March 2013

As Big Data becomes a fixture of office life, companies are turning to tracking devices to gather real-time information on how teams of employees work and interact.

Sensors, worn on lanyards or placed on office furniture, record how often staffers get up from their desks, consult other teams and hold meetings. Businesses say the data offer otherwise hard-to-glean insights about how workers do their jobs, and are using the information to make changes large and small, ranging from the timing of coffee breaks to how work groups are composed, to spur collaboration and productivity.

Samsung has doubled mobile-phone sales in the U.S. since 2008. As the company faces anti-dumping measures and a protracted court battle with Apple, its U.S. lobbying bill is growing even faster.

Samsung boosted spending on lobbyists to $900,000 last year from $150,000 in 2011 as it tries to influence the federal government on issues ranging from intellectual-property infringement to telecommunications infrastructure, regulatory filings show. The company also hired Sony veteran Joel Wiginton to run a new government-relations office in Washington. Last year’s lobbying expenditure was the biggest for Samsung in a single year, according to a U.S. government database of lobbying disclosure filings dating to 1999. The previous high was $370,000 in 2008. In a statement, Samsung said the expanded effort is “a prudent step as part of day-to-day business operations, our growing presence outside of our headquarters country, and our commitment to transparency.” The company declined to comment further on its lobbying expenditures.

Brussels will be forced to water down tough data protection rules in a move that will come as a relief to tech groups after many of the EU’s member states called for a softer approach to the privacy push. The climbdown will be welcomed by companies that collect large amounts of personal data, such as Google and Facebook, which have lobbied furiously against the proposed regulation, as well as the US government.

Washington has repeatedly voiced its concern that the rules, which include the power to fine companies up to 2 per cent of global turnover for breaching onerous data protection standards, were targeted specifically at US technology groups. Resolving the transatlantic dispute over data protection rules could ease the way towards a new EU-US trade agreement over the next two years, which boasts huge commercial potential but is also rife with complications. The plan will be softened after at least nine countries – including the UK, Germany, Sweden and Belgium – said they were opposed to several proposed measures that could add heavy burdens on businesses at a time when EU countries are hoping that data-related companies will help boost economic growth.

The European Commission’s announcement of $732 million in sanctions against Microsoft is an inevitable and expected comeuppance for the software giant’s failure to comply with the terms of an antitrust settlement requiring it to offer consumers a choice of Web browsers. But it’s also a warning to other companies with which the agency has regulatory issues — one in particular. Google.

As EU competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia said today, “Legally binding commitments reached in antitrust decisions play a very important role in our enforcement policy because they allow for rapid solutions to competition problems. Such decisions require strict compliance. A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly.” A pat explanation for the EC’s sanctions against Microsoft, but also a clear “feeling lucky, punk?” warning to Google: Don’t make empty promises. Because the financial implications can be staggering: Fines of up to 10 percent of the company’s annual global sales. In Google’s case that’s potentially billions of dollars.