Stories from Abroad

European Union officials have drawn up an aggressive 173-page plan to counter both President Donald Trump’s trade moves and American tech giants including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. European Commission officials are pushing their president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, to set up a European Future Fund that would invest more than $100 billion in equity stakes in high-potential European companies. The goal: get Europe competing head-on with the American and Chinese tech giants it has lagged behind for decades.

Internet use is rising in emerging economies, but access to fast, reliable service remains elusive to many living in these nations.

Facebook unveiled its long-awaited feature allowing users to limit businesses, apps, and other groups that collect data about them on the Web and pass that information to the tech giant — a move that may disappoint people who thought they would be able to delete that information from Facebook in full. The social media giant said the new tools to control “Off-Facebook Activity” are designed to “shed more light” on a form of online tracking — around shopping habits, web-browsing histories and other activities — that determines some of the ads people see on Facebook.

Apparently, Google has shut down a service it provided to wireless carriers globally that showed them weak spots in their network coverage because of Google’s concerns that sharing data from users of its Android phone system might attract the scrutiny of users and regulators. The withdrawal of the service has disappointed wireless carriers that used the data as part of their decision-making process on where to extend or upgrade their coverage.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the US Department of Commerce identified 46 additional Huawei affiliates that require inclusion on the Entity List, as part of a routine review of all Entity Listings. Since May, the Dept has added over one hundred persons or organizations to the Entity List in connection to Huawei. The new restrictions on these affiliates are effective Aug 19th.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada's telecommunications regulator, says it has lowered the rates for wholesale broadband access as it looks to increase competition among internet providers. The lower rates announced by the CRTC means it will be cheaper for smaller internet providers to buy broadband capacity on the networks owned by the big telecom providers. The CRTC requires that the large cable and telephone companies make available parts of their network, at rates set by the regulator, to improve competition and lower prices.

The incentives for foreign countries to meddle are much greater than in 2016, and the tactics could look dramatically different.

Starting in early 2020, Google will present a new search provider choice screen to Android users in Europe when first setting up a new phone or tablet. The selection will then be the default search provider that powers the search box on the Android home screen as well as the Chrome browser if installed. Search providers will be required to pay Google each time a user selects them from the choice screen. Inclusion on the choice screen will be determined through a sealed-bid auction, with the top three bidders added alongside Google search.

In the race for tech supremacy, China is betting it can seize the lead by building the world’s biggest 5G wireless networks. To get there, the country is banking on the might of the one-party state, making sure its state-run carriers have access to cheap airwaves and fast, inexpensive approvals for putting up the hundreds of thousands of base stations the fastest wireless technology requires.

For people pondering the potential effects of foreign interference in the 2020 elections here in the United States, it is worth understanding what other democracies are doing to confront the same problem and what lessons can be learned from their experiences. As a 2018 report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put it: "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization