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A series of iPhone 16s on display inside the Apple store at Tun Razak Exchange in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Sept. 20, 2024.

Annice Lyn | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Britain’s competition regulators on Wednesday took aim at the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google, pushing the two companies to make changes to areas like their app stores.

On Wednesday, the Competition and Markets Authority proposed designating the U.S. tech giants as having a “strategic market status” or SMS, after opening an investigation into the matter in January.

This designation is given to a large company that has “substantial and entrenched market power” and a “position of strategic significance” with respect to a digital activity in the U.K.

The CMA can force firms that are branded as having SMS to change or stop specific behaviors or practices in order to address competition concerns.

Apple and Google both took issue with the CMA’s proposals, effectively saying they would be bad for user security and consumers overall.

What has the CMA taken issue with?

Britain’s regulator focused on investigating Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems, app store and browser. One aspect of the investigation looked at whether there are barriers that may prevent other competitors from offering rival products and services on the U.S. tech giants’ mobile platforms.

Another part of the probe examined whether Apple and Google are using their position in operating systems, app distribution or browsers to favor its own apps and services.

And the final aspect of the investigation studied whether Apple and Google require developers to sign up to “unfair terms and conditions” in order to distribute their apps via the respective app stores.

The CMA on Wednesday said consumers and businesses have raised concerns about different issues across the two companies’ mobile ecosystems. But some of these include “inconsistent and unpredictable app review processes” and “inconsistent app store search rankings” that may favor the tech giants’ own apps.

The British regulator also took aim at the up to 30% commission charged by the firms on some in-app purchases and restrictions on developers telling customers about cheaper ways to pay or to subscribe outside of the app.

As part of Google and Apple’s review process to allow apps on to their app stores, developers raised concerns that the tech companies could have access to commercially sensitive data of their competitors, the CMA said.

Google’s Android operating system commands just over 61% market share in the U.K., while Apple’s iOS has just over a 38%, according to Kantar data. Google runs the Google Play store and Chrome browser, and Apple has its App Store and Safari browser.

What changes does the CMA want?

The CMA has laid out immediate changes that it wants to see, alongside some longer-term steps. The regulator said that it wants Apple to review apps for distribution in a “fair, objective and transparent manner.” This could include remedies such as Apple explaining delays or rejections and creating an avenue for businesses to raise concerns about the process.

Apple could also be made to publish a methodology for how it ranks apps in the App Store. The CMA has laid out similar remedies for Google.

The regulator is looking at how Apple and Google can make it easy for users to be steered by developers outside of an app to pay for services and products, thus avoiding their respective in-app purchase fee.

The CMA is also looking into ways to make it easier for users to transfer data between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android to make switching easier.

For next year, the CMA said it is still looking at whether to require Apple to allow alternative app stores in iOS and the company’s iPad software. The regulator also said it is exploring whether to force Apple to allow users to download apps directly from a developer’s own website, a practice known as “sideloading.”

Apple and Google react

Apple said in a statement that the proposals from the U.K. “would undermine the privacy and security protections that our users have come to expect, hamper our ability to innovate, and force us to give away our technology for free to foreign competitors,”

“We will continue to engage with the regulator to make sure they fully understand these risks.”

Google’s Senior Director of Competition Oliver Bethell noted that both the Google Chrome browser and Android’s operating system are built on open-source code.

“These offerings enable great choice, security and innovation for users. That’s why today’s announcement is both disappointing and unwarranted,” Bethell said.

The Google executive highlighted ways in which Android has helped British developers and the economy.

“It is therefore crucial that any new regulation is evidence-based, proportionate and does not become a roadblock to growth in the U.K We remain committed to constructive engagement with the CMA for the duration of this process,” Bethell said.

U.S. tech giants face European scrutiny

Apple and Google’s regulatory problems on the continent of Europe continue to deepen.

In April, European Union regulators hit Apple with a 500 million euro ($587 million) fine for breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — a landmark law aimed at tackling tech competition issues.

Apple has been forced to make a number of changes to the way it operates in the EU this year. These include allowing developers to tell their users about cheaper alternatives and bypass Apple’s in-app payment system.

However, some of the changes have yet to satisfy the EU regulators. Apple in June revealed a complex system of App Store fees in a bid to comply with the DMA and avoid the 500 million euro fine. Apple plans to appeal the fine.

Apple has long argued that forced regulator-led changes to its operations could lead to privacy and security issues for users and confusing business terms for developers

In March, Google parent Alphabet meanwhile was accused by the EU of failing to comply with the DMA. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Google is treating its own search services more favorably than those of rivals. The Commission added that Google’s app store is preventing developers from steering consumer to other channels for better offers.

The search giant is also looking to fight a 4.1 billion euro fine that has stemmed from an antitrust case dating back to 2018.

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Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot resigns following Coldplay ‘kiss cam’ incident

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Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot resigns following Coldplay 'kiss cam' incident

Chris Martin of Coldplay performs live at San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy, in July 2017.

