Big Tech goes from ‘teenager’ to ‘grown-up’ under landmark EU law. Here’s what you need to know

Published

1 year ago

March 7, 2024

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The logos of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft displayed on a mobile phone with an EU flag pictured in the background.

Justin Tallis | AFP via Getty Images

An EU law that seeks to rein in large digital companies has officially kicked in, spelling big changes for primarily U.S. tech giants.

The European Union’s landmark Digital Markets Act officially became enforceable on Thursday. That means the European Commission, the EU executive arm, can start taking action against companies that breach the rules.

The Digital Markets Act aims to clamp down on anti-competitive practices from tech players, as well as force them to open out some of their services to other competitors. Smaller internet firms and other businesses have complained about being hurt by the practices of these companies.

Bill Echikson, a non-resident senior follow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said that the EU reforms mean that technology giants will graduate from “teenagers” to “grown-ups” now.

“There’s a lot of changes that could or could not happen. A lot of it is uncertain,” Echikson said. But, he added, the new law could inspire change in other countries, like the U.S. and the U.K. and ultimately force tech firms into global tweaks to their platforms.

CNBC runs through how the law impacts large U.S. tech companies — as well as consumers in the EU.

What does it mean for Big Tech?

The EU Digital Markets Act primarily impacts U.S. tech giants — the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta.

That’s because the rules impose strict curbs for so-called “gatekeepers” — firms with an entrenched position in their respective market, with a market capitalization of at least 75 billion euros ($81.7 billion) and with a platform with 45 million monthly active end users in the EU.

That makes U.S. tech giants a key target. So far, six firms have been designated gatekeepers: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and China’s ByteDance — the sole non-U.S. firm on the list.

These companies are required to adjust their platforms to make competition healthier in the bloc.

For example, they must ensure they’re not giving their services preference over rivals on their own platforms. Google, for instance, can’t force users to select its own search engine on Android phones when they set up their devices and must show alternatives, like DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia.

Some messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger, must also make their services “interoperable” with third-party messaging services, so that users can message people using alternative products.

Companies with entrenched positions in app distribution must meanwhile also allow competing apps to appear on their platforms.

Apple has been ordered under the DMA to allow alternative app stores on iPhones for the first time.

The tech giant was this week slapped by the EU with a fine of more than 1.8 billion euro ($1.96 billion) for breaching competition rules, following an investigation into its App Store practices.

The EU thinks Apple broke the law by preventing app developers from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app. Spotify praised the Commission’s decision, while Apple denied its App Store violates the law.

The fine could be a sign of what’s to come, as DMA enforcement officially gets underway. Companies in persistent breach of the law can face fines as large as 10% of their global annual revenues.

How are EU citizens affected?

The rules have already sparked big changes for tech giants in how they serve customers in the EU.

It’s likely more adjustments will come, as competitors to Big Tech firms aren’t happy with the proposals put in place so far.

Apple recently announced it would open up its iPhone and iPad to alternative app stores. Developers have long complained about the 30% fee Apple charges on in-app purchases.

Apple hit with a European Union antitrust fine of nearly $2 billion

Still, app developers like Microsoft, Spotify and video game developer Epic Games remain unhappy, as Apple’s implementation adds hurdles beyond offering an installation file for download on their website.

Meta also says Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp can now work with third-party messaging services, so long as they follow the Signal end-to-end encryption protocol to ensure privacy.

For Google, meanwhile, there’s now a choice screen that lets users pick which search engine they want to set as their default on Android phones. This has already been in place, enabling the likes of Microsoft, Ecosia, and DuckDuckGo to get a place in a list of multiple search engine providers.

Google recently added even more choice screens. Rivals say this makes things unnecessarily complicated, as users have to click more than they’d like in order to set their main search provider.

“A lot of pop up screens are going to come because you’re going to get browser choices of other search engines in some ways,” CEPA’s Echikson said.

With Google, the actual search engine will change as well. The company removed flights from the search results for EU consumers, and search findings now also come up with a carousel of ads from price comparison sites when you look up a hotel.

