Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash
Interesting times we are living in. As the social distancing program continues, people are expanding their use of technology. Video conferencing favorite Zoom exploded in use over the last month, but security concerns are forcing users to consider other options.
Amazon was never a beloved company, but people certainly love their services. It is confusing times as workers are pushing back on the company for their safety, but Amazon has emerged as a (perhaps THE) critical service to get needed supplies when you are expected to stay home.
Acquisitions/Investments
- T-Mobile Closes Merger With Sprint, and a Wireless Giant Is Born
T-Mobile also envisions taking on cable operators, once its 5G service is up and running. In theory, 5G would allow home viewers to stream shows and movies at speeds they had only been able to get through the cable companies. “It’s the least competitive market I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Sievert said. Most regions of the country have only one cable company servicing the area.
The deal appeared nearly complete in February, after T-Mobile and Sprint beat back a court challenge from attorneys general in 13 states and the District of Columbia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/media/tmobile-closes-sprint-merger.html
- Xerox Is Ending Hostile Takeover Bid for HP
Xerox said Tuesday it is ending both its more than $30 billion tender offer and a proxy fight to replace the printer and PC maker’s board. Xerox concluded it is no longer prudent to pursue the deal given the public health crisis and resulting market swoon.
The move puts the kibosh on one of the biggest mergers in the works and underscores the blow that the coronavirus has dealt to the world of deal making.
It marks the end of a five-month-long offensive by Xerox, kicked off when its offer became public in early November after the two companies had earlier explored a combination quietly but failed to come to an agreement. HP has repeatedly rebuffed its rival since then, rejecting Xerox’s latest cash-and-stock offer of $24 a share and an earlier one as insufficient and too risky given the amount of debt involved.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/xerox-to-end-hostile-takeover-bid-for-hp-11585684800
Security/Privacy
- What You Need To Know About Marriott’s Recent Data Breach
In this breach, the company believes that passport information, driver’s license numbers, and credit card information were not part of what was taken. According to their official website, the information that was potentially compromised includes:
- contact details (e.g., name, mailing address, email address, and phone number)
- loyalty account information (e.g., account number and points balance—but not passwords)
- additional personal details (e.g., company, gender, and birthdate day and month)
- partnerships and affiliations (e.g., linked airline loyalty programs and numbers)
- preferences (e.g., stay/room preferences and language preference)
https://lifehacker.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-marriotts-recent-data-breac-1842654474
- Zoom is leaking some user information because of an issue with how the app groups contacts
Popular video-conferencing Zoom is leaking personal information of at least thousands of users, including their email address and photo, and giving strangers the ability to attempt to start a video call with them through Zoom.
The issue lies in Zoom’s “Company Directory” setting, which automatically adds other people to a user’s lists of contacts if they signed up with an email address that shares the same domain. This can make it easier to find a specific colleague to call when the domain belongs to an individual company. But multiple Zoom users say they signed up with personal email addresses, and Zoom pooled them together with thousands of other people as if they all worked for the same company, exposing their personal information to one another.
- Zoom CEO: ‘I Really Messed Up’ on Security as Coronavirus Drove Video Tool’s Appeal
“I thought I was letting our users down,” he told the Journal on a video call, using a Zoom virtual background depicting the Golden Gate Bridge. He hasn’t had more than 4½ hours of sleep a night in the past month, he said. “I feel an obligation to win the users’ trust back.”
To some extent, Mr. Yuan is paying the price for well-meaning decisions he made early during the coronavirus crisis. When it hit China late last year, he quickly moved to make Zoom more widely accessible for free so medical professionals and others could remain in touch. When financial analysts in early March asked him how Zoom would stand to benefit from its sudden popularity—then still mainly overseas—he said “support for each other is more important than revenue.”
Though he gives no hint of regretting that choice, Mr. Yuan now says “sometimes you have a good intention, and sometimes you get punished,” adding “we need to slow down and think about privacy and security first. That’s our new culture.”
Other
- Amazon Worker Who Led Strike Over Virus Says Company Fired Him
A group of workers at the Staten Island fulfillment center walked off the job Monday to demand Amazon close the facility for extended cleaning, the latest in a wave of virus-related protests. They say a number of their colleagues there were diagnosed with Covid-19. Organizers say more than 60 workers participated in the protest.
Amazon confirmed it fired Smalls, saying he violated safety regulations, including failing to abide by a 14-day quarantine required after being exposed to an employee with a confirmed case of Covid-19.
“Mr. Smalls received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines and putting the safety of others at risk,” Amazon said in a statement. Smalls “was asked to remain home with pay for 14-days, which is a measure we’re taking at sites around the world. Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came on site today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk.”
- Amazon Has Hired 80,000 Workers Amid Soaring Demand During Coronavirus Outbreak
The tech giant also announced a raft of worker protections, including plans to check employees’ temperatures at its facilities in the U.S. and Europe and at Whole Foods Market locations by early next week. The company is checking the temperatures of 100,000 employees daily and plans to provide masks to all facilities by next week, according to Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of world-wide operations. Any employee found to have a temperature above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit will be asked to go home and not return until after having gone three days without a fever, Mr. Clark said.
Amazon warehouse workers and other hourly employees have called on the company to do more to protect them as the coronavirus has spread. Employees in at least 15 warehouses in the U.S. have tested positive for Covid-19 or entered quarantine because of symptoms, Amazon said this week. That list has grown almost daily in recent weeks.