Mairo Cinquetti | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Days after Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigned from the tech startup, the HR exec who was with him at the infamous Coldplay concert has left as well.

“Kristin Cabot is no longer with Astronomer, she has resigned,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email to CNBC Thursday. Cabot was the company’s chief people officer.

Cabot and Byron, who is married with children, were shown in an intimate moment on the ‘kiss cam’ at a recent Coldplay show in Boston, and immediately hid when they saw their faces on the big screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” An attendee’s video of the incident went viral.

Byron resigned from the company on Saturday. Both Cabot and Byron have been removed the company’s leadership team webpage.

Pete DeJoy, Astronomer’s interim CEO, wrote in a post earlier this week that recent and unexpected national attention has turned the company into “a household name.”

In May, the New York-based company, which commercializes open source software, announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.

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Musk’s Starlink hit with outage day after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service

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Musk's Starlink hit with outage day after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s satellite internet service Starlink said it had a “network outage” on Thursday. The company said it was working on a solution.

There were more than 60,000 reports of an outage on Downdetector, a site that logs issues.

Starlink is owned and operated by SpaceX, which is also run by Musk.

Musk apologized for the outage on his social media platform X and said, “Service will be restored shortly.”

Musk posted earlier Thursday that the company’s direct-to-cell-phone service was “growing fast” following the announcement that T-Mobile‘s Starlink-powered satellite service was available to the public.

T-Mobile said the T-Satellite service was built to keep phones connected “in places no carrier towers can reach.”

Starlink didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Starlink internet speeds and reliability decrease with popularity, a recent study found.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the T-Satellite service was affected by or involved in the outage.

Read more CNBC tech news

CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this story.

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Intel beats on revenue, slashes foundry investments as CEO says ‘no more blank checks’

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Intel beats on revenue, slashes foundry investments as CEO says 'no more blank checks'

The Intel logo is displayed on a sign in front of Intel headquarters on July 16, 2025 in Santa Clara, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Intel reported second-quarter results on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations on revenue, as the company’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan announced significant cuts in chip factory construction. The stock ticked higher in extended trading.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: Loss of 10 cents per share, adjusted.
  • Revenue: $12.86 billion versus $11.92 billion estimated

Intel said it expects revenue for the third-quarter of $13.1 billion at the midpoint of its range, versus the average analyst estimate of $12.65 billion. The chipmaker said that it expects to break even on earnings while analysts were looking for earnings of 4 cents per share.

For the second quarter, Intel reported a net loss of $2.9 billion, or 67 cents per share, compared with a $1.61 billion net loss, or 38 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Earnings per share were not comparable to analyst estimates due to an $800 million impairment charge, “related to excess tools with no identified re-use,” the company said. That resulted in an EPS adjustment of about 20 cents.

The report was Intel’s second since Lip-Bu Tan took over as CEO in March, promising to make the chipmaker’s products competitive again, and to reduce bureaucracy and layers of management, including slashing staff in Oregon and California.

In a memo to employees published on Thursday, Tan said that the first few months of his tenure had “not been easy.” He said that the company had “completed the majority” of its planned layoffs, amounting to 15% of the workforce, and that it plans to end the year with 75,000 employees. Intel previously said it was trying to reduce operating expenses by $17 billion in 2025.

Intel shares are up about 13% this year as of Thursday’s close after plummeting 60% in 2024, their worst year on record.

Tan also announced several other spending cuts in the memo, particularly in the company’s costly foundry division, which makes chips for other companies and is still looking for a big customer to anchor the business.

Intel said its foundry business had an operating loss of $3.17 billion on $4.4 billion in revenue.

Tan said that Intel had cancelled planned fab projects in Germany and Poland, and will consolidate its testing and assembly operations in Vietnam and Malaysia. He added that the company would slow down the pace of its construction of a cutting-edge chip factory in Ohio, depending on market demand and if it can secure big customers for the facility.

“Over the past several years, the company invested too much, too soon – without adequate demand,” Tan wrote. “In the process, our factory footprint became needlessly fragmented and underutilized.”

Tan wrote that the company’s forthcoming chip manufacturing process, called 14A, will be built out based on confirmed customer commitments.

“There are no more blank checks. Every investment must make economic sense,” Tan wrote.

The company’s client computing group, which is primarily comprised of sales of central processors for PCs, had $7.9 billion in sales, down 3% on an annual basis.

Revenue in the data center group, which includes some AI chips but is mostly central processors for servers, rose 4% to $3.9 billion. Tan wrote in his memo that Intel wants to regain market share in data center chips, and is looking for a permanent leader for the business. Longtime rival Advanced Micro Devices has increasingly been winning server business from cloud customers.

Tan added he would personally review and approve all chip designs before they are taped out, which is the final step of the design process before a new chip is manufactured.

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