Some experts worry this will actually lead to large online booking sites, like Booking.com, benefiting from the changes, rather small, local hotels.

“We’re going into new ground there’s a lot of uncertainties that could emerge,” Echikson said. “It might reinforce some of the gatekeepers as well as allow the small guys, the Davids, more room against the Goliaths.”

Technology

Alibaba launches new Qwen LLMs in China’s latest open-source AI breakthrough

Published

2 hours ago

April 29, 2025

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Alibaba launches new Qwen LLMs in China’s latest open-source AI breakthrough

Qwen3 is Alibaba’s debut into so-called “hybrid reasoning models,” which it says combines traditional LLM capabilities with “advanced, dynamic reasoning.”

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Alibaba released the next generation of its open-sourced large language models, Qwen3, on Tuesday — and experts are calling it yet another breakthrough in China’s booming open-source artificial intelligence space.

In a blog post, the Chinese tech giant said Qwen3 promises improvements in reasoning, instruction following, tool usage and multilingual tasks, rivaling other top-tier models such as DeepSeek’s R1 in several industry benchmarks.

The LLM series includes eight variations that span a range of architectures and sizes, offering developers flexibility when using Qwen to build AI applications for edge devices like mobile phones.

Qwen3 is also Alibaba’s debut into so-called “hybrid reasoning models,” which it says combines traditional LLM capabilities with “advanced, dynamic reasoning.”

According to Alibaba, such models can seamlessly transition between a “thinking mode” for complex tasks such as coding and a “non-thinking mode” for faster, general-purpose responses.

“Notably, the Qwen3-235B-A22B MoE model significantly lowers deployment costs compared to other state-of-the-art models, reinforcing Alibaba’s commitment to accessible, high-performance AI,” Alibaba said.

The new models are already freely available for individual users on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub, as well as Alibaba Cloud’s web interface. Qwen3 is also being used to power Alibaba’s AI assistant, Quark.

China’s AI advancement

AI analysts told CNBC that the Qwen3 represents a serious challenge to Alibaba’s counterparts in China, as well as industry leaders in the U.S.

In a statement to CNBC, Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, said the Qwen3 series is a “significant breakthrough—not just for its best-in-class performance” but also for several features that point to the “application potential of the models.”

Those features include Qwen3’s hybrid thinking mode, its multilingual support covering 119 languages and dialects and its open-source availability, Sun added.

Open-source software generally refers to software in which the source code is made freely available on the web for possible modification and redistribution. At the start of this year, DeepSeek’s open-sourced R1 model rocked the AI world and quickly became a catalyst for China’s AI space and open-source model adoption.

“Alibaba’s release of the Qwen 3 series further underscores the strong capabilities of Chinese labs to develop highly competitive, innovative, and open-source models, despite mounting pressure from tightened U.S. export controls,” said Ray Wang, a Washington-based analyst focusing on U.S.-China economic and technology competition.

According to Alibaba, Qwen has already become one of the world’s most widely adopted open-source AI model series, attracting over 300 million downloads worldwide and more than 100,000 derivative models on Hugging Face.

Wang said that this adoption could continue with Qwen3, adding that its performance claims may make it the best open-source model globally — though still behind the world’s most cutting-edge models like OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini.

Chinese competitors like Baidu have also rushed to release new AI models after the emergence of DeepSeek, including making plans to shift toward a more open-source business model.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported in February that DeepSeek is accelerating the launch of its successor to its R1, citing anonymous sources.

“In the broader context of the U.S.-China AI race, the gap between American and Chinese labs has narrowed—likely to a few months, and some might argue, even to just weeks,” Wang said.

“With the latest release of Qwen 3 and the upcoming launch of DeepSeek’s R2, this gap is unlikely to widen—and may even continue to shrink.”

Technology

Uber raises in-office requirement to 3 days, claws back remote workers

Published

5 hours ago

April 29, 2025

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Uber raises in-office requirement to 3 days, claws back remote workers

Uber on Monday informed employees, including some who had been previously approved for remote work, that it will require them to come to the office three days a week, CNBC has learned.

