Financial Times

Australia’s competition watchdog has begun an investigation into the market power of Facebook, Google and other digital platforms to determine if they are harming the media and advertising industries. The probe follows an order by the government of a formal inquiry into the internet giants’ impact on the industry, as part of a shake-up of media laws in September.

Google and Facebook are set to attract 84 percent of global spending on digital advertising, excluding China, in 2017, according to a forecast from GroupM, the WPP-owned media buying agency, underscoring concerns that the two technology companies have become a digital duopoly. The research predicts that total global ad spending will increase by about $23 billion, or 4.3 percent, in 2018.

Apple’s main supplier in Asia has been employing students illegally working overtime to assemble the iPhone X, as it struggles to catch up with demand after production delays.  Six high school students said they routinely work 11-hour days assembling the iPhone X at a factory in Zhengzhou, China, which constitutes illegal overtime for student interns under Chinese law.

Apparently, the Justice Department has called on AT&T and Time Warner to sell Turner Broadcasting, the group of cable channels that includes CNN, as a potential requirement for approving the companies’ pending $85.4 billion deal. The other possible way for the merger to win approval would be for AT&T to sell its DirecTV division, apparently.