote in a note that Nasdaq still has to approve the plan, which could take two to five weeks.
Super Micro CEO Charles Liang said in Monday’s statement that appointing BDO marks “an important next step to bring our financial statements current, an effort we are pursuing with both diligence and urgency.”
Shares of Super Micro soared more than twentyfold over a two year period from early 2022 until their peak in March of this year. But the stock has been hammered on troubling news about its compliance with Nasdaq.
Super Micro has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom, due to its relationship with Nvidia. Sales last fiscal year more than doubled to $15 billion.
On Monday, Super Micro announced that it was selling products featuring Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip called Blackwell. The company competes with vendors like Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in packaging up Nvidia AI chips for other companies to access.
Super Micro was added to the S&P 500 in March, reflecting its rapidly growing business and then-soaring stock price. Less than two weeks after the index changes were announced, Super Micro reached its closing high of $118.81.
The troubles began within months. In August, Super Micro said it wouldn’t file its annual report with the SEC on time. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company, and said in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was at the early stages of a probe into the company.
The month after announcing its report delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq, indicating that the delay in the filing of its annual report meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline was Monday.
Bitcoin moved higher Tuesday even amid rising geopolitical tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by more than 2% at $93,803.51, according to Coin Metrics, topping its previous intraday record of $93,469.08, reached last week. Shares of MicroStrategy, which trade as a bitcoin proxy, rose nearly 10%.
The move follows overnight to reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the U.S. that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons had come down in response to President Joe Biden allowing Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to strike military targets inside Russia. Initially, bitcoin moved higher while stocks sold off. In afternoon trading, however, bitcoin advanced further as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite erased losses.
Bitcoin rose slightly amid rising Ukraine-Russia tensions
Bitcoin has recently benefited from enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies after the U.S. presidential election. That drove bitcoin to fresh records and sent smaller crypto assets soaring. Like gold, crypto assets are seen by many investors as a “non-confiscatable,” long-term hedge against geopolitical uncertainty.
“The most significant long-term correlations for bitcoin are a negative correlation with the U.S. dollar and a positive correlation with money supply growth,” Matt Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, said Oct. 28 on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“Bitcoin is a chameleon,” Sigel added. “Its correlations change over time; it’s hard to predict what it’s going to be correlated with over the short term.”
Bitcoin has behaved as a safe haven before. It outperformed during the crisis in the regional banking system in early 2023, for example. But because bitcoin is also a risky asset without a long history, with extreme volatility that can benefit short-term traders, some have a hard time arguing that bitcoin is necessarily attractive forever. Citigroup, for example, in a note Monday reiterated the bank’s view that bitcoin doesn’t exhibit store-of-value properties.
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The BOSE display at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Bose Corp. will purchase the McIntosh Group, a deal that will give the Massachusetts-based company control of one of the most storied names in high-end audio.
McIntosh will continue to manufacture the high-end audio equipment it is known for out of its longtime headquarters in Binghamton, New York, Bose CEO Lila Snyder said. The deal also includes Sonus Faber, a company that makes high-end speakers by hand in Italy.
The purchase of the two audio workshops provides Bose access into the high-end luxury audio market, Snyder told CNBC in an interview.
“There is this opportunity for luxury, where the consumer is more discerning, really interested in the heritage and the story, and that handcrafted nature,” she said.
Snyder, who took over as Bose CEO in 2020, did not provide terms or a price for the deal. McIntosh was previously owned by Highlander Partners, a Dallas-based private equity firm.
McIntosh has been making high-end amplifiers and other audio equipment since 1949, and one of its devices can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Sonus Faber sells a pair of speakers that costs $140,000.
The purchase shows how Bose is navigating an environment where there is more competition in headphones and audio electronics than ever. Bose is privately held and doesn’t share annual revenue, although it had about $3 billion in sales in 2023, according to Forbes. It has about 3,000 employees.
Bose enters the high-end luxury audio market
Luxury audio — defined as products that cost more than $5,000 — grew 12% in 2023 to about $2.8 billion in total sales, according to an estimate from Futuresource Consulting. The deal will allow Bose to test a higher-end market for its products, which are already expensive – a pair of Bose headphones can easily cost $350.
“These are different customers that right now we’re not really reaching with our technology and with our products,” she said.
Snyder did not rule out the possibility of Bose producing McIntosh-branded headphones or other products.
“We do think there’s a real opportunity around wearables in the luxury and high-performance space as well, which is something that we would expect you to see from us down the road,” Synder said.
Bose is best-known for its speakers and its headphones, including the QuietComfort headphones line, which was one of the first noise-canceling headsets to hit the market in 2000. It also sells soundbars, wireless earbuds, speakers and audio equipment for cars. It divested a group that built sound systems for auditoriums and other professional environments last year.
The audio market has grown since Bose was one of the few high-end brands.
Bose now competes against some of the biggest companies in the world, including Apple, which bought Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014 and released the AirPods in 2016, targeting the premium headphone market.
There is also new audio-focused competition for Bose.
Sonos, which was best known for its in-home speakers, introduced its first noise-canceling headphones earlier this year, although the company is reeling from an app redesign in May that was received poorly by users. Bose also spent the past decade competing with smart speakers from the likes of Amazon and Google that were often priced aggressively low to spur adoption.
The purchase of the two luxury audio workshops could help Bose grow in the in-car stereo market, which Snyder said makes up about a third of the company’s overall business. Sonus Faber produces speakers for Lamborghini cars, for example, and some Jeeps have a McIntosh-branded audio system. One possibility that Bose is excited about is that it can integrate its noise-canceling technology in electric cars to make the vehicle ride quieter, she said.
“There are places today where the Bose brand probably can’t go. Lamborghini is a great example of that,” Snyder said. “You really want the very best kind of cutting-edge technology to be in those luxury or highest-performing vehicles.”