“Even as the external environment remains dynamic, we’re on solid footing, with a clear strategy and big plans,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “As we head into this next chapter, I want to emphasize that ‘good’ is not going to be good enough — we need to be great.”

Khosrowshahi goes on to say employees need to push themselves so the company “can move faster and take smarter risks” and outlined several changes to Uber’s work policy.

Uber in 2022 established Tuesdays and Thursdays as “anchor days” where most employees must spend at least half of their work time in the company’s office. Starting in June, employees will be required in the office Tuesday through Thursday, according to the memo.

That includes some employees who were previously approved to work remotely. The company said it had already informed impacted remote employees.

“After a thorough review of our existing remote approvals, we’re asking many remote employees to come into an office,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “In addition, we’ll hire new remote roles only very sparingly.”

The company also changed its one-month paid sabbatical program, according to the memo. Previously, employees were eligible for the sabbatical after five years at the company. That’s now been raised to eight years, according to the memo.

“This program was created when Uber was a much younger company, and when reaching 5 years of tenure was a rare feat,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “Back then, we were in the office five (sometimes more!) days of a week and hadn’t instituted our Work from Anywhere benefit.”

Khosrowshahi said the changes will help Uber move faster.

“Our collective view as a leadership team is that while remote work has some benefits, being in the office fuels collaboration, sparks creativity, and increases velocity,” Khosrowshahi wrote.

The changes come as more companies in the tech industry cut costs to appease investors after over-hiring during the Covid-19 pandemic. Google recently began demanding that employees who were previously-approved for remote work also return to the office if they want to keep their jobs, CNBC reported last week.

Last year, Khosrowshahi blamed remote work for the loss of its most loyal customers, who would take ride-sharing as their commute to work.

“Going forward, we’re further raising this bar,” Khosrowshahi’s Monday memo said. “After a thorough review of our existing remote approvals, we’re asking many remote employees to come into an office. In addition, we’ll hire new remote roles only very sparingly.”

Uber’s leadership team will monitor attendance “at both team and individual levels to ensure expectations are being met,” Khosrowshahi wrote.

Following the memo, Uber employees immediately swarmed the company’s internal question-and-answer forum, according to correspondence viewed by CNBC. Khosrowshahi said he and Nikki Krishnamurthy, the company’s chief people officer, will hold an all-hands meeting on Tuesday to discuss the changes.

Many employees asked leadership to reconsider the sabbatical change, arguing that the company should honor the original eligibility policy.

“This isn’t ‘doing the right thing’ for your employees,” one employee commented.

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

WATCH: Lightning Round: Uber goes higher from here, says Jim Cramer

Technology

Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink

Published

11 hours ago

April 28, 2025

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Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk's Starlink

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet network satellites, which are expected to eventually rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 9, 2025.

Steve Nesius | Reuters

Amazon on Monday launched the first batch of its Kuiper internet satellites into space after an earlier attempt was scrubbed due to inclement weather.

A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly after 7 p.m. eastern, according to a livestream.

“We had a nice smooth countdown, beautiful weather, beautiful liftoff, and Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way and really start this new era in internet connectivity,” Caleb Weiss, a systems engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.

The satellites are expected to separate from the rocket roughly 280 miles above Earth’s surface, at which point Amazon will look to confirm the satellites can independently maneuver and communicate with its employees on the ground.

Six years ago Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.

The first Kuiper mission kicks off what will need to become a steady cadence of launches in order for Amazon to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency expects the company to have half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, up in the air by July 2026.

Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy dozens of satellites at a time. In addition to ULA, its launch partners include Musk’s SpaceX (parent company of Starlink), European company Arianespace and Jeff Bezos’ space exploration startup Blue Origin.

Amazon is spending as much as $10 billion to build the Kuiper network. It hopes to begin commercial service for consumers, enterprises and government later this year.

In his shareholder letter earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Kuiper will require upfront investment at first, but eventually the company expects it to be “a meaningful operating income and ROIC business for us.” ROIC stands for return on invested capital.

Investors will be listening for any commentary around further capex spend on Kuiper when Amazon reports first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

WATCH: Amazon launches Project Kuiper prototypes